Smoked Salmon and Mushroom Noodle Skillet

Today, I did a lot of running! I ran 3 miles with my friend Monica D. It was great! I hadn't run that far in a while and it felt good! Then I took one of my clients out for almost a two mile run. And then I ran a little over a mile with Michael. Lots of running spread out across the day, so my body was in need of refueling with some healthy carbs and protein.  That's why for dinner I made one of my favorite pasta dishes! This is one I can say I made up, using inspiration from two other pasta recipes I had used in the past. 

I start this dish by heating about a Tbsp of butter and some olive oil in a large skillet to saute the mushrooms, I like to use cremini (baby portabello) mushrooms in my dishes. The butter is not necessary, it's just to add flavor, really the olive oil is all you need. 

As the mushrooms start to soften, which does not take long, a couple minutes, I add either some white cooking wine or sherry cooking wine, this deglazes the pan and adds flavor. 

Now it's time to add the garlic, I always use fresh garlic and use a garlic press directly over the dish. You don't want to put garlic in too early because it becomes bitter if overcooked, however if undercooked it can cause GI irritation so it's important to let it cook at least a couple of minutes. 

This time I added diced tomatoes, and parsley to this dish, that's not something I normally do, but the tomatoes were good so I'll continue to do that, the parsley was just OK so I won't add that again.  We all know Tomatoes contain Lycopene which is an antioxidant. The Lycopene is more easily absorbed/utilized by our bodies if tomatoes are cooked a little prior to eating. 

Once the garlic has had a short time to cook add the Salmon, I use smoked salmon and I just buy the largest size possible from HEB and throw it all in the dish. Sometimes I bake the salmon on a Pampered Chef stone prior to adding it to this dish, that actually really brings out the flavor much better, tonight I just forgot to do that.

Break the salmon into smaller pieces as it cooks

For the noodles I like King Soba brand Pumpkin, Ginger, and Rice Noodles. 

These noodles cook fast, about 4 minutes once the water is boiling, so what I do is get the water heating at the start of the cooking process but don't add the noodles until the salmon goes in the dish. This way once the noodles are cooked you can drain them and then immediately put them into the skillet. If the noodles sit in the strainer too long they stick together and it's just harder to work with them. 

After the noodles go in, I like to add either Heavy Whipping Cream or Fat Free milk, to make the dish more creamy. Obviously the milk should be fewer calories and fat, but I think the whipping cream really gives it a more delicious, full flavor! I only add about two tablespoons of the whipping cream so it's not much and if you eat like I do most of the time, it's the most fat you're getting all day so it's not a big deal. Tonight I didn't have heavy whipping cream so I used milk. I like lots of cracked pepper on this dish. 

And here is the final product!

I hope you give this delicious, quick and easy recipe a try! Change it up, experiment with ingredients, make it your own! And I hope you love it as much as I do!

Dinner is served!