Shallow Pockets Brimming with the First Peaches of the Season

As a stereotypical Georgia girl I have to admit that ripe peaches make my heart happy.  I found this incredible peach and green bean salad recipe last summer and I've been on the prowl for some ripe fruits ever since the hot weather came back (i.e. too long).

Finally, while perusing the produce at Kroger, I found peaches!! And not only that- they weren't rock hard, there were ripe ones! Yeehaw!... However Kroger did decide to run out of fresh green beans so still no salad pour moi.

I wandered the aisles and picked up this and that without much anticipation of future meals for the week, I just looked out for yellow sale tags and a few staples.  When I got home I was famished.  Salmon filets had been on sale and I wanted a hearty lunner (lunch/dinner) to get me through yet another night at work.  [At Kyma they're nice enough to procure a 'family meal' every night for kitchen staff and then us, if there are leftovers, but the meal is generally some strange combination of pasta, rice and gigantes with some form of lamb or chicken mixed in... Greek leftovers. Opa. I just couldn't force it on my poor tummy for the sixth night in a row.]

Let me start with mentioning that I have this irrational fear of cooking fish.  Salmonella and all that jazz.  So I NEVER buy it. Ever. Unless I'm at a restaurant in which case I almost always spring for a fishy dish.  But a sale is a sale and I truly am trying to get over this silliness so- salmon time it was.
We don't have a grill or a wire rack so I opted for baking the filet.  I still had a hankering for those peaches so I decided to incorporate them with my fish experiment.  I found an idea for peach baked salmon online and, with a little ingredient alteration and a few additions, that fish was SUPERB.

 

Baked Peach and Pecan Salmon

• Skinless Salmon filet
• Fresh Peach
• Pecans (shelled)
• Salt
• EVO
• Agave (I used blue... I'm sure any would work)

1. Place the filet on a baking sheet (I used a shallow dish to keep the juices/sauce in) and slice horizontal lines into the flesh along the top.  Sprinkle salt over the filet making sure to get it into the slices.
2. Cut up a peach (I liked the texture/flavor of the peach skin) and wedge slices into the horizontal cuts.
3. Break pecans in half and line them along the filet between the peaches (I like a lot of crunch so I added a bunch of pecans).
4. Mix EVO and the Agave together (no measurements, just eyeball it- more EVO for less sweetness, more Agave for more sweetness) and drizzle it over the filet; you don't need much... I probably used too much in the picture above.
5. Bake at 475° for 8 minutes (for one filet, add time if multiple).  Then change the oven temperature to 425° and bake again for the same amount of time.
6. Optional: Move the rack to right beneath the coils and broil for 3-4 minutes for a bit of blackening along the top of the pecans/peaches.  It doesn't need this step for flavor in my opinion but I had it both ways and I liked either so whatever floats your boat.

 
 I've always been much more of a baker than a cook so it's truly exciting when an experiment actually goes right outside of the realm of sweets.  This salmon dish was so tasty I made it three days in a row. YUM.