Sometimes We Really Hate Clean Up - Salmon in Parchment Paper with Asparagus and Mushrooms and a Garlic Caper Butter Sauce

**Sorry for the delay in posting this recipe!  I wrote half of this blog post on April 30, but then I went to COSTA RICA FOR TWO WEEKS!  I am just getting back into my groove and should have another two recipes (as in we already cooked them, now I have to write!) soon!  Thanks for checking out my blog and enjoying our story and recipes!**




Alright, that's a little misleading - WE ALWAYS HATE CLEAN UP!  Our kitchen is a little small, so we have to make sure we stay on top of cleaning the dishes or else the sink is unusable.  Thus is the life in our adorable fifth floor walk-up.  We love it!

It started out as a typical Wednesday.  Take my little buddy to "school" followed by a quick coffee shop run to Irving Farm to get our fave treat - pretzel sticks!

Little buddy practicing driving.  Might as well
get good at backing up because she will need to know
how to parallel park as a city baby!

We are excited about pretzel sticks!  

After my fun day with the munchkin, Jeffy and I decided we wanted to cook something healthy and easy.   We also picked a recipe that requires basically no clean up, which is pretty amazing.  We wrapped all the ingredients in parchment paper, tossed the individually wrapped meal on a baking sheet, and let it do some magic in the oven.  Alright, so there was a little pre-cooking of the mushrooms, but that was it and we used the pan again to make the sauce!  A single pan clean up and baking sheet wipe-down is pretty darn good for a gourmet meal!

We began preparing our fancy looking meal with my sous chef Jeffy slicing the lemons into rounds while I cooked the mushrooms in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil.

 
Next we trimmed the asparagus.  I always tear it at the vegetable's natural bend so we do not end up eating any of the woody ends.  Yuck!  We layered the asparagus over Jeffy's nicely sliced lemon rounds.

Then I showed off my lovely asparagus mustache and wild hair.  Man, I need a haircut and a keratin treatment!

The next step was layering the cut salmon (thank you, Jeffy!) over top of the asparagus bed and adding salt and pepper.  Finally, you add the precooked mushrooms!

Then we wrapped the salmon into its parchment and flipped it so the lemon was on top and could ooze deliciousness all over the whole packet!

Jeffy chose to wrap his in a little tin foil because the parchment was just a little too small, which totally works, too!

We cooked this creation in the oven for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees.  While it was cooking I made a garlic butter caper sauce in the same pan I had prepared the mushrooms.  I added two cloves of minced garlic into a pan on medium heat along with about four tablespoons of butter.  After letting that marinate together for a moment I added salt, fresh ground pepper, and one to two tablespoons of capers. 

After the fish was done and unwrapped it looked like this....

To which we added the garlic butter caper sauce (you could totally add more lemon, I just forgot to when I made this version!) to get this final product!  (Photo credit:  Jeffy and his new fancy camera!)

So the only dishes we had to do were the ones we ate off of, and the skillet and spoon!  Hooray for easy clean up during the week!

Here is the recipe.  It's super simple and you will be extremely happy not to have to clean up much!

Salmon in Parchment with Asparagus and Mushrooms and a Garlic Caper Butter Sauce

Ingredients:

- Salmon portions (around 4-6 ounces per person, but we each use half of whatever package we buy!)

- Asparagus (around 4 - 8 pieces per person, trimmed)

- Lemon, sliced into rounds

- 12-16 ounces of mushrooms, sliced

- 1 tablespoon olive oil (for mushrooms)

- 4 tablespoons of butter (we prefer salted, but that's because we also use it on our popcorn!)

- 1-2 tablespoons of capers

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

- Salt and pepper

- Parchment paper

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Cook mushrooms in a skillet with olive oil.  While the mushrooms are cooking, trim asparagus by snapping the ends off at their natural breaking point.  

3.  Prepare parchment paper for each salmon portion on a baking sheet (or two if more than two servings!).  Place the lemon rounds on the bottom and layer the asparagus next.  Add the salmon and salt and pepper it.  Finally, top with the cooked mushrooms.  Seal the parchment with your hands and flip it over so the lemon side is facing upward and place in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes depending on your preferred level of doneness.

4.  While the salmon is cooking, use the same skillet you prepared the mushrooms in to make the sauce by adding the garlic and butter at medium heat.  After the butter has melted a moment, add the capers and salt and pepper.  Let it cook together for another minute and then remove it from the heat.  

5.  Take the salmon out and serve it lemon side down.  Top the whole thing off with a spoonful or two of the caper sauce.

6.  Enjoy!