Okay, to begin, I poached about 1 1/4 pounds of salmon in a broth made from carrot, celery, onion, lemon, parsley, small piece of ginger, a piece of salmon bacon, pepper corns, salt, unfiltered apple juice and water. (that simmered for about thirty minutes before I used it.) Slid the still frozen salmon into the hot poaching liquid (called a court bouillon, by the way), let that simmer a few minutes and then turned it off, letting it set until everything was cooled, a few hours. Then I pulled the meat out, slipped the skin right off and broke the meat up in a bowl. The now pretty amazing stock got strained and popped into the freezer for fish chowder. Carrot, celery and onion got finely diced, seasoned with salt, pepper and parsley, and sauteed in butter with diced Bosc pear and roasted pumpkin until everything was nicely browned. Let this cool for a bit then toss in with the salmon. I made fresh breadcrumbs with the rest of the challah I had on the counter, added some to the salmon, along with an egg, and mixed it all up. Formed into patties and rolled in the crumbs, they get a nice nap in the 'fridge until dinner time.
Had two pints of grape tomatoes that wouldn't have lasted more than a day or two, so I popped them into a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper over real low heat, and let them pan roast for about an hour, tossing occasionally. When there was a nice tomato caramel formed on the bottom of the pan, I raised the heat to medium, deglazed with a little apple juice, and added a splash of sherry vinegar. This reduced to a nice sauce with the tomatoes, so it also got set aside until dinner. Once I got the call that The Man was on his way home with some lovely asparagus and a box of red wine (Bota Box isn't as bad as I expected, we had the RedVolution with this meal and it went perfectly), I heated up a large saute pan over medium heat, added a little oil, recoated the salmon cakes with the crumbs and browned them nicely on both sides before popping into the oven to finish. A pot on the back of the stove got filled with water to blanch the asparagus, and the tomatoes were brought back to temp over medium heat. When he walked in the door, I trimmed the end of the asparagus, and cut into thirds. Blanched quickly, they turned bright green. Drained and tossed into the pan with the tomatoes, they started getting glazed with that wonderful tomato caramel/sherry vinegar sauce. Once that was all done, I plated, and without washing the pan, put a knob of butter and some shallots in the pan. I let them get nicely browned, then added red wine, scraping up all the yummy tomato bits, and let it reduce. A splash of sherry vinegar, some herbs and a little sundried tomato paste, I let this cook down, then finished with some cold butter swirled in just until it melted. Cakes out of the oven, plated, topped with sauce, then devoured. Really good meal, and I didn't have to get out of my jammies! Yay me!