After a long day, the last thing I want to do is cook an elaborate meal. Days like this call for a deliciously simple Smoked Salmon Platter (No cook meal).
The new nightly trend at our house recently is that the girls take turns not sleeping. One day our toddler is up from 3am-8am and another night, the baby is up every 2 hours. I’m not so sure I’m a fan of this trend.
This leaves me feeling like a zombie… falling asleep sitting up, running into the wall in the middle of the night, dropping a cast iron skillet on my toe… just to a name a few incidents.
But you know what, as much as I’m feeling like a crazy sleep deprived clumsy zombie, I don’t want these days to end. Because when they do, it means my girls will be all grown up!
Ha! I know that makes no sense? Who wants to be sleep deprived? NO ONE! But it’s a small price to pay for these adorable little munchkin.
Before having baby #2 (our little Bean), I was adamant that 2 kiddos was enough! Mostly because I hate being pregnant. But now that I have a little baby for the second time, I see why people end up having just 1 more. Dang- why do babies have to be so lovable!?
OK getting back to my current haze of reality… I’ve been tired a lot lately, and my motivation to cook has been pretty darn low. At the same time I want to eat and feed my family healthy, nutritious, homemade food.
The solution to this conundrum is the PLATTER DINNER!
A dinner platter is essentially a “snacky” spread that involves little to no cooking. Obviously the most common one is the cheese and bread platter, which we adore. Today though, I wanted to change it up and offer up a platter that is even more nutritious!
Salmon anyone?
Smoked salmon is not only delicious but the perfect no cook thing to add to a dinner platter! Personally I love this stuff and since I wasn’t able to have it while I was pregnant, I am craving it more than ever. My general rule is, if you have smoked salmon, you NEED cream cheese! They were truly made for each other.
On our platter tonight, I went with thin smoked salmon slices (pre-sliced aka zero work for me), crisp sliced English cucumber rounds, juicy heirloom tomato, green onion/garlic cream cheese, crackers, hard boiled eggs (not pictured), and a crusty baguette!
Dinner is ready and all I had to do was slice a few veggies and mix up cream cheese with green onions! This is why I’m in love with platter dinners!
Added bonus… everything is served cold and eaten at room temp so we can graze while we play with our minions. Pair this with a white wine or crisp rosé wine and dinner is served 😃
Serves 2
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound thinly sliced smoked salmon or salmon lox
- 1 large red heirloom tomato, sliced
- 1 English cucumber, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon green onions, thinly sliced
- 1/4 garlic powder
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cream cheese, softened at room temperature
- 1/2 crusty baguette
- water crackers
- other options (not pictured): soft-boiled eggs, avocado slices, or red onion slices
Instructions
- Carefully arrange individual slices of smoked salmon on one area of a large platter. Arrange the tomatoes, cucumber, bread, and crackers around the salmon. Mix cream cheese, garlic powder and green onions. Spoon into a small bowl and place on platter.
- Serve the platter with a crisp white wine or rosé.
Notes
There are many different kinds of cured fish commonly called “smoked salmon”: lox, nova lox, gravlax, etc. Choose the freshest one you can find.
Originally posted 2017-10-18 06:00:00.
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