I’ve mentioned before about the different diets in my family and working out how to cook for everyone.  I’m included in that as there are some things I just won’t eat.  My sister has been vegetarian for most of her life though since she had kids she will eat some fish.  She is bringing up her kids the same way.  When she visits I usually take the opportunity to cook some salmon as I don’t have that often.

I didn’t want to cook two separate meals though as it was a hot day, there were 5 kids in the house running round, and we were tired!  Kids should not have more energy than the parents.  Evolution seriously got that wrong somewhere along the lines!  So I needed something that would work for grilled pork and grilled salmon.  I got inspiration from Richard with his post on a fabulous salsa.  The funny thing is I did this dish on Wednesday and his post yesterday was with pork.  🙂  I went the Italian route for this as it couldn’t be spicy.  Turns out my sister reacts to spicy peppers.  I thought she just didn’t like spicy food.  However, fire roasted tomatoes sounded wonderful!

We still have boatloads of tomatoes in the garden so I grabbed a bunch and also picked some fresh thyme for this dish.

Slice the tomatoes in half and season with salt and pepper then drizzle with olive oil.  Cut one onion in half as well.

I put the onion directly on the grill but the tomatoes were in a grill pan.  The grill temp was about 325F/163C.  Halfway through cooking turn them over.  Cook until the skins start pulling away and they shrink a bit.

For the onions I grilled them until they had nice grill marks on them.

In a food processor I pulsed the tomatoes and onion coarsely.  In a skillet with olive oil I sauteed some garlic and thyme then added the tomato mixture.  I added a bit more salt and pepper and some real balsamic vinegar and let it reduce slightly.  In the meantime I grilled the pork and salmon.  I have to say this was the best salmon I bought.  It was wild caught which is so much better than farmed but even this raised the bar.  Need to go back and see if they have anymore!  I kept the proteins simple, just salt and pepper to season.

To serve I spooned the sauce over the pork and salmon.

My sister was kind enough to bring a chick pea salad and I did a greek salad with homemade greek dressing.  We had a lovely visit with good food and good company.  Oh and good wine.  😉