Thoughtful?

My Beloved and I have a deal - the one who cooks doesn't have to do dishes. In our house, that translates most of the time to me cooking and he washing the dishes. He can cook perfectly well but he says I'm better at it. While that's debatable, I have to admit I prefer cooking to washing dishes, so I don't fight his perceptions very hard.

But, because he's so sweet about doing the dishes most nights, I try not to test his patience by using too many pots and pans. No sense in killing the goose that laid the golden egg, right?

This dinner came together with just two, a small saucepan for the rice and a large, wide pan for the Swiss chard and salmon. Aren't I thoughtful?

While the rice was bubbling away on the back burner, I melted a little butter in the wide pan and minced some garlic, gently cooking the garlic chips for a few minutes before laying in the washed, de-stemmed Swiss chard leaves. Once the leaves had wilted, which only takes a few minutes with Swiss chard, I pushed them to one side of the pan and laid the salmon, skin side down, in the same pan. Using that same gentle heat, I cooked the salmon until I could see the paler cooked color inching through the fillet, then flipped it and easily removed the skin and the dark, strong-tasting flesh just under the skin with a spatula.

When the fish was done to our liking (still a bit rare for My Beloved and fully cooked but still moist for me), I played around with the plating for a change, making a wreath of rice around the dark green chard and laying the salmon on top.

Garlic and salmon are good friends, so the fish benefitted from some time bathing in that garlicky butter left at the bottom of the pan. Swiss chard and salmon are also good friends, the slightly astringent chard balancing the oiliness of the fish. And brown rice, really good brown rice like this, rounds out the meal perfectly.

Two plates, two glasses, two sets of silverware, two serving utensils and two pans. Not too many dishes to wash after a delicious meal.