One Pan Salmon and Squash plus Couscous

Have I ever told you about my Jamie Oliverobsession?? It started a few years back when I first launched my blog and was getting genuinely into food photography. My mother-in-law loaned me one of his older cookbooks (which I still have:) Thanks, Angela!!) and I LOVED it. I now have about 5 of his cookbooks which is genuinely only a small number of his total cookbook collection.

After visiting England for the first time with Stephen’s family, I discovered that Jamie Oliver also has his own magazine, Jamie Magazine, which is easily my go-to culinary magazine of all time! I’ve been introduced to so many new things through his recipes and I genuinely love that. And while many of his recipes are a bit adventurous for me, they’re still pretty straightforward and quite doable.

The QUITE unfortunate part of all this is that you can’t get Jamie Magazine in the US. I mean, you can order directly from them with international shipping but it’s something like $150 a year and that only seems ridiculous. And LUCKILY for me, my welcome mother-in-law visits England often enough to bring me back a good chunk of the magazines throughout the year.

My reliable dream is that they’ll start some sort of Jamie Magazine USA with a hub in Nashville and hire me to be one of their staff writers/ food photographers. I do realize that this is quite far fetched but a girl can dream!

SO, today’s recipe is one that I borrowed and simply slightly adapted from last month’s edition of Jamie Magazine. I wanted to try something a bit different with some new flavors and new spices that I don’t typically use. The original recipe called for Ras El Hanoutwhich I had never even heard of and surely couldn’t find at ANY of the stores here in Nashville. After a bit of research, I learned that it’s a Moroccan spice blend with about 15 different spices in it. Naturally, I was able to find it on Amazonbut I decided to try mixing the spices on my own since I had most of what is in ras el hanout.

So, in case you were curious, that’s why this method has SO many spices in it. It holds up, it’s ENTIRELY worth it!! I’m maybe a little in love with the flavors of this dish. SO deeply good.

Bonus: this recipes is ESPECIALLY unfussy to throw together. The only pre work it requires is chopping the squash and cilantro and then quickly mixing together the spices. Everything else is pretty much simply dumping ingredients onto the pan.

First we toss the squash, tomatoes, garlic, oil, and half of the spices together and roast them for about 20 minutes.

Then we mix in the chickpeas and spinach.

And then the salmon is gently placed on top of it all and sprinkled with the remaining spices.

While that’s back in the oven, the couscous is cooked. Now, this dish would still be memorable without the coucous (and maybe a bit healthier/ lighter) but I suggest that you DON’T skip the couscous. It adds another level of flavor and texture that only works SO well with the dish.

Once out of the oven, simply remove the salmon and stir the couscous into the squash mixture. Evenly distribute everything onto 4 plates and ENJOY!

This dish is certainly going into the regular rotation in our house! And the makeshift ras el hanout that I made was a TRUE winner. Love those spices mixed together!!