Mother’s Day coincides with king salmon season in Northern California. So I guess it’s become (is becoming?) a tradition for us to have salmon for Mother’s Day dinner.

This year I tried the “low and slow” oven method: 250 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. It turned out just fine, but nothing spectacular. And the drawback is, no crispy skin or edges, which are the best part of salmon.

The real star of Mother’s Day dinner were the butter boiled potatoes. I used this Martha Stewart recipe and this Deep Dish South recipe as jumping off points, but the basics are this: quarter new potatoes and add to a skillet. Cover with water, add a bit of olive oil and butter (maybe 3 Tbsp combined), some garlic, some green onion, pepper. Boil vigorously until the water is evaporated. Salt to taste.

And it wouldn’t be a proper post here unless I piled on an assortment of other dishes I’ve made in recent months (but didn’t photograph and never wrote about):

Salted chocolate chunk cookies. They are worth adding to the recipe collection.

Roasted cabbage with bacon. This was good, if you have a lot of cabbage. I don’t know if I would buy a head for it.

Braised fennel and white beans. These were really good, a great way to use fennel.

Black bean enchiladas, inspired by this recipe. I don’t remember the exact ingredients used in the filling, probably beans, butternut squash or beets, greens, corn, etc. I’ve made topped with cheese and cheese on the side (along with sour cream, avocado, etc.). Using the enchilada sauce I’ve mentioned before. I made half flour-half corn tortillas and they were great; they really do have the flavor of corn but flexibility/sturdiness of flour: they didn’t dissolve the way corn tortillas will when you make baked enchiladas. (Homemade tortillas seem like a ridiculous labor of love to me, so much time involved pressing the tortilla (or in my case, rolling with a rolling pin), then cooking individually on the skillet. But they are delicious and if you don’t count your time, very cheap.) I served the enchiladas with spanish rice using leftover rice, and also spanish rice made from scratch (not pre-cooked rice). The leftover rice was really easy to make and good way to use leftover rice other than fried rice. I was a little concerned about making the from scratch version, because I did it on the stove and usually use my rice cooker to cook rice, but I think this kind of rice is better a little gooey and sticky, which is what usually happens when I cook rice on the stovetop.