Bourbon Glazed Salmon with Artichokes stuffed with Smashed Potatoes and Browned Garlic and Broccoli Cheese Soup

The gourmet meals are back! This one is a bit of a doozy but absolutely delicious. Make this when you have time to dive in and get your hands dirty to make this meal right. The Bourbon Salmon is slightly sweet and full of its almost "meaty" taste. The glaze is light yet full of taste and complements the natural flavors of the fish perfectly.

To go with the salmon I made stuffed artichokes and broccoli-cheese soup. That's right - this childhood favorite and comfort food classic, broccoli soup, raises its head here as a healthy soup with the same creaminess you remember. The stuffed artichokes combine the beauty of smashed potatoes and cheese with the healthful and delicious flavors of artichokes. They also look beautiful! (and fancy) Just make sure you are hungry when you sit down because you'll want to keep eating until the food is all gone.

Bourbon-Glazed Salmon
We're actually going to start with the salmon because it must be marinated for a couple hours. So get that going and then turn your attention to the sides. You can go back and finish up the Salmon when you have about 15 minutes left!

You'll find the recipe pretty simple to follow. I skipped the ginger in the marinade since it's not a huge favorite of mine. I didn't see a strong need for it with the already mouth-watering sweet and strong bourbon flavors. I also tossed the green onions into the pan instead of serving them raw on the fish at the end. I prefer all of my onions (green or otherwise) cooked rather than raw. To me, tossing them to saute with the Salmon made them even tastier. It not only allowed the onions to cook but also let them cook in the sauce. Yum!

Artichokes Stuffed with Smashed Potatoes and Browned Garlic
This is a recipe I'll be making many more times. But I did change around the way for cooking the artichokes. You'll see that Cooking Light asks you to trim off 2 inches from the top but I love artichoke too much to do this. I just cut off about 1/2 an inch. I also didn't take too many leaves from the bottom - just some small super-tough ones that you would never eat anyway. I also chose to boil my artichokes as normal rather than steam them to ensure their tenderness. I boiled them for 45 minutes.

The rest of the recipe I followed pretty exactly. When the artichokes were cooked and cool enough for me to touch I was able to gently pull the leaves back without pulling them off. This allowed me to "open" up the artichoke as if it were a petal blooming into a flower and spreading out. I used a large metal spoon to reach inside and literally scoop out all of the thistle (or "choke") so that the heart of the artichoke is revealed. That way I could spoon the potatoes directly into this now cavernous hole and no one would have to worry about the thistle when eating.

Note: When the artichokes go in the oven you should start saute-ing your fish if you want everything to finish at the same time.

Broccoli-Cheese Soup
Ready for this classic comfort soup? This came out so deliciously creamy that I had to reassure my guests multiple times that it was indeed low fat. Really! You'll find the basic recipe I used here. I used fresh broccoli for this and simply chopped up the fresh heads into small pieces that would work well in a soup. You can also substitute vegetable broth if you would like a vegetarian version.

I went with 1% milk instead of 2% which was my way of making it healthier without sacrificing too much creaminess. For the cheese I used fat free American - the good ol' slices that you remember as a kid. (And they still make the best grilled cheese sandwiches.) I just tore up the slices until it was the right amount so they would melt easily in the soup. The best part? American cheese is super creamy, and the fat free is even creamier in my opinion. This leaves the soup rich and delicious! Finally, I skipped the last step with the blender. My soup was creamy and smooth and, let's be honest, I didn't want to bother with the blender... and it wasn't missed!

Just remember as you eat it - this soup is actually healthy. And amazing!