Paprika Lime Salmon & Sweet Potatoes

Paprika Lime Salmon & Sweet Potatoes... Do you ever have one of those days where everything goes wrong?? Well I think I'm tossing yesterday in that pile. Got home from a slightly stressful day at my office and was in no mood for things to not go smoothly at home. I was on edge you could say. I decided to prepare salmon, snap peas, and a sweet potato. Pretty standard - I've made this meal before. Here is how the evening unfolded...

On the Menu:
Paprika Lime Salmon with sauteed Snap Peas and a baked Sweet Potato


The Salmon:
I put the salmon fillets in a pyrex baking dish and drizzled them with olive oil. Next I squeezed the juice from one VERY juice lime (tip: before slicing the lime or lemon give it a good firm roll on the counter pressing down with your palm, this gets the juices flowin!). So on went the lime, along with a few liberal dashes of red wine vinegar (which I should remember to use more often), some salt, and a few shakes of paprika for a little heat. I popped this in the fridge to marinate about 20 minutes while I got my oven up to 450 degrees. In went the salmon to cook away for approximately 15 minutes.

The Snap Peas:
Olive oil, salt, pepper - light saute over medium heat. Done in 5 minutes.

The Potato:
Here is where my night took a turn. I was doing the above cooking, which wasn't so much cooking as assembling, while on the phone (admittedly venting to my mom about my day) so this is partly why I do not have any photos of this meal. Normally I wash the potatoes (2 of them), cut off the ends/poke a couple holes then place them on the damp paper towel that I dried them with and put them in the microwave. Usually I let them go on the pre-set potato button. For two potatoes I do two rounds.

Well last night I let them go once and when I pulled them out they weren't up to par. So I set them for a second round. A minute or so in I opened the microwave and pulled one out - I was pretty hungry and in no mood to wait. Plus I was the only one chowing down so if it wasn't cooked perfectly I wasn't going to complain to myself. I got my plate ready and sat down, leaving the second potato to finish off cooking. Well within a minute smoke started rising before my eyes, I turned around to my kitchen (mouth full of salmon) and there were FLAMES through the microwave door!!!! I can only imagine what a fly on the wall saw next... me jumping up and down yelling inaudible craziness running to the sink and filling two glasses of water and dousing the inside of the dreaded cooking machine. Of course more smoke ensued. I live in a cold and WINDY city, where we are experiencing gustier than normal winds thanks to Sandy. So after cleaning up my charred mess I attempted to air the place out with my windows open. This of course made everything fly around and smack my doors shut. So I opted to just keep one a little open and deal with it in the morning. I also had to sleep with my head under the sheets to avoid too much of the horrendous smell.

In Summation:
My meal was actually tasty, however I only managed down a few bites - I was a bit shaken up thinking I was going to be swallowed by flames. The mess wasn't so bad, nothing paper towels and soap couldn't handle. I still don't know what caused the combustion since I've done this many times before, and I am not sure how I am going to plan all my meals around avoiding the microwave from here on out. But I do know this much, I am going to have to start telling people that I am trying a new perfume that's supposed to smell like s'mores because my closet smells like a campfire!

Hopefully tonight's dinner of who-knows-what won't explode!