Pan-seared Salmon with Spinach and Shiitake Mushrooms

This was fine -- nothing wrong with it but nothing very special either. I had a bit of trouble seeing a flavor connection between the seared salmon and the bed of spinach and shiitake. They just didn't make each other sing (unlike the salmon with grapefruit - shallot sauce from last week).

Served with Smitten Kitchen's (by way of Barefoot Contessa) Scalloped Tomatoes. Had planned this Italian side for an Italian meal of spinach and mushroom cannelloni from one of Gordon Ramsay's cookbooks -- then I reread the recipe and saw that the sauce was a cheddar cheese sauce. Maybe it is because I am married to an Italian guy, but I couldn't wrap my head around cannelloni and cheddar cheese. So I googled spinach and mushrooms and salmon (since I always have a bag of Costco frozen salmon in the house) and came up with this alternative.

As it turned out -- the side of tomatoes and the appetizer (a Smitten Kitchen artichoke and olive crostini adapted from a Mario Batali recipe) were our favorite parts of this meal.

Note: If you don't have an issue, it is sometimes hard to tell from the FC website, exactly which issue the recipe is in -- this might be in the April/May 2009 issue. So I've included the link below since this is one of the recipes available online (not all are).

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/spinach-shiitake-pan-seared-salmon.aspx