Salmon on a Bed of Leek

Living in the dorms means you either eat cafeteria food or eat out way too often. Sometimes you just crave food that's cooked just for you, and not industrially either. So you find a friend with an apartment and you make a deal with them that if they let you cook, they can eat the results. This series will feature stuff me and a friend cook over the weekends when the dining halls don't serve any food anyway. Oh and by the way, this is really written for everyone who has cooked to the extent of ramen noodles, which means DON'T BE AFRAID TO TRY IT OUT!!!!!

So this past Saturday, I was craving fish, so I made some salmon on a bed of leek (sounds fancy, but is easy and tastes good)

Time to prepare: ~10-20 minutes
Time in the oven: ~30-40 minutes, depending on the size of your fish.

Ingredients:
Fillet of salmon with skin still on
Sour Cream
Chives and Onion cream cheese (you can probably use any other flavor too)
Two Leeks
Dill
Garlic Powder
Lemon pepper
Lemon
Olive Oil (vegetable oil will do)

Cookware needed:
glass dish to put your fish on in the oven
small bowl to mix stuff
Tablespoon
Knife to cut leek with
Cutting board
scissors (for the dill, but optional)

Directions:
1) Set your oven to 375F.
2) Wash one leek, cut off the “rooty” part of it, and cut off any parts of the leaves that look dry or damaged. Then cut your leek into small rings, beginning from the white end.
3) Spread the cut leek onto the bottom of your dish. The rings usually stick together, use your fingers to spread them out.
4) Pour some olive oil on top of the leek. As far as how much is "enough", just go back and forth on top of the leeks, so that it looks like you've put some olive oil on.
5) Take your fish and put it on top of the leeks. To season the fish, pour a small amount of olive oil on it, then squeeze either half or both halves of a lemon on it. Sprinkle on garlic powder and lemon pepper, and then cut some dill on top of it all. If you've never used dill before, err on the side of caution with this herb.
6) Wash your second leek and cut it like the first one. Place it all on top of the fish. If you want, you can apply more olive oil on top of everything at this point.
7) Put the cream cheese in a bowl and mix it with 3-5 tablespoons of sour cream, in order to give the cream cheese a less dense texture.
8) Cover the leeks which are on top of your salmon with the cream cheese mixture. You want to cover it well enough so that no fish is showing. This will not spread in the oven, so make sure you have an even layer everywhere.
9) Put fish in the oven, and wait. When the leeks on the sides of the fish start browning your fish is about done. The cream cheese layer can get a slight brown tinge to it, but remove the fish promptly when it does. Let your fish sit for a couple of minutes before serving to “lock in the flavors”. ENJOY!

I cooked some rice to go along with this meal. Fairly simple and fail-safe, just follow the directions on the box and remember to stir so you don't burn your rice.

What to do with the leftover ingredients:
you can use any leftover leek and sour cream in pretty much anything, for me its kind of a cooking staple. So check back for more recipes incorporating it. I'm sure if you google dessert recipes with sour cream, you will probably find a good use for that.
As far as the dill goes, if you got fresh dill lay it on paper towels to dry. it will take a week or two to be dry, but then you can use it forever (or if not forever, as long as you will likely be in college for anyway).
squeeze the rest of the lemon in some water, to you know, make lemon water :D

That's about all for Saturday's meal, id say its one of the easier meals I know how to make. good luck!