Salmon with oven roasted vegetables--Six Week Health, week one

For dinner tonight and for submission to #coachben (@healthsquared)'s #sixweekhealth challenge, I have prepared a gluten-free and dairy free salmon meal.

Once my oven was set to 450 F, I started prep with my veggies. My gma taught me that when chopping an onion, cut off the "loose" end to help peel the onion and not the root end, to keep the onion from making you cry. Does anyone know if that is true? When there's one other end to choose from, I always just do it her way.

After peeling my carrots, I did a larger dice and after removing the core, I chopped up cabbage. I added a red harissa paste with some olive oil and spread this onto a sheet pan, along with my red onion and roasted in the oven for just shy of half an hour, when the onions were carmelized and carrots were soft enough to poke with a fork.

While the vegetables roasted, I pitted a couple of dates. Sometimes the pit can be hard to differentiate from looks alone, but you will feel the difference from the flesh.

I chopped up my dates and added white wine vinegar to give some acidity to balance out the fruit and the carmelized onions I retrieved from the oven, diced and added with a bit of olive oil.

I cooked a salmon filet in a skillet with just simple salt and pepper.

While I have been eating gluten free for about a year now, I am still working on decreasing the amount of dairy and I am a big cheese fan. I am finding I am the least tempted to add dairy to fish meals and am having fun experimenting with new sauces and relishes. Thanks for checking out my first week in #sixweekhealth, I am excited to discover the next topic in the challenge!

And remember, the steem work makes the dream work! ;*