Last night's dinner...

Ok, here's a complete dinner suggestion: this is what we had last night, salmon fillets with creamy pesto, garlic flavoured mashed potatoes and ratatouille with balsamico.
This is pretty straight forward: the salmon fillets are placed on a baking tray (the amount is, as always, up to you) on a bed of grain salt and nothing else (the juices will take care of the rest). Bake for about 20 minutes or until firm anyway, at about 200 degrees.
The pesto needs a strong hand: in a mortar (you do have one, don't you??? Go buy one now :D Oh alright! If there's no mortar, just use some kind of blending apparatus... but I am very disappointed, jsut so you know! :P) place one small bag of pine nuts (about a small fistful), one clove of garlic, the leaves only of one small pot of basil, the kind with the wide, juicy leaves, some salt and olive oil. Using the pestle, grind everything together forcefully, until the whole thing is smooth. In the end, if you wish to make it all creamier, you may add a couple of tablespoons of some kind of cream (I used sour cream).
The mashed potatoes, and I am not ashamed to admit it because I AM a busy girl you know :P, came from a bag. Just make sure you make it only with water and butter, and no milk, and adding one or 2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
Finally, the ratatouille consists of one big zucchini, one onion, 2 bell peppers, different colours, one tomato, and one eggplant. Slice everything, place in a baking tray and season with salt, pepper, sugar, balsamico and olive oil. Don't go easy on the olive oil, you won't regret it- it feelslike the more olive oil veg gets cooked in, the better it tastes. You can also add some basil here too. Bake until all the veggies have turned all soft, yet keep baking until they have that elusive "golden crust" formed as well. Impress your friends and all that lot. :D