It’s September and as the cool, fresh air comes in through my windows, I feel invigorated and inspired to look for a new routine. I am in back-to-school mode.

This school year, my son entered kindergarten and with two younger children still at home, I felt it was time to get more organized with my weekly dinner menu. Though I enjoy cooking and writing about cooking, I admit that there are some days when dinnertime quickly approaches and I am still not sure what to make.

In an effort to create a weekly plan, I sat down in front of my cookbook shelf to look for some quick, nutritious meals. There on the shelf, nestled among my beat-up copy of “Joy of Cooking” and “Sesame Street C is for Cooking,” was an old favorite, “Gourmet Every Day.”

“Is ‘Gourmet Every Day’ the cookbook that has the recipe for salmon kedgeree?” I asked my husband, Aaron. His eyes lit up as if to say, “I was hoping we’d make that again one of these days.” I looked it up in the index and thumbed the pages until I reached page 25. It was like finding an old friend.

The first thing I noticed at the top of the recipe was the notation “serves 2.” Yes, the last time we made this recipe was when we were “just 2.” People always told me that time would go by quickly, but I’m not sure that I appreciated it at the time.

This salmon recipe takes me back to the days when we were dating and then living in our first home. We enjoyed trying all kinds of new recipes, especially ones from “Gourmet’ magazine and “Cooks Illustrated.” We quickly learned that cooking extravagant gourmet meals with many steps was not the best thing to do after a long day at work. “Gourmet Every Day” was the perfect cookbook for making quick and easy recipes for dinner that tasted good, too.

Salmon kedgeree is an Indian-influenced British dish and dates back to the 1800s. When Aaron first made this dish for me, I remember being a bit skeptical about the combination of hard-boiled eggs with salmon, but it was delicious. We went on to make it several times.

I can’t believe that this cookbook has been sitting unopened on my shelf for several years; but just like visiting with an old friend, I feel like I can pick right back up where we left off. Salmon kedgeree is on this week’s dinner menu.

Salmon kedgeree
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1 small onion
1 3/4 cups water
½ teaspoon salt
8-ounce piece skinned salmon fillet
3/4 cup long-grain white rice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Method:
Hard-boil eggs. Peel and quarter eggs and coarsely chop onion. Using a 3-quart saucepan with a tight-fitting lid bring water to a boil with salt. Add salmon and poach at a bare simmer, covered, 4 minutes, or until just cooked through. With a slotted spoon transfer salmon to a plate, reserving poaching liquid; and cover salmon. Return poaching liquid to a boil and stir in rice. Cook rice, covered, over low heat 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed and rice is tender.
While rice is cooking, cook onion in butter over moderately low heat in a large skillet, stirring occasionally, until softened. Stir in cooked rice and season with salt and pepper. Break salmon into large pieces and add to rice mixture with eggs, parsley and lemon juice. Cook kedgeree over moderate heat, stirring gently, just until heated through, about 1 minute.

Colleen Lunn Scholer is a freelance writer living in Auburn who likes to cook with her husband and three young children.