Vacation, Snow Storms and Elusive Chicken

Vacation is over, or at least almost over. Calvin was supposed to go back to school on Monday, after two weeks off, but he had a snow day. And he has today off again. Twelve plus inches of snow and subzero temps kind of throw a wrench in things around here. We had blizzard conditions on Sunday and brutally cold temperatures Monday. Today we are supposed to hit the upper 20s, which sounds marvelous. I like winter, but in moderation, and there is nothing moderate about this weather.

The past two weeks have been pretty much a bacchanalia of good food and fun. Christmas week was full of cookies, turkey and gravy, eggnog (homemade, thank you) and all manner of other goodies. Our week in Florida was much the same, with a little beach time and a not-so-successful trip to the u-pick citrus farm thrown in. Partner crabby proprietors and less than stellar fruit and you get customers that won’t go back. But we laughed it off and went home to make a lemon tart with store lemons.

All the fun led to a burning desire to eat better. We are just a little overindulged, to say the least. All we are craving are healthy dishes and hot beverages (it is -3 F as I type this. Can I have another cup of tea, please?). Oh, and funny of funnies, what we really want is roast chicken with plain vegetables and we have yet to find chicken in the stores. Well, there were a few packages of drumsticks, but we aren’t fans. Nothing like a weekend snowstorm with almost record-breaking accumulations to slow down deliveries and ramp up demand. We had veggie pasta Sunday and fish tacos last night. Pork tenderloin is substituting for the chicken tonight. I imagine the chicken truck will arrive sometime soon and we can get our chicken fix later in the week.

I know we probably aren’t the only ones who are craving healthy dinners. And if they are easy to throw together, all the better. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Blackened fish on a bed of greens

Citrus roasted chicken (hopefully your grocery store has chicken)

Roasted vegetables over pasta

Tilapia with Toasted Almonds

I truly am on an almond kick lately. After homemade almond paste, gooey chocolate almond bars and gooey almond bars last week, I thought I should post something a little healthier. Alas, it still has almonds. After today I promise I won’t post any recipes with almonds for at least a day or two.

As with a lot of home cooking, I am amazed how just a few ingredients can undergo such a transformation into something sublime. The fish goes together in no time, bakes in about the time rice or quinoa takes to cook and combines both fish and nuts – health foods in just about any book. You can easily adjust the amounts to serve any number of people.

Our grocery store carries frozen tilapia “loins.” That makes us laugh every time we read the package. Fish don’t have legs, so how can they have loins? But, whatever they call them, the loins/filets are the best quality fish we have found in a long time, so we buy them.

Living in the Midwest, we usually rely on frozen fish to eliminate any question about freshness. And it is convenient to always have a stash in the freezer. I thaw it overnight in the fridge, if I plan ahead. I have been known to cook the filets directly from the freezer, if I have somehow forgotten to thaw them (brain freeze?), and they turn out beautifully. An extra ten to fifteen minutes in the oven and they are perfect.

We had our fish with corn and browned butter and a mix of white and red quinoa. It was kind of a monochromatic plate – I should have added broccoli or a green salad for some color. And an almond bar or two for dessert wouldn’t have been at all bad.

Download or print the recipe here.

Tilapia with Toasted Almonds
From The Cook’s Life
Servings vary

Tilapia filets or loins (one per person)
Olive oil (1 teaspoon per filet)
Salt
Pepper
Chopped almonds (about 1 tablespoon per filet)
Additional chopped almonds for serving, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a dish or pan large enough to hold all the fish in one layer, without crowding them. Drizzle each filet with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top each filet with about a tablespoon of almonds. Bake fish, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, or until it flakes easily with a fork and the thinner ends are just starting to turn golden. Serve immediately, with extra almonds, if desired.

Blackened Fish on a Bed of Greens

I try to make fish for dinner about once a week, both for health reasons and because we all like it. Calvin hasn’t branched out beyond homemade breaded filets, but Rich and I like a variety. One of our favorites is blackened fish served on top of a salad. It isn’t a typical hearty winter dish, but I can’t go from November to March without eating the occasional salad.

We used to get this at a restaurant close to Rich’s parents’ place in Florida, until they raised the prices and reduced the serving size. I am all for splurging on vacation, but the prices had reached ridiculous levels. I figured we could blacken our own fish, and probably use a lot less oil, for a fraction of the price we were paying.

If you look at a lot of recipes for blackened fish, this one doesn’t necessarily qualify as blackened – which involves dipping the fish in butter and then cooking it in a searing hot skillet. While that much butter sounds really tasty, I prefer to keep my fish on the healthier side and get my butter ration in desserts. My method is really a fish filet cooked with Cajun seasonings, but that doesn’t exactly make a jazzy title. And it tastes as good as many blackened fish dishes I have eaten in restaurants.

Use whatever salad dressing you prefer on the greens. Rich likes Caesar and I prefer a heavy drizzle of good balsamic vinegar and a tiny bit of olive oil. You can also add whatever add-ins you want to your salad. The one in the picture has tomatoes and dried cranberries. We usually add shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano and I pile on carrots, celery and whatever other raw vegetables we have in the fridge.

Download or print recipe here.

Blackened Fish Filets on a Bed of Greens
From The Cook’s Life
Serves 4

You can use your favorite Cajun spice mix if you don’t want to make your own.

Fish:
4 tilapia (or other white fish) filets
4 teaspoons olive oil
4 teaspoons Cajun spice mix, approximately (recipe below)

Salad:
Salad greens (not iceberg, please)
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Dried cranberries
Shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Other assorted vegetables
Dressing of choice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place fish filets in a greased casserole dish or pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Drizzle each filet with about a teaspoon of olive oil. Sprinkle each filet with about a teaspoon of spice mix, making a heavy layer of spices.

Bake fish for 20-25 minutes or until cooked through and slightly crispy on the edges. While fish bakes, arrange salad greens on individual dinner plates. Top with tomatoes, dried cranberries, cheese and desired vegetables.

When fish is done, top each plate with a filet and drizzle with salad dressing. Serve immediately.

Cajun Spice Mix:
4 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano, crushed slightly with your fingers
½ teaspoon salt, or less (to taste)
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, or less (½ teaspoon makes it pretty spicy)

Mix spices together in a small bowl or jar. You will have spice mix left over. Use on fish, chicken or pork. Store in a tightly closed container at room temperature for several months.

 

Fish Filets with Tomatoes, Squash and Basil

Rich found this recipe for fish with zucchini and tomatoes last week when he was trying out our new ipad subscription to Bon Appetit. We had a bounty of zucchini and yellow squash from my parents’ garden, so it made the perfect quick dinner. My pictures aren’t as pretty as the magazine’s, especially since I forgot to add the basil, but dinner was delicious.

I used tilapia for the fish and didn’t really measure anything, instead just using the recipe as a guideline. You could make your own adaptations – use onion instead of shallots or change up the vegetables. Just be sure you slice everything very thin so it will be done when the fish is cooked.

We will definitely be having this again when we can use our own garden tomatoes and basil. From start to finish, even with my frozen fish, this took only a few minutes to pull together and half an hour in the oven. And the parchment makes for easy clean up, which is always a plus in my book.

A fish dish for hectic days

Whether your busy days are during the week, on the weekend, or both, you deserve to have a few easy recipes to fall back on when you are crunched for time.  I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but fish is one of the easiest things to make in a hurry.  Where we live, smack in the middle of the U.S., frozen fish really is our best bet for getting fresh fish, at least in my opinion. I keep a few frozen tilapia filets on hand for quick dinners.

If you are planning ahead, you can thaw your frozen fish in the fridge overnight, or you can thaw it, in its wrapper, in cold water. Or, if you have the cooking time, you can cook it frozen. I’m not sure what the experts say on this, but I have had fine results putting fully frozen fish in the oven.

I have watched cooking shows where they cook fish “en papillote” and I’ve had it in restaurants, but I hadn’t tried cooking this way until yesterday. In case you haven’t seen this before, this is fish cooked in a parchment paper envelope, so it steams in the oven. It looks fancy, but it really fits into the fast and easy cooking category. The fish is beautifully cooked and there is a minimum of clean-up.

I was going to use lemon juice and zest on my fish, but when I pulled the lemon out of the fridge, still in its plastic bag from the produce section, my thumb went right through its moldy, soft peel. Can I say, “Ewwww!”? Luckily I had lemon zest in the freezer from a lemon I needed for juice a while back. Always (or at least when you think of it) zest your citrus before you use the rest of the fruit, and stash the zest in the freezer for culinary emergencies.

Topped fish, ready for its parchment wrapping.

So I drizzled my (partially) thawed fish with a tiny bit of olive oil, about ½ teaspoon for each filet. Then I topped them with sliced garlic and lemon zest. I folded my parchment around them, put them in a glass dish and baked them for 30 minutes. That may seem like a long time to you, but they were still about half-frozen and we really don’t like “wet” fish. I know most people might think this results in overdone fish, so adjust your cooking times to suit your tastes.

My fish packets, ready for the oven. Notice my folding got better as I worked my way from the right to the left.

Pair with easy sides, like baked potatoes, rice or couscous and some steamed veggies or fresh fruit and dinner is served.

“Fancy” Lemon Garlic Tilapia
from The Cook’s Life
serves 4

4 tilapia filets
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 small cloves garlic
zest from one lemon
salt, optional
pepper, optional
Parchment paper or aluminum foil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lay out four large pieces of parchment paper, or aluminum foil if you don’t have parchment. Lay fish filet in the middle of each piece of parchment. Drizzle each filet with about ½ teaspoon olive oil. Peel the garlic and slice it into the thinnest slices you can. Divide garlic and lemon zest evenly between the filets. Salt and pepper each filet lightly, if desired.

Fold the top half of the parchment (or foil) down to meet the bottom half of the parchment. Start folding the bottom edge over the top edge, in small pleats all around the fish. You will end up with a semicircular package. Repeat with the other filets and place them in a large dish or on a baking sheet.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork, and is done to your tastes. If you are using frozen filets, you may have to add a few extra minutes to your cooking time.

Download the recipe here.