Glazed Chicken/Fish Breast

Glazed Chicken/Fish adapted from Mr. Food
1 envelope onion soup mix (from a 2-ounce box)
2/3 cup apricot preserves
1/2 cup water
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
2 large red or green bell peppers, sliced into thin rings

Directions:  Preheat oven to broil.   In a small bowl thoroughly combine onion soup mix, apricot preserves, and water; set aside.  Place chicken breasts in a foil-lined broiler pan. Top chicken with soup mixture and broil 5 minutes; turn chicken.  Place pepper rings over chicken, baste pan juices, then broil an addtional 5 to 10 minutes, or until chicken is fork-tender and no pink remains.

Here's what you'll need:

 

Slice up the peppers.

Mix the preserves, onion soup mix, water.

Preheat the broiler.  Mine was set to 500F.

Lay the chicken out on tinfoil and spoon the mixture on top.

Broil for 5 minutes.  Pull out and flip the chicken.  Baste with more of the mixture.  Put back in broiler for another 10-12 minutes.

After flipping the chicken, I also added 2 pieces of tilapia to the pan and cover with the mixture.

Top with the peppers.

Here's what you'll end up with:

Our Thoughts:
I've had this recipe sitting around for a while now and decided to give it a try this week.  Earlier in the week we went to Costco and I bought a package of fresh tilapia (TIP:  I used a few fillets fresh and then froze them in individual storage bags for later.  I defrosted a couple for this recipe by letting the bag float around in some water water for about 30 minutes). 

To be honest, the fish tasted better with this recipe than the chicken.  The chicken never really soaked in the flavor while the mild tilapia really took in the sweetness of the preserves as well as the tanginess of the onion soup.  The fish was cooked perfectly and even Scott preferred it over the chicken.

If you aren't "in" to apricots, I'm sure any preserve/jelly mixture would work.

Hope you enjoy!
April

Easy Grilled Fish Tacos with corn salsa chimichurri sauce

Easy Grilled Fish Tacos with Corn Salsa Chimichurri Sauce adapted from Momables

4-6 Pre portioned pieces of fish (trout, red fish, tilapia-your choice)

1 Cup corn

2 tsp taco seasoning

1 Lime -juiced

Olive Oil

Favorite salsa

Sour cream

Grated cheese

Flour, corn, or hard shelled tortillas

Chimichurri sauce (optional):

- ¾ Cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt

- 2 TB red wine vinegar

- 1 TB extra virgin olive oil

- 20 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley

- dash of oregano (or 5 sprigs fresh oregano)

- 3 cloves of garlic

- dash red pepper flakes

- ¼ tsp sea salt

Directions:  Heat broiler, with rack in highest position.  Place fish on rimmed baking sheet; drizzle with olive oil & taco seasoning.

In a separate bowl, mix corn with 2 TB of salsa and juice of 1 lime. Top fish with corn salsa.

Broil until fish is lightly browned on top, 8-12 minutes depending of fish thickness, until flesh is opaque throughout and thoroughly cooked.

Divide fish evenly among tortillas and top with shredded cheese, chimichurri sauce sour cream and fresh salsa (how you dress your taco is up to you!)

Chimichurri sauce: place all ingredients into a food processor or blender. Blend well until you achieve a pesto-like sauce, scraping down the bowl as necessary.

Info:
-I used tilapia
-I used whole wheat tortillas

Here's what you'll need:

Preheat the broiler to 500 degrees.

Drizzle the fish with olive oil and sprinkle with taco seasoning.

Add corn and salsa together.  Mix.

Top the fish with the corn salsa.

Put all of the ingredients for the chimichurri sauce in a food processor and blend.

Put the fish on the high rack under the broiler for 8-12 minutes or until it is brown and flaky.

Take the fish out.

Build your taco.  I used the chimichurri, corn salsa and then the fish.

Here's what you'll end up with:

Our Thoughts:
I was excited to make this dish.  I bought a package of fresh tilapia from Costco and I wanted to use a few pieces while they were still fresh and then I froze the rest of them.

This was a very easy dish to make.  I think the recipe should have called for more than 2 Tbsp of salsa to the 1 cup of corn as I ended up adding more anyway.

The absolute star of this dish was the chimichurri sauce.  It was so fresh and earthy and light.  Since it was made with the 0% Greek yogurt, I felt no guilt in adding a good portion to each taco or burrito wrap.  I even saved the remaining of the chimichurri sauce so that I could dip my veggies in it as a snack today.  If you make this dish, you MUST go ahead and make this sauce, too. 

Since tilapia is a very mild-flavored fish, I honestly couldn't tell that I was having "fish" tacos.  I may have been too conservative with the sprinkling of the taco seasoning on top of the fish.  At any rate, the texture was good and it mixed great with the corn salsa and chimichurri.

Hope you enjoy!
April

Grilled Fish in Tinfoil

Grilled Fish in Tinfoil
1 piece of halibut (or fish of your choice)
Italian dressing
Lemon Wedge
Salt
Pepper

Direction:  Salt and pepper the fish.  Place the fish in the center of tinfoil.  Drizzle with Italian dressing and squeeze a lemon wedge on top.  Close the tinfoil up and make a tent out of it.  Throw on the grill for 8-10 minutes.

Here's what you'll need:

 

Salt and pepper the fish.  Drizzle with Italian dressing.  Squeeze a lemon wedge over the fish.  Throw on the grill until the inside temp reaches 145 degrees or until it flakes off.

Here's what you'll end up with:

Our Thoughts:
Protein in our house is always an issue.  I don't eat pork and Scott doesn't really like fish or seafood; thus, we are stuck with poultry or beef.  Last week while doing my shopping, I decided to go ahead and get myself a piece of fish and Scott a couple of pork brats and we were both happy.

This is the first time that I have ever cooked fresh fish and it turned out great.  I found this "recipe" online and decided to give it a try.  To be honest, I don't think the Italian dressing added a whole lot to the taste.  I think it would have been better if I would have just added some olive oil, fresh herbs and a lemon but it was still really good.

As a bonus, I gave a taste to both Kanin and Gracie and they loved it so I will definitely be cooking fresh fish again in the future.  Scott even took a bite and said it "wasn't bad". 

Do you have any good fresh fish recipes?  If so, I'd love to try them out.  You can email me at awesty2 at yahoo(dot) com.

Hope you enjoy!
April

Tuna and White Bean Salad

Tuna and White Bean Salad from Our Krazy Kitchen
2 (6-ounce) cans dark meat tuna, packed in olive oil (I just had tuna in water, so I drained it and added a couple tablespoons olive oil to the salad)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini (white kidney) beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Directions:  In a large bowl, add the tuna with its olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Using a fork, break up the tuna into bite-size pieces, then gently toss in the beans and onions. Drizzle with the red wine vinegar and season with more salt and pepper, if needed, to taste. Transfer the salad to plates and serve.

I served this on top of a 50/50 mixed green salad.

Modifications: 
-I didn't have any cannellini beans so I just used white beans.
-I was out of red wine vinegar so I used a combination of apple cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar.

Here's what I started with:

The Finished Product:

Review:

This was a great, easy, healthy lunchtime meal.  You could eat this as a sandwich or as part of a salad.  You could also add a wide variety of vegetables to this meal.

I really liked the texture that the beans added and the vinegar gave it a nice tanginess.  Overall, I really enjoyed this meal.  I think next time, though, I would cut the recipe in half because the kids would have no part of it.