Baked Tilapia

Arrange desired number of tilapia fillets on a lightly greased, foil lined, baking sheet.

Drizzle with olive oil and season as desired. Salt and pepper. Chipotle. Cajun. Lemon pepper...

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Serve with rice, your choice of beans, and fresh lemon or lime wedges.

Preparing Freshly Caught Fish

My husband does not fish. If there are two things he dislikes most, they'd have to be solitude and sitting still. Because of this, all the fish that I prepare for dinner no longer looks like fish. It comes in neat little packages with a bar code. Our neighbor, on the other hand, does like to spend his time out in the quiet of nature and he brought over a fish for us! A real, fresh caught fish that my grandma identified through picture text as being trout. Thankfully, he gutted it and offered a few cooking tips before he left it in my care! I have to admit all I kept thinking while I was getting ready to cook this sucker, was it had better not move! Which, of course, was ridiculous considering how it didn't have any insides... but still...

His tips; my thoughts: 

1. Leave it as is. The skin protects from burning the meat and keeps the moisture in. The only thing I had to do was cut it in half as the fish was too large for the skillet.
2. Butter not oil. Aye, aye captain. I followed this instruction, no problem.
3. Medium - low heat; keep the lid on. He said keeping the lid on was important to keep in the steam- I personally think it is important to keep that awful fish smell contained!
4. 15 minutes each side. This worked perfectly for our fish. I could tell it was done and ready to eat when the skin came right off and the meat flaked away easily from the bones.

Who knew this fish was going to taste so good! What a pleasant surprise. I've decided we have a pretty cool neighbor.

Pesto Shrimp and Veggie Pizza

2 prepared pizza crusts*
2/3 cup basil pesto sauce
1/3 cup part skim ricotta cheese
Tomato, sliced
Red pepper, sliced
Mushrooms, sliced
Onion, chopped
Black olives, sliced
Handful of baby spinach
Precooked, peeled and de-veined frozen shrimp, thawed
Shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons butter, separated




*When I don't feel up to making pizza crust from scratch, we love Bobs Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza crust. It makes enough dough so that we can roll one half out on the pizza stone and pat the other half into the cast iron skillet making two delicious pizza crusts. 

Preheat oven with pizza stones and/ or cast iron skillets inside to 375 degrees.

Mix together the basil pesto and ricotta cheese to form a sauce.

Prepare all other ingredients. (Chopping, de-tailing the shrimp.)

Spread sauce over prepared crusts and top with toppings, spreading the shredded mozzarella around last.

Coat each hot baking surface with a tablespoon of butter allowing for it to melt and be spread around the pans.

Set pizza crusts on hot baking surfaces and bake until cheese begins to melt.

Change oven to broil setting and broil for 2 to 3 minutes, removing pizzas when cheese begins to brown.

Mustard Dill Salmon

Salmon fillets
Yellow mustard
Dill seasoning

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking dish with non stick cooking spray and set salmon down on top. Coat each fillet with two drops of yellow mustard, spread out evenly. Sprinkle dill seasoning on top. Cover dish with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Fish Tacos with Chipotle Lime sauce

Drizzle one 6 ounce tilapia fillet with a squeeze of lime juice and season with a pinch each cayenne and salt. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

To make the sauce, mix together:
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Juice of 1 lime
1 chipotle pepper, (canned with adobo sauce) minced
2 teaspoons adobo sauce

Toast two corn tortillas and top with tilapia, shredded cabbage, diced fresh tomatoes, black beans and sauce.