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Cod with salsa and feta

baked cod with salsa

I usually have little or no luck cooking fish. I’m good with bivalves and crustaceans, even cephlapods…but anything with scales and gills totally eludes any culinary excellence in my hands. However, in my pursuit to improve my nutrition I continue to try. My most common mistake with fish is to overcook it into a mush. Trial and error has taught me that frozen cod filets have a texture, when cooked, that I find acceptable. Plus they’re cost effective, easy to find, and nutritionally excellent.

Really this isn’t a recipe at all…this is me just showing off a picture of my most perfect fish dish ever. It’s cod with salsa and feta cheese, baked for about 20 minutes and then served. I hesitate to offer any cooking advice on how to create this fine meal because it seems like it may have been a fluke…I mean really, good fish…from my own kitchen…no way!

The cod was purchased at Costco and is each portion is individually wrapped and sealed in plastic. I ran cool water over the frozen, wrapped portions while I assembled the other ingredients. That may have taken all of 10 minutes and I probably turned them over half way through. Once they were less frozen I arranged them in a shallow baking dish with some olive oil rubbed over them. I then spooned on a large amount of fresh salsa, also purchased at Costco. Then I crumbled on some locally produced goat’s milk feta, shoved it into a 350° oven and baked it until the internal temperature of the fish reached 140°.

I attribute the success of this dish to several things…the salsa from Costco is excellent, almost better than my own in late August, the cheese from my friend Diana is superb, I like cod, and I used my trusty thermometer to gauge when the fish was cooked and therefore I didn’t screw it up.

The best part about this dish is the flavor. The cod is firm and almost sweet, the salsa adds a fabulous mouthful of zestiness and the cheese is fabulous…the little crusty brown bits have a savory flavor that compliments the other components. Plus it’s low fat, low cal, quick and easy. I love it!

June 24, 2009 | Filed Under beef, fish, poultry, pork, favorite products, food, geek fast food, low carb, low cal, lowfat, quick and easy, recipe | 7 Comments 

Not actually vegetarian

apple_mustard_pizza_2

I’ve been thinking about what it takes to be vegetarian, not so much because I want to be a vegetarian but mostly because I’m personally trying to eat less meat, more plants. I find that the flavor of a dish needs a boost either from spices or from fats, usually both. Because I’m also counting calories I just can’t add butter and cream to increase flavor and that certainly creates a situation that requires more thought than I’m ready to give it. Luckily there is always the pizza solution.

Pizza is easy because it requires little work and can be thrown together and baked up usually in a half hour. Remember to make the dough ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator, actually the longer it sits in there the better it gets…I’ve used some that was in the frig for 2.5 weeks and it was excellent. This lovely pizza is adorned with slices of a peeled green apple, red onion, mustard greens, a scant toss of cheese and a link of AmyLu’s Smoked Chicken, Apple, Gouda sausage. According to the nutrition data one link is 110 calories and 5 grams of fat with 460 grams of sodium and since this pizza serves 2 with leftovers it falls within my range of low fat, low cal, low meat.

Yes, I know it’s not actually vegetarian, but then I’m not either. Note: for my local readers, the AmyLu sausage is available at the Middleton Costco.

June 14, 2009 | Filed Under baking, beef, fish, poultry, pork, food, lowfat, pizza, quick and easy, recipe | 5 Comments 

Frankenstein salad, quinoa, chard and plum

quinoa, plums, cucumbers, and red onions

This unusual combination took root in my head last week and it just couldn’t be denied. I had a small bunch of chard from our CSA, some of those cute, miniature seedless cucumbers, a perfect Santa Rosa plum, and some red onion. I felt pretty confident that it would all work well together despite the Frankenstein nature of the combination. I blanched the chard for one minute and then dunked it quickly into a bowl of ice water. Once it had cooled down I patted it dry and chopped it into ribbons. All the other ingredients were just a quick chop. I cooked a cup of quinoa according to the package directions but next time I should only cook 1/2 cup of quinoa. Once that cooled down I added the chopped veggies and dressed it with a dressing that combined rice wine vinegar, ponzu, yuzu honey, apple cider vinegar and canola oil. I think I also added a few dashes of chili oil.

The salad was surprisingly tasty. Actually the first bite struck me as a strange flavor but then I couldn’t stop eating it…something about the flavor combination was strangely addicting, the dirt-ish flavor of the chard, the cool slippery cucumber, the crisp bite of the onion, and the sweetness of the plum all wrapped up with a sweet-tart dressing. Dave had the exact same reaction…he thought it was weird but then he couldn’t stop eating it. I’ll definitely make this again.

June 30, 2008 | Filed Under food, low carb, low cal, lowfat, quick and easy, recipe, rice and other grains, soup, salad, sandwich | 5 Comments 

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