roasted vegetables – My World (and recipes too)

Lemon Cilantro Baked Cod Fillets

I have always been that person who thought cilantro tastes like soap. That is, until I started living with my husband, who is a fanatic over the stuff…

I have always been that person who thinks cilantro tastes like soap. That is, until I started living with my husband, who is a fanatic over the stuff. At any given moment during the year, we have not one, but two bunches sitting in water on our counter; so over the summer I decided to give in and start using the stuff and now I am hooked.

I adapted this recipe from something similar that called for parsley instead of cilantro. I imagine it would also be great with fresh chopped basil or even rosemary.

I love this recipe because it’s unexpectedly creamy and it smells incredible! Prep time is just a few minutes and you can assemble this dish ahead of time if you need to- just pop it in the fridge until you are ready to bake.

Start off with with cod fillets. We buy ours frozen from Trader Joe’s. Once it’s thawed, be sure to pat it dry on both sides so the melted butter will adhere to it.

Next melt about 4 Tbsp real butter (none of that no fat, low fat, fake butter crap! Use the real stuff!) We buy Amish butter. You can’t beat the freshness.

Now for the dredging stations: 1) This is about 3/4 cup of flour, mixed with a generous amount of smoky paprika, salt and pepper and one of my favorite spice blends: Essence of Emeril.

2) Next, I zested one very large lemon and squeezed its juice (about 3 Tbsp, I said it was large!). For fun, I also zested a Meir Lemon. Then add about 1/4th cup chopped fresh cilantro. When your butter has melted, add it here.

Here it is with the melted butter.

Dredge each piece of cod, both sides in the butter/ cilantro mixture and then the flour. The original recipe called for dredging only one side but I always do both. I suppose you could leave out the flour entirely, but the dish will not turn out as creamy. (It will, however, still be delicious!)

Spray your baking dish with coconut oil (or whatever you have on hand-or leave it out. I forgot this step tonight. It made no difference.), then lay out your fish. Pour the remaining butter/cilantro mixture over the fish. Here, I usually toss in a little more cilantro and sprinkle a little more paprika.

PS: This stuff? It’s your friend when you don’t feel like chopping. Find it at the grocery where you buy fresh spices.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until flakey.

We made roasted butternut squash, zucchini and baby Roma tomatoes as our sides. These just go in at 400 degrees coated in olive oil, salt and pepper. All on one sheet pan. I make then before I bake the fish, the cover with foil and let them rest.

Fresh out of the oven.

The thought occurs to me that I could have mixed the tomatoes in with the squash. I like to keep the zucchini whole, however. It’s a texture thing for me.

INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 Tbsp smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning

4 cod fillets (6 ounces each)

2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

Zest of 1-2 lemons

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400°. In a shallow bowl, mix lemon juice, cilantro and butter. In a separate shallow bowl, mix flour and seasonings. Dip fillets in lemon juice mixture, then in flour mixture to coat both sides; shake off excess.

Place in a 13×9-in. baking dish coated with cooking spray. Drizzle with remaining lemon juice, cilantro, butter mixture. Sprinkle on a little more paprika & lemon pepper. Bake 15-20 minutes or until fish just begins to flake easily with a fork. Garnish with more fresh cilantro & lemon zest.

Lemon-Basil Brown Butter Chicken

This was intended to be lemon chicken, but I goofed and let my butter get brown. Introducing Lemon-Basil Brown Butter Chicken ala Bobbe! It ended up being very tasty (and it smelled delightful too!)

At some point I will stop using my iPad to do my photos in favor of using the canon that just sits upstairs feeling lonely. Although most of the time I’m fine with my photos, the iPad just could not capture a great image of this dish. Trust me, it received rave reviews from the hubs and I actually loved it too. (I can always find some way to be critical of my creations, but not this time.)

This started out to be lemon chicken but I got lazy when it was time to make the sauce, so it became lemon-basil brown butter chicken because I let my butter get too brown. Happy accident.

The first step was to butterfly and pound the chicken breasts into about 1/4″ cutlets. Then I salted and peppered each side and dredged them in a seasoned flour mixture. (Lemon pepper & Italian seasoning.)

Once I had all of the cutlets dredged on both sides. I set them aside in order to assemble my sauce ingredients.

Cast of characters for the sauce: chicken broth, zest of three lemons, juice of three lemons (I didn’t cut or squeeze the lemons until I was sure I would need them all.), garlic, basil, olive oil, a little flour and BUTTER. (Butter was late for the photo-op. I trust everyone has seen butter before!)

Next I heated some butter and olive oil to medium high in my cast iron skillet and I added the first cutlet in. This guy was pretty large, so I didn’t try to crowd the pan with the other one. Instead, I did them in batches.

Once browned, I took them out and set them aside. At this point I added some more butter and a little flour and some chicken broth and started whisking away. Then came the lemon juice and zest, the basil and at the very end; the garlic.

Here is a video of what it looked like. I did add some more liquid to it after this because I didn’t want it to be too thick.

We served it over plain orzo with a side of delightfully perfect roasted Brussels sprouts and rainbow carrots.

And here you have it! I garnished mine with cilantro even though there isn’t cilantro in the dish. I failed to save some fresh basil leaves, so I improvised. LOL! This is a no-no in the real world; but since this is “Bobbe’s World”, I get to do what I want!

Ingredients:
2-4 chicken breasts, butterflied and pounded to ¼”
2 ¼ cups flour
1-2 Tbsp. lemon pepper (optional)
1-2 Tbsp. Italian seasoning (optional)
Salt & Pepper to taste
1-2 Tbsp. Olive oil
3-4 Tbsp. unsalted butter (use REAL full-fat butter, anything else is poison!)
3 cloves garlic slivered (can be chopped if you are lazy)
16 oz. Chicken broth
Zest & juice of three lemons
½ fresh chopped basil

Directions:

Create a flour dredge using 2 cups of flour mixed with 1-2 Tbsp. lemon pepper & Italian seasoning.

Butterfly the chicken and pound into ¼” cutlets. Salt & Pepper both sides.

Heat a cast iron skillet to medium high, add in 2 Tbsp. olive oil & 2 Tbsp. butter. Fry the chicken until golden brown on both sides (about 4-5 minutes per side).

While the chicken is in the pan, assemble the ingredients for the pan sauce:
Butter, Flour, Chicken broth, Lemon zest, Lemon juice, Chopped Basil, Garlic.

When the chicken has finished cooking, remove to a plate. Using the same skillet with the chicken drippings: whisk in 1-2 Tbsp. butter, then 1-2 Tbsp. flour, and the chicken broth. Continue whisking until the lumps are out and you have a smooth consistency. Reduce heat to medium and while still whisking, add the zest, juice, basil and lastly, the garlic. Continue whisking about 2 minutes more.

At this point, you may add the chicken back to the pan OR if you are serving it over rice or noodles, or in our case, orzo; you may want to wait and drizzle the sauce over the top. Anyway you do it will be the right way for you!

Working Smart, not Hard with Simplot Good Grains!

may or may not have mentioned that my husband and I cook the Fellowship Meal for a large church every Wednesday night. We have a lot of diners who are watching their weight and/or trying to eat more healthfully. Because of this, we try to offer things that they can eat and not feel guilty about.

I may or may not have mentioned that my husband and I cook the Fellowship Meal for a large church every Wednesday night. We have a lot of diners who are watching their weight and/or trying to eat more healthfully. Because of this, we try to offer things that they can eat and not feel guilty about.

LAST week, we made the tortellini dish that destroyed everyone’s Weight Watcher’s points! Naturally last night, I wanted to make up for that. Ordinarily this would have involved buying fresh vegetables and a lot of preparation chopping, cooking, serving, etc. However, for the past six weeks, I have been working full time filling in for one of my office mates and catering a number of events, so I opted for a healthy and easy side dish! Operative word: easy.

Enter this stuff:

Charlie and I bought a bag of Simplot Good Grains Ancient Grains & Kale Blend a couple of weeks ago thinking we’d see how we like it before introducing it to the church. One of the dishes we make at least one a week are tuna bowls. Usually that starts with a base of either quinoa or couscous. I am not a huge fan of plain quinoa, so if I’m going to eat it, it usually involves my having to saute a lot of things to add into it. Some nights I just don’t feel like doing all of that so these grains were worth trying. We like them very much and find them very versatile! There are only two of us, so one bag of this stuff keeps perfectly in the freezer and we can get about 5 meals for two out of it.

14736442_267160120392515_5666394604660850688_n(1) — This is one of our tuna bowl suppers. Now we sub the couscous base for the Ancient Grains & Kale Blend. YUMMY!

Which brings me to last night at church. We bought two cases of the Exotic Grains and Fire Roasted Vegetables Blend and then added freshly sauteed chopped onions, red and yellow peppers and a very large bag of spinach. There are so many roasted vegetables already present in this mixture, that it’s not really necessary to add anything. I just wanted to add my own flair to it. I also happened to have a huge bag of spinach and another bag of chopped onions to get rid of! (Truth) After this, I added soy sauce, one of my favorite seasonings; Lawry’s Seasoned Salt; fresh cracked pepper and a lot of garlic Italian seasoning to taste.

As I was making this dish last night, my mind was conjuring up all sorts of other dishes that could be made utilizing these wonderful grains. I think they would be awesome to add to salads, wraps, burritos, quesadilla’s and even soups. If you like stuffing vegetables like mushrooms, acorn squash, zucchini or even tomatoes (yes, I know tomatoes are fruits), this brand makes other grain mixtures that would lend well this!

Just the word, “Stuffing” makes me think of Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving makes me think of sage and sage makes me think of sage dressing and that makes me think that roasted butternut squash, cranberries and/or apples could be added to any one of the Good Grains Blends for a delicious Thanksgiving side dish! The possibilities are endless!

In fact, I just thought of another way to make this, Asian fried rice style! Follow all of the directions for making fried rice but sub in whatever Good Grains Blend you like the best! Happy experimenting!

Since last night I was cooking for a huge crowd and seasoning as I go, and since I highly doubt you want a recipe for 100+ people, I will simply tell you to go out and get yourself a bag or two. Heat it up, taste it plain (it’s great) and then start adding whatever it is that makes your palate happy!

PS-some more images: