Nothing Fishy About Easy Cooking

At FeedingFrenzy, we are busy moms, wives, and business owners who are determined to cook real food for our families. We are not against fast food sometimes, or using convenience products, but we promise you can make a real meal in the same time it takes to heat up a pizza or pick up fast food.

As the weather gets warmer, we love to cook fish…it just seems lighter and healthier. We keep our freezers stocked with flash-frozen filets – tilapia, salmon (wild caught only!), and cod – to make tasty meals quickly.

One of the best cooking tips we can share with you – if you don’t know what you’re going to cook tonight for dinner – is to turn the oven on to 350 and start a pasta pot of water boiling as soon as you walk in the door.  That way, once you’ve perused your pantry, you’re ready to go for anything.  Of course, in a perfect world, you’ve planned out your meals for the whole week before you did your weekly shopping, but that’s a post for another time.

So, here’s a 30-minute meal your family should love. If you don’t have all the ingredients I mention on hand, improvise and use what you do have (though stocking your pantry and fridge with some of these staples is a great idea for “go-to” meals).  Cooking is all about improvising…and our goal is to not just share recipes but teach techniques that you can carry with you from here on.  So, be creative and get cooking!

Tear four pieces of aluminum foil to about 14 inches each. Place one fish filet on each piece of foil. On top of each filet, place a few pieces of sliced garlic, some crushed red pepper flake, some capers, a few chopped kalamata olives, a handful of grape tomatoes sliced in half and a sprinkling of feta cheese. Pepper to your taste (with the capers, olives and feta, salt is probably not needed).  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil. 

 Close the packets by bringing the long ends together and folding once. Then roll up the sides. Finish by rolling up the long side until it is flat against the fish. Place each packet on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Your kids don’t like olives? Leave ‘em off. Hubby wants extra pepper flake? Add some to his. Just keep track by writing their initials in the foil with the handle of a spoon. Have some asparagus you want to use up? Put in on. Don’t have feta but you do have parmesan? Sure. Be creative.

Meanwhile, in the pot of water you have boiling, add some salt and cook 8 oz. of orzo per the package directions. While it is boiling, zest and juice one lemon into a serving bowl. Add 3 T. of butter you’ve cubed up to the same bowl. Once the orzo is done, drain it, put it in the serving bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and stir.

To serve the fish, place each packet on a plate and let each person open up their own, or you can plate it and all of its goodies on serving plates. Serve with the orzo and a tossed salad.