a99kitten's Musings

Made some very yummy fish last night. And ridiculously quick & easy too! I love those kind of recipes :)

Ingredients:
1 lb cod
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 limes – thinly sliced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon fresh thyme (may substitute 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon dry hot mustard
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
sea salt (to taste)

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Dry the fish by gently patting with paper towel. Place half the lime slices in the bottom of a baking dish and lightly salt.

Combine melted butter, ginger and spices and drizzle over the limes. Place the cod on top and cover with the remaining lime slices.

Bake for 11-13 minutes. Garnish with cilantro; salt to taste.

Now – this was the recipe I had. What I did to alter it slightly was used 3 tablespoons of butter. This little extra allowed me to have a small amount of sauce that could be spooned over the fish (placed on top of jasmine rice would be perfect but I skipped the carbs last night – next time!)

I also didn’t have sea salt (thought I had some when getting spices at the store) so I used some pure ocean salt that I did have. You’d think they’d be the same? Or similar enough? The ocean salt is a thicker, coarser grain so you can probably use less. I am a complete, unapologetic saltaholic so I used the same amount of it as required by the recipe. Husband thought it was too salty for him – wimp :) And I left off the cilantro as I am not a huge fan of cilantro and it was garnish only anyway.

The fish turned out very zesty! And spicy (although I’m the wimp when it comes to spice!) And I drizzled the sauce over the fish and the sauteed zucchini and mushrooms I made. YUM!

I am SOOOO making this again. I should have taken a picture of it – I was too hungry to think about it until after I started eating :) But with the drizzled sauce and baked lime slices, it makes a nice presentation too.

I love macaroni & cheese.  Like, I love, love, love it. In any form – fancy restaurant multi cheese, baked, infused with truffle oil, weird cheeses, whatever or simple Kraft blue box mac and cheese. Love it.

I have boxes of mac & cheese in my cupboard (Velveeta, Kraft and Safeway’s Organic brand) and a few frozen entrees from Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine and Trader Joe’s in the freezer. I don’t eat it very often though…I guess maybe just saving up for the Apocalypse when I no longer care about a bikini-ready tummy ;-)

Then one of the foodie people that I follow on twitter mentioned a delicious cookbook about mac & cheese. WHAT? So I searched for it on Amazon. Found it. Ordered it. Bad news for the low-carb diet plan :)  (the book is “Macaroni & Cheese 52 Recipes, from Simple to Sublime” by Joan Schwartz.

So tonight is my first try and a recipe from the cookbook.  I am trying the “Comfort Diner Mac and Cheese” Page 30. I *think* it’s the same one on the cover of the book. But I couldn’t find any reference to the cover photo.

This one seemed like a simple enough recipe so I thought a good start :)

mac-and-cheese-ingredients

Had to grate the american and fontina cheese. So have you ever tried to grate american cheese? Umm…not so easy. The reason it is so awesome for grilled cheese, etc is because it’s nice and soft. And this great fact makes grating it a PAIN! But that’s ok :) Grated half of it and then chopped the rest into teeny, tiny bits.  The Fontina grating was a breeze after that since it even had a skin to hold as I did it.  Thankfully you could use shredded Cheddar which means pre-packaged!

Cheese!

Once you mix all the ingredients, blend, whisk, etc. you bake. And I am making a boneless ribeye with it (using a rub I got at the Charles Krug winery!) so I am not consuming ALL carbs :)

And VOILA! Out of the oven baked goodness:

mac&cheese!!

I just took a bite…it is frackin’ delicious…I am keeping this recipe for sure!! But trying the other 51 in the recipe book :)