we really liked the mini bowties... so cute...

Tuna and White Bean Pasta Fagiole
7 carrots, 7 stalks celery
1 lg onion
1/2 head garlic
13 oz can mushrooms, drained (drained weight)
2 cans tuna
3 c white beans
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1.5-2 c small pasta (we had no elbows)
1 qt water or broth
lemon juice, s/p, oregano, thyme, red pep flakes

Saute the diced/minced raw veg, add the remaining ingredients and simmer until pasta is cooked (under 10 mins).

NB: I’d like to add more lemon, some blk olives, and fresh parsley for starters… but this will be made again, and I will tinker…

Quick Fish Chowder
about 1/2 lb cod poached in half green apple juice, half water plus s/p, garlic/onion pwd, thyme…
when good and opaque break up into chunks and add 1 T butter, 1 c corn, 3 diced red potatoes, and cook until potatoes are tender… add 1/2-3/4 c frozen green peas and a splash or two of cream and adj seasonings if needed and continue over the heat until the peas are bright and dish up… (maybe 15 min including potato chopping…)

Hubster one more time. From the 6 year olds Birthday dinner.

1 1/2 lbs cod
6 oz of sundried tomato pesto (Classico)
bacon to wrap

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spoon pesto on top of cod to make a layer about 1/4 inch thick. Wrap bacon around cod and brown on all sides in a saute pan. Bake in oven, pesto side up, for approximately 15 minutes until fish is white and flakes easily. Serve

[notes from cejay: this will use a somewhat large quantity of bacon, you want to completely wrap the fish in bacon so you can no longer see what is inside--just bacon sealed upon bacon like wrapping a gift... and realistically, I suppose it is to keep the pesto in and the fish moist or something but since the bluejay is indeed my son this is not light on the bacon... and when you are "browning" this is really crisping it up... when he went to turn it and the bacon tried to flop away he said "nevermind, it's not browned enough" so you should be aware you are crisping the bacon around the fish not just goldening it... and he did this over a HIGH heat, like searing, and then drained off the bacon grease before baking to temp--he used the thermometer because of the whack-job oven so while the time is likey still right because he's all mr. chefypants seafood this is not how long it took us...]

Ok, so hubs was asked to buy bean sprouts (to add crunch factor to girlie’s wraps tomorrow) and came home with alfalfa sprouts the other day instead so I put them in here upon the recommendation of someone at the What’s Cooking message board… SO, it didn’t go over too well with 2 out of 3 littles in this house… but my reservations about adding them to a warm sandwich were relieved. And well, I love a grand variety of tuna melts for their simplicity and effortlessness… and I took another shortcut this time using bottled dressing instead of making one.

Bacon Cheddar Tuna Melts
2 cans of tuna, drained
Kraft Caesar Vinaigrette with Parm dressing/marinade
8 slices bread
4-8 slices slices cheddar cheese (depending on whether you like cheese on both sides or not)
8 slices of bacon (you could use less I reckon, I could have stretched 6 slices to work for us)
1/2 container of alfalfa sprouts

I cut the bacon strips in half before cooking to make them more compact within the sandwich. Cook the bacon to crisp, then drain of the grease and either reuse some of it or add back you desired fat to toast the sandwiches with… I put cheese on each slice of bread, layer tuna (mixed with as much of the dressing as is needed to reach you desired state of wetness) on one slice of cheese and bacon on the other, then toast both bread sides together or separately (depending on the number you are making at once and/or rush you are in) in the pan as one would a grilled cheese… open the sandwiches (if necessary) and add the spouts between the fish and bacon, reassemble…

PS. This would probably have been good with sliced tomatoes, if you go for things like that… For example, I would have done some for hubs had they been in the fridge… just popping them on while adding the sprouts.

So Dinner Divas had this as a recipe idea… and well there are no rules, right? so I just made my own catfish po boy without relying on this recipe… which I guess still counts as it is the same idea…

I mean I had a recipe in the Moosewood (Simple Suppers I think) that I’d wanted to try so I figured I’d make that, but then I couldn’t find the cookbook so I’m making something up (if I get stuck I’ll just channel dead relatives, I can’t tell you how much fried catfish goes on in my family surely I’ve learned a thing or two from osmosis)… “Fish, fried fish at that, on a weeknight?” some of you might be wondering what made me so brave all of a sudden… but I’ll confess, the truth is we have a meeting at the bluejay’s school this afternoon so hubby planned to just take off and so he could be on hand for backup/rescue…

taken after frying... I should have taken another in sandwich form but I didnt...

Catfish Po’ Boys
4 7-oz catfish fillets
1 c flour
buttermilk
1 T ea: garlic pwd, onion pwd
2 tsp ea: salt and blk pepper
1 tsp hot pepper sauce (typical red one)
cornmeal

Season the fish, dip in batter and dredge in cornmeal… Drop fish into deep oil at 375, fry until golden and floating…

Served on 4 Hoagie Rolls with cole slaw (1/2 a head worth, plus grated carrots dressed w/o the dreaded mayo) and Rémoulade for me and the Hubs… pretty good stuff. But I couldn’t fry the fish, and only one turned out nice (seen to the right)… the process was minorly exasperating so I forgot to take more pictures… [JP: Yes, I used the cole slaw and on the rémoulade on the sandwich not the side... I'd wanted to use cheese too but was too exhausted to slice some, and just wanted to eat...]

When all was said and done...

This is very basic, it’s still decent we just added no major seasonings and it could handle whatever you’d like to do to it. I was more focused on learning a technique (as I feel I have a better palate than the Hubs anyway) and how to than I was perfecting this recipe, so go crazy… In theory, this was for me to learn to make fresh fish, under chef hubby’s training, but it didn’t work out as pleasantly as I’d have liked… The crust didn’t seem to want to stick to all of the fish (maybe I should have lost the marinade and done an egg wash before breading? maybe I should have just spritzed with oil and baked instead of pan frying? *shrugs* who knows…), but maybe I am just being too type a about it…

Pecan Crusted Mahi-Mahi
1.75 lbs mahi-mahi (I think, it was somewhere just under 2 lbs, and $7.50)
1/4 c sour cream (or yogurt)
2 T ea: dijon and milk
1 T honey
1 tsp-ish of hot pepper sauce
breading (didn’t measure, just guessing)
1/3 c cornmeal
1/2 c pecan meal/crushed pecans
2 T parm

Mix all the wet ing, coat both sides of the fish and marinade about 1 hr (covered in the fridge). Mix dry ing and bread the fish. Pan fry in olive oil until both sides are browned, pop in a 200 oven on an ovensafe plate/platter until fish reaches 135-137.

2-step Prep: Marinade...Breading

Stuffed Salmon
salmon
stuffing
1/2 c breadcrumbs
2 tsp ea: lemon zest and thyme
1 tsp ea: s/p, oregano, garlic, onion
1 egg, beaten
1 T (maybe, or as needed) water/lemon juice
topping/glaze
1.4 oz jar of dijon
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp molasses

Place the fish on the baking sheet skin side down. Mix stuffing ingredients and add water or lemon juice just until moistened (not a firm measurement). Slit fish (you can cut a pocket into each portion, but we just butterflied the whole thing because that was easier to me) and fill with stuffing, close up. Mix the glaze ingredients and brush the top and sides of the fish with the glaze. Cook time, the Hubs handled the cooking so I don’t know but the package had some instructions so you could likely use that. Sorry…