46. Baked Fish Fillets in White Wine

A quick post for a quick weeknight meal.

#46, Baked Fish Fillets in White Wine, includes a lot of things that I like: artichokes, asparagus, lemon, rice pudding, butter and white wine. Lots of white wine. But the main ingredient is something that I don’t like at all: fish. I don’t cook fish. As I’ve stated in other posts, unless it is shellfish or sushi, I am really uninterested. I don’t like it. But I have to bite the bullet and make it. Oh, the things that I do for Dinner is Served!

#46 was cheap. There was a Friday Lenten fish sale at the Safeway: $5 for a 2lb bag of individually wrapped Tilapia fillets. The most expensive items were the asparagus ($3.99 for a 1lb bunch–and that was on sale) and the can of artichoke hearts, which also ran around $4. Lemons were 2 for $1, parsley $.99 for a bunch. The rice pudding was priced a bit high, but still under $3, and the potatoes (Betty Crocker) were under $2. What a steal!

Now onto the meal:

This salad was delicious! The asparagus was just lovely. I boiled the spears briefly, followed with an ice bath, tossed it with drained, quartered artichoke hearts and dressing and then put it in the refrigerator to chill.   The fresh asparagus was a real treat, but this could be made year-round with frozen or canned asparagus. I made the dressing with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, fresh parsley, some fresh ground pepper and a little garlic salt. Yum. It was a gentle, light salad that was just as good the next day in my lunch pail paired with some lettuce and balsamic vinaigrette.

The potatoes sucked. Sorry, Betty Crocker.

The fish was good. Surprisingly so. I knew that I would like the sauce. Lemon: good. Butter: better. White wine: the nectar of the gods. I will say that the first 2 bites were a little off to me. The fish tasted like dirt. Seriously. I tasted soil. But once that disappeared I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to #46, I’ve discovered that I like Tilapia. Who knew?

Finally, dessert. I wanted to get a box of rice pudding so I was making something, but they didn’t have that at the Safeway. I know that Jell-O makes one. It should have been next to the tapioca. Anyway, I had to go with the pre-made tub from the dairy section. It would be uncouth to just scoop rice pudding into a bowl and declare it a full dessert, so I decided to go a little fancy. I nuked some raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and sherry to make a warm, raisin sauce. The sherry is what makes it fancy. They’re always drinking it in Bette Davis movies, so it must be true. God, I adore Bette Davis. Have you seen Now, Voyager? If not, go to Netflix and get it immediately.

Sorry. Back to rice pudding. But really, wouldn’t have been lame if I had just sprinkled the bland, pre-made pudding with some sad, dry raisins? The sauce turned out nicely (plump raisins!), so all in all, the pudding was a success.

So far this might have been the least involved meal I have made. So much of it was prepackaged. The most I did was chop some onions and celery and blanched some asparagus.

Dinner was served, quickly, with easy, and with a touch of class. Seriously, go brush up on your Bette Davis. She’s the cat’s pajamas.

Here is the finished product, which I think is visually appealing as well (Betty Crocker potatoes aside. Blech).