Fresh Fish!

We try to incorporate fish into our diet, but it is not always the pick of the litter when your only option is the grocery store seafood counter. We happened to luck out with some very firm tilapia that was on sale this week at our market. I had seen Giada prepare a lemon vinaigrette for whitefish and I thought it would be a light and simple accompaniment to the fish. We paired it with some roasted asparagus drizzled with a balsamic reduction and had a fast, healthy meal that you could certainly serve to company. I simply placed the tilapia on some oiled parchment paper, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a shot of fresh lemon juice. After I wrapped them up, they went on the grill for about 10 minutes while the asparagus roasted and the balsamic reduced. The vinaigrette came together in a flash and was spooned on while the fish was hot off the grill.

Lemon Vinaigrette

courtesy of: Giada De Laurentiis

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup lightly packed fresh Italian parsley leaves

2 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Blend the lemon juice, parsley, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pepper in a blender. With the machine running, gradually blend in the oil. Season the vinaigrette, to taste, with more salt and pepper.

*Note: I did not feel the need to add any additional seasoning. I used the stick blender to whip this together and it worked like a dream.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

We love any excuse to eat Mexican food, so we figured that Cinco de Mayo would be a great day to pull out our favorite fish taco recipe. We were going to use tilapia, but settled on cod since the store didn't have any available. Matt took care of marinating the fish and I went to work on the chipotle lime cilantro sauce. Neither one of us measured a thing, and I frankly don't remember if they were even the same ingredients we used last time, but these babies were tasty. It doesn't hurt that our local farmer market had lots of the ingredients on sale, either!

Before we started on dinner, I was finishing up a little project for a friend who just announce she was pregnant. I have been wanting to use the sugar cookie recipe from Ashlee, and now was my chance. They were delicious and are now my go-to recipe when I need to make iced sugar cookies. I used a simple royal icing and although it was not the Wilton one I have previously used, the results were great and I think I liked the taste better.