The day begins as any Sunday should, well except that it's Wednesday. Minor detail. It's my day off and I love an early start because I just have that much more time to enjoy the weekend. Off I go, shuffling my way down to Simple Pleasures with my netbook anticipating that glorious cup of freshly roasted coffee as the sun arises on this lovely, crisp, clear morning. As is normal for me on a lazy day, I tool around for a couple of hours on some of my favorite foodie blogs, making lists and jotting down ideas for the coming week as I down a couple of pints of Joe before heading home.
In serious weekend mode I threw together my favorite Paris hotel breakfast. Homemade applesauce & yogurt with some cream cheese and blueberry jam on a crispy baguette. Oooooh-la-la and magnifique. Good stuff. I bungeed up my market basket and pedaled off on my bicyclette a la biblioteque then on to la marche then stopped off at my favorite margarita bar before heading on home for some Little Kitchen time. Was that my first mistake?
I'd been sitting on this particular recipe for a week or so after having purchased all the ingredients. My hesitation was that I've really been trying to avoid recipes that are substitutionally (is that a word?) low calorie/low fat, but when this one came to me via email, I was intrigued: Fish & Chips. One of my faves that I rarely eat 'cuz I have to have it smothered in tartar sauce and malt vinegar not to mention the fried aspect of it. I mean how good it that? Especially with a Guinness.
One of my, whadayacallit, foodie resolutions is to learn to appreciate fish in a healthier way. Cook it. Eat it. Like it. Fish.
Hungry Girl is a site that my pals at Weight Watchers seem totally gaga for. I've had a lot of success on that program and I'm always looking for more ways to embrace it and be motivated by it. Since I've only recently gotten on the cheffy track I've been more focused on the fruits and veggies. The site looks like fun and I love the 60's Bewitched animation graphics on the HG site.
The chips are oven roasted butternut squash. I embraced the squash this year and just happened to have one sitting on my table. So far, so good. Usually when I roast veggies I toss them with some olive oil, salt, pepper and some fresh herbs. This recipe instructs to spray the squash fries with non-stick spray and a sprinkle of kosher salt then bake for ten minutes on each side. Fries came out limp and soggy. Fries will become soup tonight.
I bought tilapia though the recipe called for cod. Was that my next mistake? I coated it with egg substitute and then a combination of panko bread crumbs and Fiber One cereal crumbled in the food processor and then seasoned up with some Old Bay, salt, pepper and garlic powder. I cooked it in the broiler as instructed, well a little longer (next mistake) as I'd gotten caught up in making my own tartar sauce (from The Joy of Cooking) so the fish came out really dry. The tartar sauce was pretty darned good though.
I'll try this again tonight just to be fair, but I'm reminded of something I read in Sam the Cooking Guy last week. When asked why he doesn't do more low-fat, low-calorie recipes his response was something like "...all of my recipes are low-calorie/low-fat, but when it says it serves six, that means there are six servings to the dish not two".
'Nuf said.
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