Lemon Garlic Tilapia

My son has been on a seafood kick and as I have had an aversion to it, I went in search of recipes for Tilapia, as he had it elsewhere and loves it.

I was not familiar with it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and it indicated they are low in mercury, saturated fat, calories, carbohydrates and sodium and they are good protein source.

Photo:  Wikimedia



As I had never cooked them before, I went in search of a simple recipe and found this one by user Eireann at Allrecipes and using suggestions by other users, adapted it and my son loved it (he made his into a sandwich on white bread) so I thought I would share it.

Per Allrecipes
the calories per serving prepared this way would be 142 , the total Fat: 4.4g and the Cholesterol 49mg

Adapted recipe:

• 4 tilapia fillets
• Non-Stick Coating Spray
  
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• Few dashes of pepper to taste 
• Paper towels   
• Plastic gloves (optional)

 

 
Spray a baking dish with non-stick coating spray (I used a 9x9 inch pan, but it depends on the size of the fish).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Saute the lemon juice, butter, minced garlic, parsley and a few dashes of pepper in a skillet on medium low heat for 4-5 minutes.

Rinse off cleaned fish and pat dry with paper towels.  This was a major gross out moment for me and suggest using plastic gloves if this bothers you.

Arrange the fish in the baking dish and pour over the sauteed mixture.








I baked mine for 15 minutes, then turned the fish over and baked for another 30 minutes.  The fish should be white and flake when you pull on it with a fork when done.

Might not be a good idea to watch man eating fish movies shortly before or thereafter.

CHERRY FLUFF

This is based on Lisa J.'s posting at Cut Out + Keep http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/cherry_fluff I varied my recipe slightly and used the following:

• 1 16 oz tub of lite whipped topping
• 1 can Cherry pie filling
• 1 can Crushed Pineapple
• 1 4 oz box White Chocolate Sugar-Free Jello Pudding
• 4 Single Serving packets Equal (artificial sweetner) You can serve it slightly chilled or frozen. This would be an excellent dessert to cool off with on a hot summer day. I I do intend on making this again and next time adding coconut for a more tropical flavor.

FRUGAL QUATTRO FORMAGGI PLUS

One our favorite dishes at a local restaurant is Quattro Formaggi but as the last time we went their it ran around $13 a plate. I searched the internet and found dozens of recipes and this was my attempt to try to copy it.

Quattro Formaggi means "four cheese" in Italian, but I used the Italian Blend Fancy Shredded Blend from Walmart and it contains six cheeses (Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Romano, Fontina and Asiago so that would be where the "plus" in the title comes in. I chose this as this as:

It contains all of the cheeses that were recommended in many of the recipes I researched: Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano and Fontina (although several recipes contained Gorgonzola, Gouda, Ricotta, Gruyere or Marscarpone).

Walmart has a limited selection of cheeses and gourmet cheeses at other stores start at $7 lb. The in this bag  were already shredded/grated and it saved time as I did not need to shred/grate it.

The bag of cheese was affordable at $1.67 for an 8 oz bag.  The total cost to make this was under $5.00 for approximately 6 servings.

This is recipe I came up with which turned out to be closest without breaking the bank to make it:



Pasta
1 box Barilla Medium Shell Pasta
2 TBSP margarine

Cook according to directions on the box. When done, drain and place in an oven safe bow and mix in the margarine. Place in oven on low heat to keep it warm.

Sauce
1 16 oz box of Half and Half
1 8 oz bag of Walmart Fancy Shredded Italian Blend Cheese
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper


Slowly warm the Half-and-Half on medium heat and the cheese. Once all of the cheese is added, add the nutmeg. Continue to cook until the all of the cheese is melted. It will be a sticky consistency and look like this:

Pour the sauce over the pasta and serve.


This is part of Presto Pasta Nights being hosted over at Sweet and Savory.  Go over and check out all of the other amazing pasta dishes!