Fish and Greens: A Simple Meal

I'm already falling down, people. I had a recipe all written up (Sunday’s dinner), but you know, these things need pictures, and this eggplant failed to cooperate (such divas those eggplants) and that made me think about how some red peppers would have been pretty, so next week for that recipe.

So I had a back up! Monday night’s dinner…still needs some tweaking. Hopefully next week. It was my first attempt at an “original” recipe.

Now you get to hear about tonight’s dinner which is extremely exotic and complicated.

Fish, Sweet Potato and Green Beans
You will need (umm, duh):
Fish
Sweet potatoes
Green beans
Butter
Sea salt

About an hour before dinner, I throw some sweet potatoes in the oven at 350. I preheat the oven if I’m feeling fancy. Otherwise not. About a half hour before we want to eat, I throw the fish in next to the sweet potatoes. About 15 minutes later, I look for some butter that the dog hasn’t eaten* and slap it in a skillet, when it’s melted, I toss in some green beans and sea salt. The green beans take 5-10 minutes, at which point I turn off the skillet and check on my fish and potatoes. When they’re done, and this is critical, I slather them with butter and add a bit of sea salt.

I know, I know. This isn't a recipe. Listen, you should thank me for reminding you to eat more fish. Or maybe you should freak out about the mercury.

I hate that fish, which should be so healthy, is questionable these days. I read a study recently that the mercury thing is overblown. But then there are a bunch of scary studies about mercury. I hate studies. And pollution.

I can never for the life of me remember which fish you’re supposed to eat (salmon, tilapia, and sardines are supposedly some of the safest), but I look it up when I need to because we do try to eat fish regularly for all the health benefits we know about and the ones we don’t know about yet.

Can you think of any healthy people groups who don’t eat fish? Probably you can, smarty pants, but there aren’t a whole lot because people usually live near water sources and water sources usually have fish.

Agustin and Adam love fish. I…am okay with fish. Slathering the fish in butter** helps me immensely. I like pairing the fish with sweet potatoes because it makes me think of traditional islander food, which I like feeding to my little Quarter Rican bub. The green beans, well, keepin’ it real, I’ve been known to skip them, but I do try my best to include green plants in as many of our meals as possible.

As lame and boring as this meal seems when you’re posting it to the internets, it is warm and yummy and doesn’t require a bunch of weird ingredients and, best of all, it’s SUPER EASY. I make this on days I’m feeling tired because you can do it in slow motion.

It’s also nice because you can often find the organic version of the produce in a regular grocery store. I’m still figuring out where my best sources for quality foods are in our new place, so that was helpful.

*At my parents’ house we were going through butter at a breakneck pace, but there were so many people living there that we didn’t realize just how fast. I would buy more butter, my dad would buy more butter; my sister would open a stick one evening and the next morning I’d open one. Finally we put it all together and realized that Kona had been swiping sticks off of the counter. If it’s still in its paper, he eats that too so that there’s no evidence.

**I grew up thinking that butter was evil, but now I’m hearing a lot of good things about it (The Nourished Life has been writing about it).