I suppose I take some time to stop in and say “Hello”, pop up a recipe that I’ve had sitting in draft stages for a few weeks, ask you how you’ve been? I just realized I haven’t posted anything for a long time. I was starting to worry if I had disappeared again, but…no….I don’t remember doing that. Hmm I can’t say why it’s been so long. I suppose life just tends to get away from us sometimes.

Consciously, my efforts have been focused on not working too much. I promised I wouldn’t and, other than getting in my car each afternoon and doing a loop around the cul-de-sac to ceremoniously symbolize leaving work to go home, I have been quitting at a reasonable hour. Epiphany’s don’t bestow themselves on me very often but I did have one recently. I was sitting at my desk in my home office and noticed the clock said 4:30pm. Looking at all the work left to do, or more noticing what I hadn’t accomplished that day, a thought occurred to me; “If I worked at an office, I would get up from my desk, get in my car and go home, regardless of the work left to do.”

So if I would do it in an office, why couldn’t I do it working at home?

Yes see, A-HA!!

Sadly I’ve cooked some wonderful dishes this past month and didn’t take photos or write down the recipes. What was I thinking??

This one I did however. I borrowed the base recipe from Emeril and just tossed in this and that. It turned out absolutely wonderful and was so light and fresh. I used balsamic capers which I have deemed the next “perfect food”. Granted I have no scientific evidence to support that claim but they’re so delicious one is not needed. Taste trumps science…most of the time…maybe not all the time…or perhaps some of the time. (thinking GMO’s here and taste would never trump that…or McIcky’s…ok ok not most of the time) In this instance it does.

Some personal touches I added were the artichokes, wine and fresh tomatoes as opposed to canned; although canned are perfectly fine.

The obligatory pat of butter and a fantastic sauce was born to top the whole thing. The best part about this dish, it took 25 minutes from start to finish.

You want quick, delicious and easy…this is it.

So how have YOU been? Anything new?

Love Tara!

Tomato & Caper White Fish

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

Light, tangy and perfect for a quick healthy meal.

Chef: Tara Conklin

Recipe type: Main Dish

Cuisine: Seafood

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 4 fillets white fish
• 1 leek, sliced with whites and green
• 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced OR 1 14oz can dice tomatoes.
• ¼ cup balsamic capers
• ½ can artichoke hearts (2-3) diced
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• ¼ white wine
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ½ lemon
• salt and pepper to taste (or seafood seasoning)

Instructions

1. Add a light coat of olive oil to both sides of fish.
2. Season to taste with salt and pepper or seafood seasoning.
3. Heat a large skillet or frying pan on medium heat with a douse of olive oil.
4. Cook fish for ⅔ minutes on both sides.
5. Add the wine and deglaze pan for 60 seconds.
6. Add leeks, tomato, garlic, capers, artichoke and spices; squeeze lemon over everything and top with butter.
7. Cook on medium-low heat unti fish is light and flaky, 3-5 minutes on each side.
8. Plate fish alone or top over pasta or rice.
9. Spoon sauce over the fish and serve.

3.2.1753

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Post tags: capers, fish, garlic, leeks, rice, seafood, tomatoes, wine

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One of my favorite things to eat is a ripe tomato, plucked fresh from the vine with a dash of sprinkled salt. That’s all, nothing else, just like that, delicious. Yet, I find it amazing that at one point tomatoes were shunned, even considered evil by some cultures. In contrast early natives to Mexico supposedly believed to observe another ingest the seeds of a tomato would impart the observer with the ability of divination. In yet another twist, early Brits & Americans believed the fruit to be poisonous, even unfit to for consumption (le GASP!) Inconceivable.

Actually not really, they were sorta-kinda right. Tomatoes have very low levels of a toxic poison called “tomatine”. Don’t worry there is no reason to panic or go tossing all your gorgeous tomato fruits in the hazard waste bin. There isn’t enough to cause harm and it’s mostly found in the leaves and stems.

Toxins and superstitions aside I wouldn’t stop eating them anyway – it would be like asking me to stop eating butter or chocolate and well that’s not happening any time in this lifetime,

or the next.

It is my goal to finally grown my own tomatoes this year. I will plant them, I will water, feed, cherish and love them. They will grow and I will consume them.

Believe it or not something magical happens when you cook tomatoes that increases levels of lycopene, one of the strongest antioxidants known. In fact eating enough cooked tomatoes (about 1/4 cup a day) has been shown to prevent ultraviolet damage to the skin. You DO have to eat them, not rub sauce on you as sun screen; although it may work, I’m not about to hit the beach looking like the main course in an Italian cookout.(...)
Read the rest of Classic Tomato Sauce Italiano (624 words)

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Post tags: garlic, italian, onions, sauces, tomato, wine

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Sometimes I get a hankerin’ for something but I’m not always sure what it is until i just stumble into it; and yes I just said “hankerin’ “.

Well such was the case last week-ish when I was in the mood for chocolate. Yes I’m rarely not in the mood for chocolate but I wanted something I hadn’t made in a long time; or ever.

At one point I had arbitrarily established a criteria my mysterious recipe had to meet.

• had to be chocolate (a give in here)
• had to be fairly quick (um, failed on this part)
• required to be both creamy and crunchy.
• must be eaten by the hands.

I flipped through cookbooks, Pinterest, magazines…nothing caught my eye. Then I saw the wrapper from a Ghirardelli chocolate bar sitting on top of my cookbooks. I had saved it for the hot chocolate recipe, which we love.

Curiously I looked it over and there was this recipe for marbled cheesecake bars and I knew I had found my fix. This was something I could get into.

(...)
Read the rest of Double Chocolate Cheesecake Bars (435 words)

© Tara for The Butter Dish, 2013. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bars, cheesecake, chocolate, cookies, fudge, ghirardelli

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