Monday, October 17, 2011

Fish, Greens, and Rainbow Pepper Salad

I blew through much of my weekly veggie stash for dinner last night. I had frozen tilapia--I am not a true vegetarian. I think I might be a lacto-ovo-pescatarian, though pescatarian is about as proper a word as rage-aholic ... Anyway, I also had a drawer full of greens, green and plum tomatoes, young onions, and five beautiful bell peppers, all different colors. So here's what we did.

Tilapia over Tomatoes and Mixed Greens
Chop a handful of collards and a bunch of swiss chard leaves. Chop the chard stems separately, along with 2 or three young onions, whites and tops. Also chop two small green tomatoes and three plum tomatoes into 1-inch chunks. Melt 1TB butter and 2TB oil in a skillet. Add the onion, chard stems, and tomatoes and cook until chard is soft.
Meanwhile, season tilapia fillets with a little salt and pepper or lemon pepper seasoning. Spray a pan with oil and add fillets, then add enough white wine to cover bottom of pan and cover. I turned mine once during cooking, but I'm not good at this so they fell apart. They should cook through easily without turning in five or six minutes.
When onion chard mixture is ready - don't cook this so far down that the tomatoes get really mushy - add green leaves, cover the skillet, and remove from heat. Try to avoid letting the leaves get too wilted.
Serve tilapia over greens mixture, and don't skimp on the liquid.

Rainbow Pepper Salad
One farmer at our weekly market sells baskets of mixed gypsy peppers for $2 apiece. I buy these every week. Last week my basket had two greenish-yellow gypsies, an orange, a red, a green, and a gorgeous purple. The orange was the sweetest pepper I have ever had. This salad was the best way I could think of to show off the colors and the flavor.
Cut several peppers of various colors into matchstick slices and place in a seal-able container. Add olive oil (about 1/4 cup), cider vinegar  (about 1/4 cup) and about 1 tsp sugar. Cover and shake to combine.
If you're tempted to add herbs to this, try them out before adding to the whole salad. I originally added fresh basil to mine and as soon as I tasted it I knew it was a mistake. Lost the flavor of the peppers. If your peppers are fresh and tasty, you shouldn't need anything else to make this salad delicious.

No comments: