Fez-Style Baked Fish

It's summer, which means on any given day, we're likely to be out playing right up until dinnertime.  So I try to get everything ready for dinner in the morning or the night before so that the most I have to do at dinnertime is stick a prepared casserole in the oven, dump a bunch of stuff into a skillet or even less if possible. 

This is a new twist (for me) on flavors for fish...I love the combination of tomatoes and olives, potatoes and saffron, garlic and cumin but I've never applied it to fish.  The original recipe calls for cilantro along with parsley, but I'm one of those people to whom cilantro tastes weird so I substituted garden mint (read: I can't remember what variety of mint it is anymore) for the cilantro.  I also didn't have cherry tomatoes on hand, so I used a 15 oz. can of cut-up, drained whole tomatoes instead. 

Here's what I did this morning...I mixed up the marinade for the fish (which is still thawing a leetle), parboiled the potatoes and put them in my baking dish, and sliced/assembled the rest of the veggies.  I put the fish in the marinade (even if it's not totally thawed) later in the afternoon before we went out.  When we got home, I put the 3 components together in the baking dish while the oven preheated and baked 30 minutes while wrestling the kiddos into a dinner-appropriate state of cleanliness.  If I had been prepping the night before because I'd be gone all day, I'd go ahead and marinate the fish starting in the morning but not overnight due to the acid content of the marinade.


Another make-ahead thought...if you have leftover boiled potatoes from another meal, use those in this dish!  A single layer of pre-cooked taters in a square baking dish will do you.

One more note...my husband liked this very well as a fish dish, but also thought it would rock as a chicken dish.  Just bake 30-40 minutes for chicken breasts, until they're cooked through.
Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/dining/baked-fish-fez-style-recipe.html



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Saffron Chili

Dratnabbit, I made this chili the other night and forgot to take any pictures!  It *looks* like regular ol' chili, so you're really not missing much in the visual aid department, but what really sets it apart is the flavor and aroma that the saffron brings and we don't have smell-o-blog technology any way.

This is an adaptation of another Frugal Gourmet recipe.  I halve the recipe b/c I'm only feeding a small army, not a huge one, and do a lot of the steps differently to keep from making every single pot I own dirty. 

The recipe calls for 2 spendy ingredients...shallots and saffron.  They really are worth it here.  If you don't want to splurge on both, substitute red onion for the shallots, but you must, must, must have saffron for this recipe to be anything but plain ol' chili.  A small pinch goes a long way and really does shine through.  Other ideas for using saffron include: Saffron cornbread, Scalloped Potatoes and Saffron Griddlecakes. 

For prep-ahead/make-ahead instructions...to prep ahead, chop the shallots/onion and garlic and combine.  Stir saffron into broth.  Measure out spices.  That's about all you need to do.  You can ofc make this entirely ahead to reheat (in a crockpot, perhaps) or freeze.  I served this chili same-day and froze the leftovers for another meal of chili stroganoff (2 cups chili melted with 8 oz. cream cheese and served with bread and veggies for dipping). 

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Spatchcocked Chicken with Saffron Cornbread Stuffing

Quit giggling, it's a real word.  It basically means butterflying, but isn't "spatchcocking" so much more fun?   Chickens prepared this way cook faster and take up less freezer space so it's really a useful technique, whatever you call it.

You can do plain ol' cornbread stuffing if you want, especially if you're working with a boxed mix or store-bought cornbread to save time, but this is a superb cornbread recipe, if I do say so myself.  If you use a mix, do two boxes of a Jiffy-type mix or use 1 8"-9" pan of store-bought cornbread.
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