Proud of My Tilapia

I am not a fish person. Not to say I don’t enjoy it; I just never make it or order it in restaurants. Growing up my mother cooked us the odd salmon or tuna steak, but that was about it. I was more of a pasta kid, what can I say? I still am.

So the fact that in the same week I’ve eaten scallops AND tilapia is sort of a big deal.

The Boyfriend cooked dinner tonight (because he is magical). This gave me time to clean my desk, YouTube Tom Petty, and sit around in wool socks.

Score.

He used a Real Simple 20 Minute Meal recipe to make Seared Tilapia with salad, with a few variations: canned mango instead of fresh, no ginger, yellow onion instead of red, and spring mix instead of watercress.  I personally have no photos of the process because I wasn’t there; the following snapshots are from The Boyfriend. Halfway through cooking he grabbed my camera off my desk and said, “I want to be proud of my tilapia.”

Ingredients, minus that box of truffles you see in the background:

Cooking the fish:

The finished product:

The dish was good (actually, my exact words were “This is freakin’ good!” through mouthfuls of fish). I’m terribly wary of anything too “fishy” and, brat that I am, I was sort of craving something hot and soup-like versus a salad on such a blustery evening. But the recipe (and the cute chef) won me over. After a week of eating only leftover Valentine’s Day cupcakes (I jest — or do I?), eating something real was refreshing. Definitely bookmark this recipe and save it for those nights when you’re hungry NOW but you want to do your body one better than frozen pizza.

While dinner was searing, I finished up a book my mother gave me for Christmas:

I quite liked it: the narrative is about eating and working and freaking out about the future, all of which are my personal hobbies. Phoebe details her entrance into the world of fine dining through her time at New York restaurant Per Se. Her style is relaxed and witty, like she’s your best friend, recalling her day at work while you two share wine and late-night take-out. The story focuses on beginnings: the opening of Per Se as well as the opening of Phoebe’s adult life. It’s an amusing portrait of haute-cuisine and the people who eat it. This was an accessible, friendly read, perfect for a recent graduate with no money and a penchant for anything edible. Gosh, my mother knows me well!