Halibut with Mint Chutney

Halibut with Mint Chutney is one of our favorite dishes.   I wrote about this same dish back in March.    I haven't made this dish as frequently as I did last year, because I have found so many new recipes I love.     This is a Cooking Light recipe you can find at myrecipes.com.

This dish has Indian flavors so I served the halibut with Basmati rice and the same Indian Spiced Green Beans I often serve with Tandoori Chicken.  

It was a healthy and delicious dinner and less than 500 calories for 4oz of halibut, half cup of the green beans, and 2oz of cooked rice.

Sauteed Halibut with Romesco Sauce

I was in the mood for fish tonight and wanted to try something new, so I decided to make Sauteed Halibut with Romesco Sauce.   I have never made Romesco Sauce before and it seemed like a sauce which should have a lot of flavor from looking at the recipe I got from Cooking Light.

Photo: John Autry; Styling: Cindy Barr

I was not disappointed.   I think this dinner was probably one of the best meals I have made in a few weeks.   We loved the sauce with the sauteed halibut.

I served this with rice and sauteed spinach and it was so good, I was looking forward to eating the left overs the next night.

Halibut with Peach and Pepper Salsa

In the San Francisco Bay Area, our peaches came in kind of late this year.   It seems like locally grown, ripe peaches didn't show up in the stores until just a few weeks ago.   Its been a long wait.

Photo: Gentl and Hyers; Styling: Kendra Smoot

I saved this Cooking Light recipe for Halibut with Peach and Pepper several weeks ago and have been waiting for the right opportunity to try it.   I thought it might be too soon after I made the pineapple salsa with pork, but I just couldn't wait any longer and I wasn't sure if the peaches could wait any longer.

The ingredients of the salsa are fresh peaches, red bell pepper, fresh oregano, arugula, green onions, lemon juice and garlic.   I added a little sugar as well which was not in the recipe.   You could serve just about anything with this salsa and it would taste great, I'm sure, but the salsa with the halibut was wonderful.  

I served this with zucchini sauteed in olive oil and buttery corn on the cob.   My wife and I really enjoyed this dinner.

5oz of cooked halibut per serving, plus about 3/4 cup of the salsa, half an ear of corn with some butter, and a quarter cup of zucchini came out to about 400 calories.

Halibut Meunière with Orzo and Sauteed Zucchini

From what I have read it looks like working more fish rich in Omega 3 into my diet would be good for my heart and my brain.   I like seafood a lot and try to cook fish for dinner about once every two weeks or so.    I recently discovered that shrimp is relatively high in cholesterol and this was a surprise.   Well, I don't mind cooking less shrimp and more fish like Halibut.   Salmon season will be starting in less than two weeks and I am looking forward to fresh wild salmon!

Halibut season is already here and I decided to make a new recipe tonight, Halibut Meuniere.   This recipe had many positive reviews on myrecipes.com, but my wife and I did not like this dish.   I don't think there was anything wrong with the flavors but several other things seemed to go wrong prior to serving this dish.

Photo: Randy Mayor, Styling: Cindy Barr

First of all, the Whole Foods I shop at in Campbell, CA is very small and sometimes they run out of things.   The only fresh halibut left by the time I got to the store today were a few end pieces which were probably too thin for this dish to turn out well.    They were too thin for me to cut the skin off and I think this recipe would work better without skin on the fish.

The second issue was that I used a new frying pan.   I could not get my usual pan clean after I used it last time and my wife bought me a new pan.   This pan has a heavier handle and it tilts back a little leaving the part of the pan on the far side of the handle lifted off the burner a tad.   So, the stuff on that side of the pan did not get cooked as well.   So some pieces were not cooked as well as others.

The third issue is that the burner on my electric range top is not level and so the oil or in this case the butter in the pan flows to one side of the pan.   I hate that.   And the problem was worse because of the tilting pan.

I cooked about 24 ounces of halibut and we ate half of it, but I threw the rest out and will have to come up with a plan B for tomorrow nights dinner.  At least this was a healthy dish... low fat, low sodium.

On a more positive note, the orzo turned out fine.   I cook the orzo according to the instructions on the package, and then after I cook and drain the orzo, I add about a tablespoon of butter for every 6 ounces (dry) of orzo and about 1/8 teaspoon of salt, and 2 or 3 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley.

The zucchini I sautee in olive oil and I sprinkle some salt on the zucchini while it is being sauteed.

The orzo and zucchini were good, and I have enough left over that I can use them as left overs for whatever I come up with as the main dish for tomorrow night.

Blackened Halibut Baja Tacos

I love fish tacos and Cooking Light has several great fish taco recipes.   Saturday night is the night I usually try a new recipe and tonight I made Blackened Halibut Baja Tacos based on Cooking Light's Blackened Tilapia Baja Taco recipe on myrecipes.com.    I don't really like to use tilapia because its almost always farm raised and I try to avoid farm raised fish.    Fresh halibut season just started and the fresh, wild caught halibut was wonderful.   This was my favorite meal since the Putanesca I made about a week and a half ago. 

The spice rub on the fish consists of cumin, paprika, garlic powder, salt, brown sugar, red pepper and oregano.  I will have to go back and compare this to the pork tenderloin spice rub I use which is very similar in the ingredients used but a much different flavor.     We finished every bite of fish. 

The jalapeno sauce for these tacos is made of fresh cilantro (hard to go wrong when something starts with fresh cilantro), sour cream, lime juice and jalapeno.    The sauce was so good, that during dinner I was really wishing I had made extra sauce to pour over my taco.

My wife really liked this dinner as well, so this is definitely something I will make again in the future.