Eat This: Pickled Peppers

Each year I grow herbs and peppers in my backyard in containers.  This year, I planted two tiny little jalapeño pepper plants I bought from the Home Depot back in March.  I think I paid $1.50 for each and by September they are 3.5 feet tall and producing lots of peppers.

I leave them on the plant until they turn red and then harvest and keep in the refrigerator until I have enough. I think they taste better than the green peppers, maybe more mellow?  For this recipe, I used a few large green jalapeños from the market to add some color.  These are definitely not like my Cowboy candy.  These are pickles. Great on a sandwich or as a, well, pickle!

Check em out.

Eat This: Sunday Fish

Italian salmon with tomatoes and herbs and redfish in lemon butter.

Two fish for dinner this evening:  one redfish, pan roasted in a simple butter and lemon and salmon cooked in the Italian manner.  Both delicious. Both easy. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Using two oven proof pans; I used one Calphalon all stainless and one non-stick (which I used for the redfish).

So here's how I did it:

Sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil - you will need 1/4 Cup.

One can of fire-roasted tomatoes and fresh oregano (you can substitute dried but I like the taste of fresh) - about 1/4 Cup loosely packed fresh oregano or 2 Tablespoons dried.

One fresh redfish fillet - As small or as large as you like - this one was 1# and at $14/lb. was very nice.

One half of a salmon fillet (fresh, wild caught) - this was about 1# as well.

Combine the fresh oregano, tomatoes and the sun-dried tomatoes.

Add 2 Tablespoons capers, drained, 1 Tsp. garlic powder, 1 Tsp. onion powder, 1 Tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, 4 Tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 Tsp. black pepper, 1/2 Tsp. Kosher salt and

... five chopped green onions. Substitute fresh garlic and onion for the powder (my original recipe called for the powder)

Oh yeah, and a glass of wine while doing this is almost required, right?

For the salmon, put the tomato mixture in the pan and sit the salmon fillets on top.

Spoon about 3 Tablespoons of the mixture on top.  For the redfish, I combined 3 Tablespoons of butter and 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice.  Pour the butter mixture over the redfish fillet and shake freshly ground pepper over the top.

I roasted the pans together for 25 minutes.  Be sure to check at 20 mins. Overcooked fish is nasty.  The saving grace is that both these recipes are really forgiving.

The results:

Salmon in tomatoes and herbs.

Redfish in lemon and butter.