Fish Night

We had a small group of just the regulars at Fish Night again this week – in large part because one of our friends and expected guests had bad timing. Her baby was not due until Thanksgiving, but he decided to make his appearance on Sunday night! We were in the hospital waiting room with her family until very late in the evening. And my rowing buddy (and OLLI lecturer extraordinaire) were fortunate enough to get in one more row on Monday morning before the season closes. So, all-in-all, I was pressed to get Fish Night dinner on the table and relied on the tried and true – get someone else to do most of the work for you!

We had a rice cracker mix with drinks and started with a tossed green salad. Then:

• · Oven Fried Tilapia – here’s a great secret, but you have to keep it between you and me. Costco sells amazing, already breaded, tilapia that you just throw into the oven for 10 minutes and your guests will rave. The only dilemma is whether to fess up. I do, but it’s hard. I want to take credit. I did serve my home-made tartar sauce. More on tilapia in a later post. (The breaded fillets freeze well, by the way. Just be sure to use them within a couple of weeks or they lose some of their excellent flavor.)
  
• · Macaroni and Cheese – I don’t have a recipe for this. I just cook some macaroni, put it in a casserole dish and add cheese and milk/cream and seasonings.
• · Roasted Maple-Mustard Green Beans – a new recipe for me. This would have been an excellent dish if I had roasted them the vegetables long enough. It definitely takes longer than the recipe suggests. The beans and carrots should look roasted before you take them out of the oven. This is a very pretty dish.

To complete my strategy of avoiding work if at all possible, my guests ate brown and serve dinner rolls and a dish of pickled asparagus from Safeway.

I tried to keep to my strategy when it came to dessert, but the cookies I had been eyeing for months at Costco were awful! So I made some peanut butter cookies at the last minute – always a guest favorite with tea and coffee.

Fascinating Fish Facts: Learning where to buy fresh fish in our area took longer than it should have because I was initially unwilling to give up on “regular” grocery stores. I don’t know how many times I ended up with tasteless or “off” seafood before I understood that stores like Safeway, Giant and Shoppers are just not able or willing to devote the effort needed to be purveyors of excellent fish.

I love to buy fish from a real fishmonger – a store dedicated to seafood. Until this year, I loved going to Slavin’s (M Slavin & Sons), just off I-395 at Glebe Road. This was a branch of the famous NYC fish market by the same name. But it was too good to be true, and it closed after about five years in our area. The Maine Avenue wharf is another excellent place to buy seafood, but I’m rarely willing to go into DC to shop for Fish Night. Does anyone know of a good fishmonger in Northern Virginia?

For now, I am delighted with Wegmans and (surprise!) Costco. Both have excellent fish and know how to handle fish to keep it at its best. I’m not buying fish anywhere else these days. I once bought from Harris Teeter and was impressed, but have not been back because I love Wegmans so much. But if you have to buy fish from a seller you don’t know, NEVER buy it without smelling it. Any reputable fish seller will gladly wave a piece of fish under your nose. They expect a discerning shopper to confirm freshness in this way. If the seller shows the slightest resistance, keep walking. How do you confirm freshness with your nose? Just make sure the fish does not have a strong "fishy" smell – good fresh fish should smell like the ocean or the beach. More in a later post on choosing fish once you get to the store – and on frozen fish options.

My daughters tell me that blog posts should have photos and I intended to try to add a photo or two to this one, but babies wait for no woman. I’ll do better next time. (No post next week -- Fish Night cancelled so the cook can pamper herself at a Mexican spa!)