Easy trout with garlic

            Had enough turkey? Not that the turkey and fixings weren’t delicious, but I got a longing today for a light fish dinner. I got one Ruby Red trout filet from the market where I’m sure it’s fresh, not pre-frozen, and roasted it.

            Just put the trout filet, skin side down on a sheet pan. A friend blessed me with a sheet pan that fits into my toaster oven, so I used that. Mix a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, a crushed garlic clove, and lemon to taste, and pour over the trout. Sprinkle some capers on it for an extra tang if you want.

            Pre-heat your toaster oven to 450 and roast the trout until it is opaque—probably ten minutes. Don’t overcook or it will be dry. Just scrape it gently off the pan and directly onto the plate and enjoy. Yeah, I should have taken a picture, but above is the half filet I saved for lunch tomorrow. A bit of lemon, and it will be just great. I like leftovers cold, but you could easily heat at a low temperature in the toaster oven.

            Thanksgiving wasn’t completely out of my mind, though. I so enjoyed the old-fashioned green bean casserole that I made a small one for myself. One can of cut green beans (not French style) and half a can of mushroom soup, a bit of salt and pepper and a dash of Worcestershire. Who needs French’s fried onion rings? I have at least one serving of that left for lunch tomorrow too.

            How about you? What do you cook when you’re up-to-here with turkey?

Winter vegetables

One of the things I love about my retirement life is that I have friends of all ages. I hope they keep me current and prevent my becoming an old stodge. Last night I had a couple in their thirties that I had met during the course of daily life and come to like. They recently had a great loss, and I wanted to reach out to them, which is hard when you're acquaintances and haven't quite moved to the friendship level, though I sense that coming. So I did what I do best--I invited them to dinner.
Unfortunately, it was not one of my best dinners. I have a minute steak with anchovy butter recipe that I'm anxious to try, but they didn't strike me as steak people. I inquired if they liked fish. They did. So I did something I won't try again--I pan-fried trout filets. Only instead of the lovely filets I put in the pan, I served trout hash. I had some of the "hash" tonight--livened it up with more salt and pepper and some lemon butter--tasted much better, still looked awful. Honest, instead of figuring out what I did wrong, I'm just not going to try that again. I'll eat my trout in restaurants and stick to fish like sea bass and salmon that I know how to cook.
The rest of the meal was better, and they really liked the roasted vegetables. Here's what I did:

Heated oven to 450

Peeled and cut in large chunks:
3 beets (I bought the greens and ended up not doing anything with them)
1 large baking potato
1 sweet onion
1/2 lb. large mushrooms (stemmed and cut in half)
a good-sized bunch of baby carrots (for eco purposes you could clean and chunk whole carrots--which I should have done--baby carrots have been soak in something, chlorine I believe, which is supposed to be harmless but why eat it?)

Sprayed a baking pan and dumped the veggies in. Seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and about two Tbsp. each of dried oregano and basil. Poured vegetable oil over them (I think olive oil would be too strong here and I tried be moderate with the oil--you don't want greasy vegetables) and baked 15 minutes. Pulled the pan out to stir and added:

a handful of green beans, stemmed

Baked another 15 minutes. (Actually I baked it longer because we got too talking, but it was too much; the green beans were way overdone)

You can add or subtract any vegetables you want though root vegetables are particularly good.

Another thing I did that turned out well was to make my own ranch dip (I'm trying so hard to avoid preserved foods):

about a quarter cup Greek yogurt
about 2 tsp. mayonnaise
chopped chives (it killed me to buy them but my annual crop is hibernating right now)
onion power and garlic powder--maybe half a tsp. each

I served this with Central Market organic black pepper and sea salt potato chips. So good! This doesn't make much, so you might want to double the recipe.