Caribbean Nut-Crusted Fish

I have hundreds of recipes that I've got saved on my computer. If I'm up late at night and can't sleep, I'll browse through food blogs and recipe web sites. If I see something that I'd like to prepare someday, I'll save it. Sometimes I get adventurous and try a recipe and other times I fall into a rut and make the same dishes over and over and over again.

This month I decided to take a blank calendar and come up with a plan for dinner for every night of the month. I've tried doing this a week at a time, but I'm really inconsistent about doing it and then I lose my coordination between the menu, my grocery list and the execution.

So, this month I took about 45 minutes and filled out the calendar with meals, including nights for left-overs and a night out (or 3). During this time I also put a week-by-week shopping list together. I took an extra minute to plan how not to waste some items, like cilantro. Using 2 tablespoons in a recipe and having the rest of the bunch left over usually means it'll go bad - at least at my house. So, I grouped certain recipes based on ingredients I knew I'd need to use before they went bad.

Now it's February15th. I've had to make quite a few adjustments to my dinner calendar. I didn't account for the Super Bowl and that menu. Then we went bowling one night so I moved that night's dinner to another night. And one night, even after so much careful planning, I forgot an essential ingredient and it was getting too late to go to the grocery store. I learned a lesson though...ALWAYS have a frozen back-up on hand! This came in handy for this occasion and it'll come in handy for the night that I really am not up for cooking.

On with the Caribbean Nut-Crusted Fish. This recipe comes from my ever faithful Kraft website. I know it's good to eat fish - for those that eat fish. So, to follow my dinner calendar I've got one fish meal a week.

After mixing together the chopped nuts, fresh cilantro, minced garlic, peanut oil and lime zest I was almost ready to eat the topping! It looked and smelled terrific. The recipe called for covering the fish (I used tilapia) in lime juice and then coating with the topping. Then, it called for baking it for 10-12 minutes at 350F. On the packaging for the fish however, the cooking instructions call for baking it at 400F for 30-35 minutes. My husband suggested I follow the packaging. I decided to jump online and read the recipe reviews. Out of 20 reviews, no one said that it needed more time or that it was undercooked. So, following the recipe I go, I go.

After 12 minutes I attempted to see if the fish was flaky by ever so slightly taking a fork to it. I was trying to be so careful so that testing it wouldn't mess up the subject of my photo..I mean, my husband's dinner. It looked good to go so I plated it and spent about 10-ish minutes trying to photograph it with my new camera. My house has such crappy lighting that I find the task frustrating. But I took a suitable photo and determined that the food was probably almost cold by then. I popped the whole thing back in the oven for about 5 minutes on low heat.

After all was said and done, my husband really liked it! He likes having saucy dishes and this one wasn't saucy, but he really enjoyed it and said he'd enjoy having it again. Success!

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/caribbean-nut-crusted-fish-90666.aspx