Five Ingredient Fish Dinner

We are keeping up with our simple week of recipes. We had a 3 ingredient dessert, 4 ingredient bread and now a 5 ingredient fish dinner.

I figured out how to cook fish in aluminum foil when I was on a diet last year and constantly exhaused. I learned later my exhaustion was not my diet, I was pregnant. Ha ha!

Anyway, because this recipe was cheap, easy and healthy I began to make it a lot when I was pregnant. I was coming home from work late in the evening and I needed something that could be prepped and cooked in under 30 minutes.

This is very healthy, it has protien, fiber and all the minerals and nutrients associated with squash and zucchini like vitiamin C and magense. And it's so inexpensive I made mine with Tilapia and it costs about $1.90 per person or about $2.06 if you eat over rice.

What you'll need:

Four pieces of tilapia (or red fish or salmon)

Two zucchini

Two squash

Fresh or dried cilantro

Soy sauce

Aluminum foil

**I have also put onion, oranges and lemon pepper. You can use pretty much anything. That's the beauty of this recipe.

Preheat your oven to 350 and let's get started.

Chop your veggies and make certain your fish is fully thawed.

Tear off four peices of foil. Place a piece of fish one each piece of foil. Sprinkle the fish with soy sauce and cilantro.

Cover each peice of fish with a healthy portion of the vegetables. Beleive me, two zuchini and two squash go a long way.

Fold the foil over the veggie and fish like a little envelope. Place all four foil packs on a baking sheet and place in the oven. You will need to cook it about 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Three (or four) ingredient bread

This week we are all about simplicity. We have had a simple smoothie, a three ingredient cake and now a three (or 4) ingredient bread.

I have mentioned before that my husband and I are not big drinkers. Drinking isn't something we have a moral or spiritual issue with, we just don't do it very often. So a bottle of wine or beer will last for months in our fridge.

My husband bought a sample six pack at Publix a few months back and was trying this beer - Yeti. It didn't quite suit his tastes. He was about to pour it out when I made him stop.  I don't like to see anything wasted, but I don't drink beer at all. So I scoured the internet until I found this recipe. Okay, it's got to be more simple than that, right?

Why yes, yes, it is. Just Google Beer Bread or Soda Bread and you will find a host of recipes. I just tooled with this one a bit to make it fit what I had in my cabinet 

Let's get started.

What you'll need:

3 cups flour*

1 tbsp. baking powder 

3 tablespoons brown sugar or honey

1 - 12 ounce bottle of beer. 

* if you use three cups self-rising flour then you won't need the baking powder.

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease a bread pan.

In a bowl sift or whisk your flour and baking powder. Add your honey and stir.

Then add your beer and mix, mix, mix.

It will be clumpy. That is good.

Spread into your pan and pop it in the oven for about 55 minutes until it passes the knife test.

This is really great with a little honey. (My husband put butter and honey on it and it was amazing.)

Three Ingredient Pineapple Ugly Cake

Picture this: It was Easter Sunday. We had to all be dressed and at church in a pinch and I was in the kitchen cutting potatoes and making sweet tea for Easter dinner when I realize we had no dessert. This is South Alabama! That won't do!

But what was I supposed to do? I still had to shower, dress, feed the baby and get him in his Easter outfit. And I had nothing to bake.

But I did have a box of cake mix I got BOGO at Publix, (Seriously, I love Publix) a can of Pineapple (also from Publix) and some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (Guess where I got that? Yup. Publix.).

So I threw them all in a casserole dish and hoped for the best. When I pulled it out of the oven I had buttery, flakey, sweet, tangy goodness.

What you'll need:

A boxed cake mix

A can of fruit or pie filling - any will work

Some butter - or in my case fake butter (which I rarely use because well, it can't be good for you)

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease that pan.

Drain your can of fruit and dump it in the pan.

Then dump the cake mix on top of the fruit.

Add some butter and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes. That's just enough time to shower and dress mama and baby!

Aren't you glad I said (chocolate) banana smoothie?

What is more delicious than a chocolate shake? Two chocolate shakes? Three maybe? Ah... frozen chocolate blended with dairy and whipped to a frenzy. But my pre pregnancy pants are loose, and I prefer them to stay that way. What is a chocolate lover to do? Improvise of course.

Here I bring you a rich, delicious, light and cheap -about $.90- (don’t you just love cheap) smoothie that you and the kids will love. It is one “Smooth Operator.” What? You don’t like Sade? Okay, it’s a “Smooth Criminal.” Alright, alright. I’m not funny. I will stop now.

What you’ll need:
One medium sized banana that you pealed, cut up and froze ($.14)
6 ounces fat free yogurt (3/4 cups) - this equals one container of Yoplait ($.60)
1 tbsp baking cocoa($.13)

Place your frozen banana in your blender with your yogurt and cocoa and blend until smooth. That’s it. You’re done. I know. I can’t believe it either.

One pot pork roast

Last week my grocer had pork roasts on sale for $1.99 a pound. As a rule I never pay more than $2.99 a pound for meat. The roasts were HUGE so I cut them in half, and had two -2 pound roasts.

We recently moved, and in a horrible twist of fate, my crock pot has gone missing. *clutches heart, sobs uncontrollably.

Let's all have a moment of silence for Clarese the Crock Pot.

Okay *sniffle* we can get back to topic. I pulled out the cast iron Dutch oven my husband gave me for Christmas (Yes, I am at the age where I get sexy gifts like Dutch ovens) and down to the business of making a sweet red pepper pork roast. A beef roast can be substituted if your family doesn't eat pork. This is an eight person roast, easy and costs around $10 to make. This is a great dish for company.

What you'll need:

1- 2 pound pork roast (or beef they both work the same for this recipe) ($4)

1 good sized onion($.99)

4 small sweet red bell peppers ($1.99)

1- 16 oz jar of salsa ($1.65)

A little smidgen of olive oil ($.09)

4 cups rice - not instant (to be served over) ($1.00)

Preheat your oven to 350 and oil the bottom of your pan. If you don't have a Dutch oven, a deep casserole dish will work.

Chop your onion and pepper into strips and line the bottom of the pan.

Place the roast over the onions and peppers and cover with salsa. Cover the dish and slide it into the oven. You will cook it on 350 for about 3 hours.

Cook the rice according to the package directions. (What? You need me to tell you how to cook rice?)

This is seriously delicious and ridiculously easy to make.

Idiot proof shrimp

Need a dinner in a hurry that is sure to please? Try idiot proof shrimp! There are only three ingredients (four if you count olive oil, which you shouldn't).

My mother makes something similar and I pulled this together one night when cooking for my husband for "date night." (When you have an infant date night usually means you just eat off the good china.)

What you'll need:

A pound of shrimp (pealed and deveined)

1 cup white wine

4 tbs (1/4 cup) minced garlic

I love the look of the oil mixed with the wine.

Warm up a little olive oil over a medium heat. Add in the shrimp. Once they have just started to turn pink pour over the wine and add the garlic. Be sure you continue to keep everything moving in the pan or else the garlic will burn and be gross.

After the shrimp are good and pink remove from heat and serve immeidatly. This is great over pasta or paired with a salad. And if you want to finish off the wine you cooked the shrimp in, have at it!