saturday seafood soiree

this weekend went by a little faster than i had hoped for but it was definitely one filled with some tasty dinner and breakfast treats. saturday's menu was in honor of delana- she had been craving fish for quite a few weeks now and we finally decided that this weekend we were going to put an end to that. after putting in our time at the gym, we went over to The Fresh Market- a local equivalent to Whole Foods- and loaded up on all that we need for our seafood fest.

to start we grabbed a pound of some zucchini and squash, followed up with a pound of new potatoes. these 3 ingredients plus some frozen broccoli from earlier in the week as well as some carrot rounds would make up our side dish. after finishing up at the produce section, off to the fish counter. we knew we definitely wanted salmon so we went ahead and asked for half a pound of that. the next question was did we want a) tilapia b)flounder or c) cod? our answer: b) flounder. we now had our sides, and entree. we made our way past the meats section and into the bread section. though not part of our original menu, we decided some good, crusty bread was not something we could pass up on and went ahead and grabbed a "rosemary olive oil batard." i cannot lie, a good crusty bread can be quite heavenly and this one was close to it. we were set and paid our dues at the checkout line. our fish fest rounded out to about $18 dollars. not bad for dinner for 2.

once it was close to dinner time, we got started on some prep work. to start, i made a homemade tartar sauce comprised of the following:

• fat free mayo- again we are health conscious but feel free to use regular mayo
• white vinegar
• chopped dill
• minced sweet pickles
• ground mustard powder
• creamy horseradish sauce
• worcestershire sauce
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper

i wish i had an exact recipe but i just added each ingredient to taste and just neglected to write the exact measurements down. after i've played around with it some more, i'll be sure to give an updated recipe.

once that was done, i went ahead and set the oven to broil. the next step was to chop up our veggie filled side dish, which went a little like this :

• 1 zucchini and 1 squash - each halved lengthwise and cut into semi circles
• 2 medium carrot stalks - peeled and cut on a bias/angle
• 1 medium new potato- halved lengthwise and diced
• 2 cups of broccoli florets

place all your cut up vegetables in a bowl and toss with 1.5 tsp of olive oil, coarse salt and pepper. in a large skillet, add 1 cup of water to steam the vegetables, adding your potatoes first followed by the broccoli,then the carrots and lastly the zucchini and squash. all together, it should take about 15 minutes for these to cook.

you're still reading? awesome. it's now time for our entree: broiled salmon and flounder.

Once i had the veggies going, i got started on the fish. i cut the salmon in half lengthwise, to ensure that we would each get an even sized piece. i did leave the skin on just for simplicity's sake and seasoned each one with a touch of kosher salt and a mix of cracked black and white peppercorns. the flounder underwent the same procedure, except that it spent a little more time under the knife being cut into 4 equal sized fillets. since i don't own a broiler rack, i made my own using a cookie sheet and two cooling racks that i sprayed with pam to prevent the fish from sticking and just layed each filet onto the cooling racks and placed the onto the lowest rack of my preheated oven.

dinner will now be ready in about 12 more minutes. the following is the end result, plated and ready to be dug into.

if you have any recipes for tartar sauce, or cocktail sauce or any type of sauce that you think might go with this type of dish - let me know. what's your ideal seafood night? favorite fish? favorite side dish to compliment fish? not a fish fan? then let me know what your favorite weekend dish is hands down. i might want to try fixing it sometime.