Peppers Aplenty? Make Some Fish With Bell Peppers!

As always, when the recipe isn't mine (even if I've tweaked it), I'm saying right up front that this recipe is not of my own creation. Instead, Nellie at From Garden to Soup Bowl originally posted this. I did make some changes because I felt it needed them, and the pictures are all mine, but the original recipe is not.

Moving on!

The recipe didn't call for any particular kind of fish, so I chose the tilapia I had in my freezer. I let it thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then pressed it between layers of paper towel to remove the excess moisture. The three colours of bell pepper and the tomato came from my farmer's market, the basil from my back porch, and the garlic and onion were store-bought. The recipe didn't call for green pepper, but I felt it needed more colours, and since my peppers were on the small side it worked out well for quantity.

First step is to soften the chopped peppers in some olive oil along with the garlic and onion. See how pretty the mixture is with the green pepper? I like that a lot better than just using yellow, red, and/or orange.

This was when I was really glad I'd decided to include the green... adding the tomato to the skillet only increased the warm colours. This is when you add everything except the fish. As it turns out, the recipe called for turmeric and I don't own any, so instead I used some Chinese Five-Spice Powder. Which is not a standard substitution for turmeric, but which I thought might taste good (and it did).

Once the vegetables are tender, you lay them over the fish in a baking pan. I honestly didn't notice until well after we'd eaten that the recipe calls for cutting the fish into pieces, so I just spread the vegetable mixture on the fillets in the sizes they were.

Seeing how much liquid was produced through the course of baking the fish, I was really, really glad I'd pressed the water out of it earlier! It might better have been placed on a rack, but it didn't make the fish mushy to lay in the liquid to cook. Also, that liquid included the lemon juice and seasonings, so it helped infuse the tilapia (a very mild-tasting fish) with flavour.

To serve, I just used a large spatula to lift each fillet with its vegetable mixture onto plates. Some of the vegetables had fallen off, of course, so I scooped them up with the spatula (making sure to let most of the liquid drain back into the pan) and dumped them on top.

I served this with a broccoli, watercress, and cherry tomato salad (a recipe I got from Diabetic Gourmet Magazine, and which posted on my Facebook page at the end of August). Perfect summer dinner!

Fish with Bell Peppers

Serves 2-3

1 pound fish fillets, cut (instructions below)
2 bell peppers, chopped -red, orange or yellow
1 large tomato, chopped 
1/2 onions, chopped  
1/ 2 tsp. turmeric 
1 clove garlic, minced 
2 tbsp. basil-green, chopped 
1 tbsp. olive oil 
Sea salt, to taste
Ground black pepper, to taste 
1-2 tbsp. lemon juice 
Preheat oven to 350F. 

And again, this was not originally my recipe (photos are mine). It came from Nellie at From Garden to Soup Bowl

Serving size: 226 g

Calories: 324

Calories from Fat: 159

Total Fat: 17.7 g

Saturated Fat: 3.7 g

Cholesterol: 39 mg

Sodium: 608 mg

Total Carbohydrate: 25.5 g

Dietary Fiber: 2.5 g

Sugars: 3.8 g

Protein: 17.7 g

I actually got four servings out of this, since I had four fillets. Since the original recipe did not come with nutrition information, I've figured it on the recipe with four servings, and including my changes. Therefore, if you make it as written, the nutrition information will be a little off.