Still Life, With Cats

Today’s recipe comes from something that came in a Hello Fresh box years ago. We saved all the recipe cards from the ones we really liked, and quite a few have become part of the normal dinner rotation, but for some reason this one has languished at the bottom of the pile until now.

The recipe is titled ‘Cod en Papillote’, which translates to ‘cod in paper’, although amusingly the original recipe had us do this in aluminum foil. This time around we used tilapia, because any mild white fish would be appropriate.

Anyway. You spray the center of a square of parchment paper or foil with some non-stick spray, and then you top that with a filet of fish. Sprinkle with dill and minced garlic, top with thinly sliced lemons, then fold the top of the paper or foil together and curve the sides so the juice doesn’t escape, and pop the packets into the oven on a sheet pan for about 10 minutes, or as long as it takes for the fish to cook through.

We had it with a side of roasted brussel sprouts and some roasted potatoes, and topped it with a lemon butter caper sauce.

Cooking ‘en papillote’ basically steams the fish, so it had a lovely, buttery texture and just flaked apart when touched with a fork. This was even more delicious than we remembered.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, lemon lava cake is just as good the next day.)

Lemons used: 2
Total lemons used: 24

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

Last night after I got home from rehearsal, I cut up three lemons, juiced them (saving the juice for later), and stuck them in a pan with 2 cups of water, which I brought to a low boil. Then I turned off the heat, stuck a lid on the pan and let it sit for a day, so that it would be ready for this evening’s dinner – Lemon Water Pasta.

The general idea for this pasta is that instead of boiling the noodles in a big vat of water, you instead cook it more like risotto – in a big pan, adding the lemon-infused (and strained) water a little bit at a time until the noodles are done. I ended up having to add another cup of water during the cooking process because the two cups (500 ml) of water just wasn’t enough to cook 8 ounces of spaghetti, despite what the recipe claimed, but eventually it got there. Then at the end, once the pasta’s finally cooked, you stir in a bunch of cheese, to make sort of a sauce.

While I took care of the pasta, Richard set up Roasted Lemon Chili Broccoli (because we needed to use up at least *some* of the lemon juice from those three lemons).

Dinner!

So how were they? Well first, it’s a good thing the pasta was fairly bland, since the broccoli recipe includes three *tablespoons* of chili paste, which is…a lot of chili for the amount of veggies. The pasta itself had a very faint lemon flavor (more of a scent than a flavor) but was otherwise unremarkable. Luckily the two things together mostly cancelled each other out, so it was an acceptable meal (plus, despite what the pasta recipe claims, that was four servings, not two, so there’s leftovers for another day).

The broccoli might be worth trying again, with half the amount of chili paste, but the pasta recipe – eh, probably not. It was an intriguing concept to try but honestly, I think you’d get the same effect by boiling the lemons in the pot with the pasta, then just using some of the pasta water to make a sauce later. Not sure it was worth all the fuss, and I won’t be making it again.

Lemons used: 3
Total lemons this month: 20

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

I had something else planned for today but I was tired and not in the mood to bake. So I consulted my list of lemon possibilities and decided to make these.

You take some lemons and some whole cloves.

And then you proceed to stab the cloves into the lemon until you have either run out of cloves, or else created a pattern.

Ta da! Lemon clove air fresheners.

I made the one on the left, and Richard made the one on the right. When it starts to get gross we can turn it around so the other side shows.

Lemons used: 2

Lemons used this month: 10

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

Tonight was another busy night, so I made this Creamy Lemon Pasta with Peas and Ham.

Basically, you cook up some pasta, and toss some frozen peas into the pot near the end (after first removing a cup of the pasta water for the sauce). Meanwhile you toast minced garlic and red pepper flakes in oil, then add in the zest and juice of one lemon, along with the pasta water, and a little bit of cream, and let that reduce. If you want to add ham (which we thought was an excellent addition), you mince that up and toss it in a separate pan to brown, and then at the end, you stir everything together with some parmesan and serve.

The recipe calls for orecchiette pasta, but I used mini elbows because that’s what was in the cupboard. Plus I inadvertently toasted the garlic a little too far, so I ended up straining the sauce prior to thickening it, to remove the charred bits (oops). But despite that little mishap, it turned out quite tasty. This is one we’ll definitely make again, although next time I will significantly decrease the amount of olive oil used, since it was a little on the greasy side.

Lemons used: 1

Total lemons this month: 6

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

Today has been a very busy day. I got up and set up dough for sandwich rolls, and then while that was sitting, I made a peanut butter coffeecake from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which included as a rather perky note (this version was published in the 80’s) that this would delight my coworkers when served to them at break time. Um, since I now work 100% from home, sorry, cats, you don’t get to be delighted, but it was pretty delicious). I also made dinner rolls to go with the soup we have planned for later this week, and finished off a piece for the next Lacy Knitters Guild newsletter, and paid some bills and did some cleaning, and laundry, and got to hang out with a friend who came for some kitten therapy. Oh, and also I made lemon curd, because there are still a bazillion lemons in the fridge.

It is inevitable, when you are looking at how to use up lemons, that lemon curd will happen. I have made it many, many times in the past and will make it many more times in the future. All it takes is butter, sugar, and the juice and zest of a couple lemons, plus twenty minutes of your time. I have seen recipes that indicate that you can get away with just stirring occasionally, and sure, that will work just fine if you don’t mind little bits of cooked egg in your curd, but I would rather just stand there and whisk it the entire time, because it’s worth it.

Most of this is earmarked for recipes later this month, but we couldn’t help having just a little tonight. After all, we still have extra crepes that need using up, and a dollop of fresh lemon curd is a delightful way to do so.

Lemons used: 3

Total lemons used: 5

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

Today is the Day of the Crepe in France, according to Google (and Google would never lie to me), so naturally there had to be crepes. Here is where I freely admit that in the past I have said that you don’t really need a crepe pan; that a regular skillet will do, but it turns out crepe pans are magical devices that enable one to make vast quantities of crepes with minimal ripping, and also, they will all come out in relatively the same size and shape. So hooray to my awesome husband for getting me one last year for my birthday!

I used the crepe recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook, which claims to make only a dozen crepes, but which actually makes lots more. This is not a bad thing, to be clear, because crepes can be filled with all manner of delicious things. This month, however, we are all about the lemon, so I pulled a recipe out of the dusty stacks (no idea where I originally found it), and dinner tonight was crepes stuffed with smoked salmon and topped with a sour cream, lemon, caper, and dill sauce.

I know it doesn’t look like much, but trust me when I say they are amazing. The sauce is nothing more than one cup of sour cream mixed with a dash of dill, two tablespoons of capers (finely chopped), and the zest and juice of one lemon. You get the sweetness of the crepe, the acidity of the lemon, the salty-sour of the capers, and the smoothness of the sour cream, all marrying perfectly with the salmon. Yum.

The entire time we were eating it, we kept saying ‘Why haven’t we made this more often?’ So…yeah…this one is definitely joining the rotation next year when the lemon tree explodes.

Lemons used: 1

Total lemons this month: 2

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.

I know I have mentioned in the past that we have a very prolific Meyer lemon tree. For example, the other day, I harvested this mound of lemons, which looks like a lot (that’s about 5 dozen) until you realize that there were probably two to three times that many more on the tree.

Faced with a mountain of lemons, I decided that this year’s Thingadailies project will be to make something with lemons every single day for the entire month.

To kick things off, tonight I made Fluffy Lemon Puddings. It’s a recipe scaled down to make only two servings, which I figured would be good since there’s only two of us and a whole month of lemony treats yet to go.

The recipe is pretty straightforward. You mix up lemon juice and zest, egg yolk, sugar, butter, and flour, and then fold in whipped egg whites. Then you pour the mixture into two ramekins, and pop it in the oven to bake.

However, note that in this picture there is only one ramekin.

That’s because as I was taking it out of the oven, I dropped the other, which then proceeded to splatter all over the floor.

Foster kitten B-Mo was right on scene to offer his immediate assistance in cleaning it up (don’t worry – he only got a couple licks in before I was able to shoot him away and clean up the rest).

The end result was super tasty. As it bakes, the top and bottom separate, so you get a light cake layer above and a creamy lemon curd type layer below.

We will definitely be making this recipe again (and next time I will be more careful when transferring ramekins).

Lemons used: 1

Making a lemon thing a day for Thingadailies.