Baked fish with dill and Parmesan

I know, I know. More fish. But it's summer. I'll get off this kick and move on fairly soon, I promise.

Baked tilapia

Adapted from “The Healthy Carb Diabetes Cookbook” by Jennifer Bucko and Lara Rondinelli, a book I picked up on the freebie table after several people I knew were diagnosed.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons fresh dill, or 2 teaspoons dried

4 fish fillets

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place fish in a nonstick baking dish or one lined with foil Combine mayonnaise, cheese and dill.  Spread mixture over the top of fillets. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

Rating: Tasty, and fast to fix. It's a good choice for when you're using frozen fish fillets that want a bit of dressing up. The recipe calls for the low fat version of both the mayo and cheese, but I didn’t use the low-fat cheese so I can’t vouch for whether that would work as well.  

Steamed fish, asparagus and potatoes in parchment

Steamed halibut and asparagus in parchment
Adapted from "Real Simple: Meals Made Simple"

Ingredients
3/4 pounds small red potatoes
2 6-ounce fish fillets of a firm fish such as halibut (we used tilapia)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
2 green onions, sliced into 1-inch pieces
8 asparagus stalks, snapped into 2-inch pieces
Olive oil

Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut four 15-inch lengths of parchment paper.

Slice potatoes 1/4-inch thick. Put half of each in a mound in the center of a piece of parchment paper.  Place fillet on top of potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Top with tarragon, green onions and asparagus. Drizzle with olive oil.

Top with remaining sheets of parchment paper and fold edges over several times to seal and place on baking sheet. (I found using some food loops helped hold things in place.) Bake for 25 minutes. Place cooked packets on a plate and cut open to serve.

Rating: A fast, tasty one-pot meal that could be adapted to other components. I happen to love tarragon and have lots in the garden, but any other herb-veggie-fish combo could work.

Fish with whole tomatoes and basil

On the side, we served a puree of parsnips, roasted garlic and cream cheese.

When we're on vacation, either the West Coast or the North Shore, we tend to eat a lot of fish. So I was still in the mood for some when we came home.

Red snapper with whole tomatoes and basil
Adapted from "Two Dudes One Pan," by Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo

Ingredients
2 red snapper fillets
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 shallot, halved and thinly sliced
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon butter
Juice of half a lemon
5 fresh basil leaves, chiffonaded

Method
Season fish with salt. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add fish, skin side down and cook until browned, about 4 to 6 minutes. Flip the fillets and cook the other side until cooked through, another 3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer fish to platter or serving plates. Add garlic and shallot to pan and cook about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, season with salt and cook until they start to split. Stir in butter and lemon juice. Spoon sauce over fish and top with basil.

Serves 2.

Rating: Nice. But sadly, vacation is clearly over. Nothing like a 12-hour day the first day back to remind you for why you needed a vacation in the first place.

Bourbon pecan ice cream

Bourbon pecan ice cream

From “Lee Bailey’s CountryDesserts”

Ingredients

2½ cups half and half

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

2 to 3 tablespoons bourbon

Method

Combine half and half and sugars in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat until sugars are dissolved. (Avoid boiling the liquid; you don’t want it curdled or it will affect the texture of the ice cream.) Cool, then chill completely.

Stir in pecans and bourbon. Turn mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to directions. Freeze until firm.

Rating: The first licks of the scraper after turning this mixture into a container for final freezing were wondrous. Nice texture, great flavor. When it came time to actually eat this, I asked if perhaps there were too many pecans in it. I received an emphatic no. I'm not quite so sure. I used very finely chopped pecans; maybe I would have been happier with larger chunks. Either way, this is still pretty decadent ice cream, and worth making over and over to experiment. Fair warning: Freezing seems to almost concentrate the booziness.

An almost picnic by the lake

There's a very nice set of lounge chairs and a picnic table outside our cabin. The view is fantastic, and it makes a great lunch spot if you don't mind a few mosquitoes joining the party. But yesterday we opted to have our lunch at the table inside with the same view, no mosquitoes, and heat, since it was still on the chill side.

But otherwise, it has all the requisites for a good picnic: some degree of privacy, a good view and tasty food: I slathered snowflake buns from the store with some of the ranch-mayo-sun-dried tomato spread we brought along, sliced up some pork tenderloin Dave grilled the night we arrived, and mounded on refrigerator pickles, roasted red peppers, thinly sliced cucumbers and some lettuce. On the side we had fresh fruit, cabbage-carrot slaw, deviled eggs and some palate-cleansing, face-puckering pickles I put up last summer.

These pickles are a ridiculously easy way to get those deli-style pickles to your liking. If you haven't ventured into canning yet, this is a good place to start, because it will be very affirming without being too daunting, giving you the courage to venture further. Feel free to add a hot dried pepper if you like. Just don't ever mess with the vinegar, water and salt ratio in any canning recipe.

Fast Favorite Garlic Dill Pickles
Adapted from this Epicurious recipe

Ingredients
3 pounds small pickling cucumbers, ends sliced off so they stand up in the jars
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tablespoons pickling salt
4 heads fresh dill
2 teaspoons dill seeds
4 peeled garlic cloves

Method
Sanitize four pint pickling jars. (If you're just making refrigerator pickles, take the jars piping hot out of the dishwasher.) Bring vinegar, water and salt to a boil. Put a head of fresh dill, 1/2 teaspoon dill seeds and a garlic clove in each jar. Pack pickles tightly into the jar. Pour hot liquid mixture over the top, leaving a half-inch head space. Wipe the rims clean. Top with a pickling jar lid combo. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes after you've added the jars and the water has resumed a boil. (Or let cool on the counter and refrigerate if you're not preserving them for long-term storage.)

And the real reason we ate inside: We wanted to retain some heat in our still-appropriately named winter soup, a maple syrup-sweetened mix of roasted root veggies like butternut squash, sweet potatoes and rutabagas, which I substitute for the turnips in this recipe from Epicurious.

Pasta with smoked salmon, lemon and cream sauce

The inspiration: Each year this glorious big bowl from the cabin's kitchen shelf begs to be filled with something tasty. I do my best to oblige.

The hook: Smoked salmon with dill from Northern Waters Smokehaus in Duluth was the starting point.  It was about a 4-ounce slab, flaked into bite-size chunks.

The recipe: One small red onion, sliced, and sauteed in 1 tablespoon butter. The zest from 1 lemon and juice of half a lemon. A generous splash of cream. Toss with salmon and half a pound of pasta, cooked, and sprinkle generously with grated Parmesan and pepper. In other words, what you have in the refrigerator at the time. Enjoy. We certainly did. Now to hike it off.

Cabin breakfasts

New at the cabin this year: Mix-and-match Fiestaware. I am a happy camper.

For years we stayed quite happily at the Shoreline motel in Grand Marais, and we could happily stay there again. But we've discovered the joys of booking ahead so we can check ourselves into a cabin and check out from the world. One of the perks, to my mind, is control over the breakfast factor. With these scones formed ahead and ready to bake, I’m about 25 minutes from rolling out of bed to a nice, home-baked breakfast.

Freezer scones

Adapted from “Happy Holidays From the Diva of Do-Ahead” by Diane Phillips. Yes, of course I own a book called that. She called these Heavenly Blueberry Scones, for those keeping score. In our world, they are freezer scones, a highly useful commodity.

Ingredients

2¼ cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

½ cup dried fruit (blueberries are swell, but other fruit like dried cranberries or cherries work too)

1½ cup heavy cream

Optional egg wash of 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon cream

Up to 2 tablespoons sugar for garnish

Method

Preheat the oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment. (Or, say, a 13-by-9 cake pan in this case since the cookie sheet that was here the last two years is MIA. Slightly different browning pattern, but oh well.)

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Mix in dried fruit. Gradually mix in cream with a wooden spoon until dough comes together.

Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead a few times. Roll out into a circle ½-inch thick. Cut into 12 wedges. (At this point you can freeze the scones in a freezer container between layers of wax paper. Then thaw in the frig overnight and proceed as directed.) Place on parchment paper on baking sheet. Brush with egg wash, if desired. Then sprinkle with sugar and bake for 17 minutes or so until golden. (I only had cream on hand, so these didn't get quite the usual effect.)

Rating: Not one of my ultimate scone recipes (note that it contains no butter, so it doesn’t have quite the traditional consistency or height), but very, very serviceable. And that make-ahead thing? That’s above price. The cranberries work, but I’m much fonder of the blueberry version, which also seems much more North Shorish. At any rate, these are one more reason to schlep the mega cooler north with us each year.

Don’t worry, if you’re one of the people invited to join us on a vacation, I’ll kick it up a notch to my usual B&B fare, but for just us kids, this is a lovely way to greet the day and the Lake. Speaking of which, it's dark and choppy today, with a fog bank a ways out. The birch leaves are dancing to some rustic folk tune; I'm thinking Bartok. Did I mention that KSJN comes in here?  But we don't have it on right now so we can listen to the waves crash into the rocks.