Wednesday's Winter Weather

Bad weather, first thing in the morning and it only got worse! It bordered on freezing throughout the day, so we got a variety of sleet, snow freezing rain or just rain. At lunch, it was actually snowing, sleeting and raining all at the same time. It switched to all snow around 4:00 PM and by the time 5:00 rolled around we probably had an inch of the stuff, on top of ice, on all the roads. It took me 40 minutes to get home!

Anticipating such a mess at rush hour, my friend B___ had brought a change of clothes in case he needed to spend the night at my house. So, he did! I hadn't thawed anything for dinner (I was just going to have a sandwich again), so I needed to improvise. He was very insistent about taking me to dinner to "repay" me for letting him stay, but I refused (why go back out into that crap?)

So, I put four tilapia filets in cold water to thaw when I first got home. I started my Wednesday night wash load and we chatted a bit. He called his house to make sure his wife and daughter had made it home okay (and they had). About 7:00 PM, the filets were thawed, so I made tilapia en papillote. I thought I'd try something a little different, so here's what I did:

I cut out my parchment paper into two half circles (when folded). Into each pack, I put two thin strips of prosciutto. I covered them with slices of a yellow onion. Then I topped that with two filets (they are small). Next I splashed on some white wine, followed by fresh squeezed lemon juice. I seasoned them with salt and pepper and threw on fresh parsley and thyme (stems and all). I topped the herbs with slices of lemon. Finally I cut up about a tablespoon of butter into small chunks and scattered that on top. I folded the edges tight and put the two packs on a cookie tray. I brushed them with olive oil (top and bottom) and put them into a preheated oven (400 degrees F) and baked them for about 20 minutes.

While they were baking, I made some wild rice as the side dish. I hung up my laundry and dinner was ready. I opened the bags and the smell was fantastic! I left everything but the fish in the bags and plated them with the rice. Excellent! The prosciutto flavor really kicked it up a notch! B___ raved about it off and on all night.

We loaded the dishwasher and wandered into the living room to talk. I had planned on checking out the TV to see if there was a good movie or something to watch, but we ended up just talking until one of us glanced at the clock and it was after 11:00 PM!

So, we got ready and hit the sack about 11:30 PM. And that's how I survived the storm here in Redford.

P.S. The Webmaster informed me the split pea with ham recipe on the Blog has now been updated.