cooking lately: our family's favorite fish recipes

Sometimes when I finish making dinner I have to take a moment to marvel and praise myself for how far I've come... both with my palate and my cooking skills. Into my 20s I wouldn't have considered ordering or making fish, but now it's the thing I'm always interested in getting at a restaurant - real chefs are so much better at preparing it than I am! But somehow (well, mostly thanks to Blue Apron, actually) I've actually become pretty comfortable, and pretty decent if I may say so myself, with cooking fish. And even more self congratulations: my whole family loves these dinners!

Here are 4 recipes that are reasonably foolproof, are very tasty yet quick to assemble, have a variety of flavor profiles, and best of all, are things that my 7-year-old likes to eat. He wouldn't have dreamed of touching it himself in the picky toddler stage, until one night Peter suggested that he would be a bear if he ate his salmon, because that's what bears eat. That was enough to get Hendrik to take a bite, and then to realize he actually likes the stuff. Major parenting win. (Amazingly, he likes shrimp even more, and I have a couple of great go-to recipes, but this is my one pregnancy aversion after feeling icky one night early on after eating shrimp. Haven't made it since...)

Sheet pan pesto salmon: this was in a Blue Apron box a couple of months ago, and I've already repeated the recipe multiple times out of my own grocery orders, because it's delicious, very easy in terms of both prep and cleanup, and has ingredients that we'd use otherwise - broccoli and sweet potatoes are two of my go-to roasted veggies anyway, and adding the pesto dipping sauce? Yes and yes. Plus any leftover pesto gets to be a pasta dish the next night - score one for easily planning a second dinner! Roasting is one of the easiest ways to do fish, and the combo of the pesto mayo + breadcrumbs on top gives you the right kind of moisture with your fish but a crispy contrast on top. And if kids reallllyy hate pesto, you could just skip the topping on theirs.

Tilapia piccata with orzo: another Blue Apron recipe that's easy to recreate (sometimes I just skip the capers). Tilapia cooks so fast on the stovetop, and the light and bright flavors are so nice in this one. Pairing with orzo is also nice because again, orzo cooks fast, and also it's pasta, so a kid has to like something on this plate at least.

Fish taco bowls: a favorite that I make with some regularity. In fact, I think I'm going to need to make these this weekend, as it's been a little while. at this point I really don't follow any recipe for fish taco bowls, but the linked/pictured recipe is a good starting point. Now that I'm comfortable with the idea I just assemble from whatever we have on hand with rice as the base; cod or tilapia (or even shrimp) sprinkled with chili powder, garlic powder, bit of cumin, salt & pepper which I either roast or pan sear; generous amount of guacamole of course; sauteed onions, peppers, black beans, and/or corn, whatever is on hand; and cherry tomatoes or pickled red onions if we've got those. Hendrik eats his deconstructed, each component on its own (or I wrap his fish up in a tortilla with guacamole if that's how he wants it that day), and we eat ours all heaped in one bowl of goodness.

Salmon with sweet chili glaze: another Blue Apron recipe that's easy to re-create. The glaze is a nice flavor without being too spicy for kids, and what really makes it is the aromatic rice - cooking your rice with some garlic and ginger is a game-changer for making your at-home cooking taste way fancier, without much extra effort.

As mentioned, Blue Apron is really what got me more comfortable cooking fish, with the ingredients all at-hand and the instructions very detailed - not having to figure out how much or what cut of fish to buy was a big help for getting me to cook. (Not sponsored or anything - I just appreciate their recipes and do have a few free boxes for first-time users, if anyone is interested). Then I guess the whole quarentimes situation really solidified things, since we have not gone to a restaurant since February 2020 (fish as takeout just doesn't sound so good), and I did more Blue Apron boxes than usual. 

Any great recipes I should add to the rotation over here, now that I'm good at this?!