I heard from a few people this summer that they wished they knew how to cook fish. Certainly some fish are finicky, but some good old standards are incredibly easy to prepare. Tilapia and Halibut are two relatively inexpensive, easily-accessible fish that are firm enough to hold some great preparation methods, while still cooking to a delicate, easy flake in a short cooking time.

Following are two of my favorite, easy fish recipes from the 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store cookbook that are also very unique and flavorful. You can tackle these with no sweat, and feel like you’ve mastered cooking fish in no time.

Pecan-Crusted Honey Dijon Fish Fillets

Ingredients

• 4 fish fillets, halibut or tilapia, thawed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 teaspoons melted butter
• 4 teaspoons honey
• 4 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup crushed pecans

Marinate fish fillets in oil and lemon juice for at least one half hour in refrigerator (up to overnight). Combine mustard, honey and butter. Stir until glaze forms. Place fish in baking dish. Cover with half of glaze, and then pecans. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes, basting once during, and at end with remaining glaze.

This next recipe has… count ‘em… two ingredients, and two steps. It is one of the easiest dinners, and a perfect pairing of flavors and textures for your fish.

Cornbread Crusted Fish

Ingredients

• 4 fish fillets, halibut or tilapia, thawed
• 1/2 package cornbread mix

Dredge fish fillets in cornbread mix. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, until golden brown.

With fall and the start of school, activities and new routines for many, comes a chance for a fresh start and reinvention in the kitchen. This is a great time to implement that new plan of “making dinner every night”, “trying out new recipes” and “expanding my family’s tastes and/or improving their eating habits”.

Commitment and persistence are the keys that are going to help you succeed with your goals.

When my children started first grade, they would get off that bus exhausted at 4 pm, and hungry enough to eat anything in front of them. I discovered this was an ideal opportunity to expand their tastes. I started by making sure I had fresh vegetables cut and on the table (or in the fridge) for grabbing… things they may not have eaten before, like zucchini and peppers. Maybe I’d add some dip or crackers.. anything to get them to try a “new” food. What I found is that they would truly eat anything if it was presented for them, ready to eat.

The other thing I did was to establish a 4:30 dinnertime for the first month of school. I served potpie, pot roast, chili, lots of fish… those things that as youngsters they were not willing to try in the past becuase “the food was touching”, it was “too ‘picy” or just looked “different”. They never looked back. Even though they are a little older now, they still come home hungry, and I still persist with expanding their palates.

What new foods or new routines do you hope to implement this fall?

Going shopping when you shop Smart can be so stress free, you may wonder what you’re missing. You know that feeling of “what am I forgetting?” at the grocery store if you’ve forgotten your list? I was hit with that feeling during today’s shopping trip, as after being out of town for a week, and with a nearly empty fridge, I expected I would need a lot of things at the store. But I quickly realized those thoughts as I knew what they meant – there really wan’t much that I needed.

I grabbed a package of fresh mushrooms knowing I have ground beef in the freezer (from last week’s stock up) and every thing else I need to make salisbury steak. I grabbed avocados, tomatoes, cheese and lettuce, knowing that with them I can make many variations of tacos/tostadas with the chicken, shrimp, beef and tortillas I have in the freezer.

Then, because I had room to spare in both the cart and the budget, I added a brisket and cranberry sauce to my cart to make my favorite elegant meal, Cranberry Brisket, from the Cook Once… Eat Twice! cookbook.

When I got home to unload, there was plenty of room in the cabinets to unload my groceries — and I don’t have that much cabinet space. The thing is, after you really get into shopping Smart, and buying ingredients that you use over and over in many different dinners, you are buying a whole lot less of “this and that”. Believe me, “this and that” can take up an incredible amount of room in your cabinets and storage space. And because it’s only rarely used, it doesn’t move. When you buy Smart ingredients, you use them. And you’re buying less clutter, so your cabinets become naturally organized.

My Smart ingredients are mostly the things on the 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store shopping lists (These can be seen, and printed, off the Smart Ingredients page of the website), along with a few of my favorite seasonings and frozen shrimp. Your Smart Ingredients can vary based on what dinners are a sure-fire hit for your family. What’s your family’s Smartest ingredient?

If you’re a blog subscriber you should have received a coupon code via e-mail for the new copy of the 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store cookbook, including beautiful photos, extras and a fantastic new design by Studio One Eleven www.studio-oneeleven.com. If you own an original copy of the book, check out the Shop page for information on how to order a replacement copy at cost. Thanks Studio One Eleven, we love our new look!

I know it can make me crabby — the thought of all of my hard work calorie counting down the drain with a few bites worth of deep-fried-something. That’s why I looove it when a dish can achieve the same taste results when baked as it can when fried. With more grams of fat per tablespoon of oil than you’d care for me to mention, baking in place of frying saves you tons, tons, tons of fat calories. In this case, unneeded fat.

I usually come up with a recipe first, and then compare it to some of my favorite chef’s recipes for the same dish. I have long used my crab cake recipe, but recently came across Paula Deen’s Southern Crab Cakes Recipe. I wanted to give it a good assessment because Paula Deen knows flavor, and in my book anything with “Southern” in the title usually means it tastes geat. So, I was glad to peruse Paula’s list of ingredients to see if she used anything more exciting than mine. The only big differences were that hers called for a green pepper instead of celery (a fine exchange, I’d agree), and for deep frying instead of baking.

I decided to experiment. I made a huge batch of crab cake “batter” and went about seeing if Paula knew something I didn’t about the necessity of adding oil to flavor the cakes. I was delighted to discover that the taste of the fried cakes and the baked cakes was nearly the same! I thought for sure I was sacrificing flavor in place of fat in this case, and was proven wrong. Enjoy your crab cakes even more now that you know you can save the oil for the fire!

This recipe also uses crackers, which has just made its way onto the Smart Ingredients list. This week I got a box of generic saltine crackers for $1, and I used them, crushed, as a replacement for breadcrumbs in meatloaf, to make chicken and dumplings, and in last night’s crab cake experiment. When it comes to cutting costs and buying ingredients that go a long way, it doesn’t get much smarter than that!

Baked Crab Cakes

Ingredients

• Jumbo lump crab meat (approximately ¾ pound)
• 15 Ritz or Saltine crackers, smashed
• 1 egg
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• ½ cup diced celery
• ¼ cup diced onions
• ½ teaspoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 teaspoon spicy mustard powder

In a large bowl, break apart crab meat with a fork. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Form into patties. Place on baking sheet or baking dish treated with cooking spray. Bake in preheated 350°F (180° C) oven for approximately 20 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.

Serve with

Dijon Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

• ¼ cup Dijon Mustard
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
• 1 teaspoon Hot sauce
• 2 tablespoons Mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons White wine (or white wine vinegar)

Combine all ingredients and blend well. Chill before serving.

Some great ways to serve crab cakes include over rice, or on a toasted roll topped with shredded lettuce and Dijon mustard sauce.

There’s nothing more simple, there’s nothing more basic. But when we’re talking about an easy weeknight meal, there is nothing that opens up dinner possibilities for my family like ground beef (or some version of ground meat). We’ve already talked about stocking up on Smart Ingredient chicken broth, and how to pair the two to make my family’s favorite — Salisbury Steak. There’s also Beef Dumpling Soup, and Chili. And we talked about my other favorite Smart Ingredient, canned diced tomatoes. Combine these with ground beef for a start on meatloaf, baked pasta, meatball sandwiches, and stuffed peppers. Simply brown it with onions, and you’ve got a start on tacos or taco salad. Alone it becomes easy hamburgers. Bam! Right there — ten dinners for my family that can be made with what I’ve got on hand, just with the start of a package of ground beef. Oh, and Did I mention it’s inexpensive and can be frozen for weeks? Buy ground meat in bulk, and freeze it in 1 to 1&1/2 pound quantities to help keep Smart Ingredients on hand in your home. Are you starting to get a sense of how the Smart Ingredients add up to dinner success? The plan is outlined in more detail in the 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store cookbook. Click here for the great recipe from the book for Stuffed Peppers.

So, last week we had the 10-gadget getout, where you cleared some clutter for your kitchen space. Now you’ve got some room in which to move things around, and organize the Zone. You know, the place you stand to do most of your cooking or prep work. That place where you chop, where you’re most likely to be caught making school lunches, where you often squeeze in your cup of coffee between defrosting some meat for the night’s dinner or unloading the dishwasher. Every kitchen’s got one. Is yours a place you enjoy? Since there are so many reasons you have to be there, it should be. Here’s some ways to help you enjoy your Zone time.

Organization & Placement

I don’t care what you keep in the rest of your rooms, or even the outskirts of your kitchen, but what you keep in the Zone should be the key elements of making your everyday dining a success…. the obvious spoons, plates and cups, but also the top two serving utensils, prep bowls and cutting boards. Not your wrapping paper (as we found at a recent in-home party), not your spare light bulbs, and even not the 1001 must-have kitchen items that may be a “must-have” for somebody… but for you they just take up space. For most people, clutter is unsettling, and if you are unsettled where you’re cooking, of course you won’t enjoy it.

I have several different measuring pieces in my kitchen. But in my primary small drawer in my Zone, I keep just the basic cup and spoon measurers. They’re always there, within reach, in an uncluttered drawer. In a life that is elsewhere full of clutter, this little bit of releief makes dinner just that much easier to whip out. And the spoons that much easier to put away. I grab em, use em, wash em… back in the drawer.

Fun

Since there are so many reasons you’ve gotta be there, make it a place you enjoy. Put a radio or tv nearby so you are entertained, or decorate your zone with flowers, pictures of your kids or something else that makes you happy. Make your Zone work for you, and make cooking dinner as much fun as eating it.

Let us know what “treasures” you found in your Zone when you took a second look.

Today I went to get my car vacuumed… a procedure that has a solid place in my week as a great majority of it is spent in said car running errands for and shuttling my two older kids, while feeding and entertaining in various potentially-messy methods, the younger one. I’ve grown attached to the place I am used to going. It’s positioned privately next to a horse farm, with a perfectly located garbage can for my massive clutter flinging. I mean, it is a cozy nook, but it is still a car vacuum for goodness sake. The price recently went up to $2 from $1. EIGHT quarters I need just to help clean out my car?!? As I drove to my usual gas station, I realized I was passing several, possibly 4-quarter vacuum, gas stations. But I was not compelled to stop. I wanted to get to my vacuum. The only explanation for this is habit. I realized this must be what it is like for many of you in the kitchen, and it helped me clarify why so many people have just one or two “standby” recipes. While I know the obvious reasons (taste preferences, mastery of the recipe and execution, and having the ingredients), I also realize a major factor is habit. When performing a habit, we can go on autopilot… literally act without thinking. And this can really take the stress out of the dinner process. But it gets boring. Here are some ways to up your Old Standby’s from 2 to 20.

Go with themes, not single recipes

Maybe it’s homemade pizza that your family would eat any which way, any day. Don’t always make the same kind. There are many, many variations on a pizza crust. Two of my not-so-standard favorites are Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza, and Barbecue chicken pizza, and I love to make bruschetta pizza with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. If your family, like mine, would eat anything on a tortilla, stock on on some good quality flour tortillas (yes, you can freeze them) and know that any night of the week (or year) you can make a multitude of dinners including soft-shell beef tacos, chicken tacos, chicken caesar wraps, chipotle shrimp tacos, steak fajitas and much, much more, based on what you have in your refrigerator and/or freezer. The key here is to always have cheese and lettuce on hand. And if you follow the 70 Meals plan, you would have these as well as…But since they are 2 of the 14 ingredients on the 70 Meals weekly list (3 of the others being chicken, ground beef, tortillas), you would anyhow!

Variations on a theme

Do you find yourself always making pork roast? Or is fish the dish you could cook in your sleep? Still cook your old standby, just change up the cooking method or serving style. Instead of grilling, throw the roast in the crock pot with some Italian dressing and barbecue sauce for shredded pork. Serve the fish up on a hearty bun with lettuce and chutney for a delicious fish sandwich.

What’s your standby?

Egg separators, citrus peelers beware. Your days may be numbered. That’s right… it’s time for the 10 gadget getout. Grab a bag, grab a box, or if you’re brave enough clear a pitching path to the garbage can. It’s time to pitch 10 items from your kitchen. The goal is to do it fast. Don’t stand over the drawer dreaming of days when you’ll zest lemons and make your own fettuccine. Move fast so second thoughts have no time to enter your path. 10 things quick. You won’t miss them in the kitchen, and you’ll have more room for free and clear movement in your kitchen Zone.

What’s the Zone? It’s that area where you find yourself — sometimes more often than you’d like — making meals for yourself and your family. For me it’s the spot between sink, fridge, cabinets and garbage. Efficiency in the Zone is key for quick cooking and even quicker cleanup. So what’s nearest the Zone are the most-used ingredients and the most-used kitchen utensils. Everything else is in the outskirts of the kitchen.

Get rid of your 10 gadgets today, and make more room for a well-oiled machine of a kitchen Zone.

Today I went to Costco, the local food warehouse near where I live. It was time for a stock up in my house. In addition to the bulk-size snacks, and the replenishing of my 70 Meals semiannual list, I got 6 pounds of ground beef, at $2.99/pound, 12 large, boneless skinless chicken breasts vaccuum sealed by twos, and 10 frozen tilapia fillets. I was tempted by much of the premade, prepackaged dinners that the grocery warehouse has to offer, and I even grabbed one frozen dinner to have in a pinch. But knowing that I am shopping Smart, means I can make a hot healthy homemade dinner any night f the year (activities or no) with little time, and little stress, and no help from the pre-packaged aisle.

Bulk shopping is great. It can be scary when you’re not committed to using the food, but once you’ve committed to a plan, such as 70 Meals, One Trip to the Store, have declared that you are in fact going to cook using that food, and know that you are buying Smart Ingredients that you will in fact use, it makes all the sense in the world. One you have rid your cabinets of ingredient clutter (items that are rarely used), you will have the room you need for your Smart Ingredients. For me, for example, buying, in bulk, items like canned diced tomatoes, pasta, mixed vegetables, frozen spinach, chicken broth, makes great sense, because I am plowing through them over the next few weeks in hot, healthy, no-stress meals for my family.

Now that you’ve committed to figuring out what your Smart Ingredients are that lead to dinner success in your home, it’s time to stock up on them, and take a major step toward never fearing the question “What’s for dinner?” again. Here’s a link to the 70 Meals semiannual pantry-stocking list:

Semiannual List