Here's another tilapia recipe that's become a favorite In Our Kitchen especially now that the weather is warmer and the garden is again reaching its peak. Our basil is not quite ready to harvest for pesto yet, but in about a month, we'll be making this dish again.

It's a different way of making fish (you can use your favorite type of fish) and best of all, it's not fried!

It's also very easy to make. Here's how you make fish in pesto...

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Oh it's grilling time again, and if you're blessed with lots of basil from your garden, it's probably pesto time also. We have been blessed with pesto for the second year in a row but as much as I love it, we just can't eat enough pasta and pesto to use it up. So we've been giving it away and using it up for other dishes like this grilled chicken marinated in pesto.

This is a very simple recipe. Just marinade the chicken pieces in pesto sauce for 30 minutes to overnight and grill.

If you missed the pesto sauce recipe I use the first time, here it is again.

2 Cloves of fresh garlic
3 cups of fresh basil leaves, stems removed
1/2 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup of olive oil

In a blender, blend the above ingredients together until smooth. Done!

COOKING TIP:
From experience, I found that this sauce will last in the refrigerator for two to three weeks stored in an airtight container. You can also freeze this sauce and use it to flavor anything that requires a basil flavor. You can freeze small amounts for sauces in an ice cube tray then after they harden, transfer the cubes in a ziplocked freezer bag. It is best to freeze them in portions that you will need so you won't have to defrost the bags before using.

If you are making a batch specifically for freezing, you can omit the parmesan cheese and pinenuts and add those fresh later when you are ready to use the basil.

I am still not up to cooking much. We have just been cooking old standbys like soups...lots of soups. It has been wickedly cold, but I am not going to complain because I know plenty others who are having a much harsher winter than we are.

While going through my saved drafts, I realized that I haven't posted this one yet. Perhaps it was because it was such a simple recipe that I decided to hold off on it. I don't know. But when I saw the photos I just made me remember last summer when we had such an abundance of basil that I started putting it in everything until the kids had pesto coming out of their ears. Not really, that was just a figure of speech, but you get it.

Anyway, I was making so much pesto that we just had to use them up before it went bad. For the salmon, it is really simple. All I did is to take some of the pre-made basil pesto sauce that I had saved in the fridge, about a cups worth, and mixed it with about half a cup of mayonnaise then slathered it on the side of salmon. Bake it for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees, and you have dinner! Serve with salad, and in this case, pasta with, what else, pesto sauce.

Garden Harvest Dinner

This is a plate that Jade made for dinner, and got carried away with the photography. I think it looks pretty though. The vegetables are from our garden. Here is what was on the menu:

Tilapia Parmesan

Tilapia Fillets
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 cup of bread crumbs
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. of dried basil
1/2 tsp. of dried oregano
1/2 tsp. of garlic powder
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 cup of vegetable oil for frying

Sauce:
Capers
Pine Nuts
Butter

Heat the oil in a skillet to medium high heat. In the mean time, beat the eggs in one bowl, and in a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Dip the fillets in the beaten egg, then dredge in the flour/bread crumb mixture. Fry in the hot oil until brown on both sides.

For the sauce, place the pine nuts in a small skillet and toast on medium heat, when lightly toasted, add 2 tablespoons of capers with some of the brining liquid. When the liquid has been reduced by half, slowly incorporate as much butter as needed to make a light sauce. Pour over the fried tilapia fillets.

Angel Hair Pasta with Basil Pesto

2 Cloves of fresh garlic
3 cups of fresh basil leaves, stems removed
1/2 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup of olive oil

In a blender, blend the above ingredients together until smooth. Pour the sauce over cooked pasta, preferably while the pasta is still hot. If it seems too thick, add a bit of the hot water that the pasta was boiled in to thin the sauce. Toss together, and enjoy.

Tomato Basil Salad

We have an abundance of tomatoes from our garden and they are sooo sweet! So we have been eating them with almost every meal. For this meal, we sliced yellow and red tomatoes and topped it with sliced red onions and basil leave. Nothing else. Simply delicious!