A few months ago, I was fortunate to get my cousin
Mackenzie started on Teen Wolf. She would come over every now and then on a
Thursday, and I would peel out my seasons of the MTV show and we’d sit in the
living room and indulge in an episode or two or three or six. Eventually,
whatever we couldn’t watch, she would take the season home and finish the rest
on her own time. There came a time when we ran out of DVDs to watch and I
suggested making it a thing every Monday when the show returned at the end of June.
She agreed and thus began our little Monday night ritual.
I crave to cook. I need it like the air we
breathe. While our kitchen was in the midst of a restoration, part of the
ordeal of needing to fix up the house before its put up for sale, the itch was
there. Nearly three weeks passed without a decent meal as we didn’t have a
kitchen sink or much of a counter to use. Most our meals were straight from the
freezer and anything my grandmother and I were able to boil, or a lot of dining
out and ordering in. I was looking forward to the time when our kitchen was put
back the way it was and I could dive in. I was already making notes as to what
I wanted to make and expressed this to my cousin, who then said, “you can cook
for me every Monday and I’ll gladly eat it!”
Challenge accepted.
As soon as the sink was put back in, counters
nailed in place, I formulated the first meal. I wanted something easy,
something inexpensive, and something tasteful. I perused the internet and
finally chose to make something with five ingredients or less: Basil Tomato Cod. Now, I am not a
fan of cod. It has a fishy flavor much like catfish; the taste of its natural
habitat is a pungent flavor in my mouth. In wanting to clear out our flavor,
cod was unfortunately, the only thing we had other than muscles; it had to do. Opening the package, I was
insulted by the way the fish was peculiarly chopped. One very nice filet, and
all the others appeared to be side thoughts, chopped and disfigured and thrown
in an air tight bag. One filet was not even the size of my hand, not even big
enough to accommodate a thick slice of tomato.
The fish, nonetheless, was topped with tomato and
seasoned with basil. I wanted something else to join the fish to offset the
taste cod often provides, and went with summertime veggies. I julienned them
tediously, throwing in zucchini, yellow squash, and carrot onto the pan with a
pat of butter and dousing of oil sprinkling in salt and pepper, lemon juice,
and white wine. Lastly, to try something different, were the “hasselback”
biscuits. Two rolls of biscuits with cheddar cheese sprinkled in the middle
while brushed with a butter and garlic-salt mixture, and lastly, garnished with
freshly sliced green onion.
Nothing could offset the taste of cod unless you
tossed it back with a chunk of tomato and the basil, it did a nice job at
least, covering the otherwise fishy taste. My cousin especially enjoyed the
vegetables, but the biscuits I’ll leave in the dust. They never cooked all the
way through, even after tossing it back in the oven about five different times.
The ones we were able to taste were good enough but not something I would
attempt again unless we were to use a different method.
We enjoyed each other’s company and even more so
enjoyed the viewing of Teen Wolf. Fishy cod and doughy biscuits were the
farthest thoughts on our mind. On to next Monday – let’s make it a good one.
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| Basil Tomato Cod w/Summer Vegetables |
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