Usually I find tilapia quite… bland. So to give it some pop, I decided to throw some San Marzano tomatoes on top with some basil.
Now if you haven’t heard of San Marzano tomatoes, let me open up your world for a moment… I was reading some blogs singing the praises of these special tomatoes for a while and my mom was a fan. In my perpetual childhood need to deny that anything my mother likes could possibly be good… I was anti for a while. But then I tried them. WOW! They’re like the best, ripest, juiciest tomatoes you’ve ever had and they come out of a CAN! (A very expensive can… but worth it)
The parm on top was just perfect (we kept one off for a non-cheese eater).
And yes… again with the rice pilaf. What can I say? I love them! Too bad they aren’t too good for you… but they’re not THAT bad for you… right? :)
I am inspired, quite often, by cooking shows. Especially the ones where they break down things and give you tips on how to make it scrumptious. While I now absolutely hate Chef Academy for steering me wrong on making bread (more on that in a few days), at this point I did not hold such contention and decided to make a homemade tomato sauce. I basically had almost none of the ingredients and only had grape tomatoes, but I figured it would still be good. I also added leftover mushrooms to the mix and it was delish!
I bought some packages pappardelle (my fave) and put the sauce over it. Scrumptious.
We needed some protein, so I went to the local fish market/store and bought Tilapia. The fish guy said he prefers it backed with shallots and butter, so that’s just what I did (though I think I added some white wine as well).
This was just ehh. The first was a little bland and the sauce just didn’t have caliber next to that tomato sauce.
The recipe from the show can be found here. I went without the star anise (this seems to be everywhere lately! wtf?) and vanilla pod and only had dried thyme and basil. I also added it all the beginning (with WAY more garlic and a bit of tomato paste) and then let it cook down for about two hours.
