What’s monumental about tonight’s dinner? I made it up! That’s right — no recipe. I just scrounged around the cabinets and found some things to throw together. Before I started cooking earlier this year, that would have been unheard of. But I’m learning. I’m learning what works together, what you can substitute and how to guess on time, ingredients and side dishes. I mean, I didn’t even realize you could bake vegetables in olive oil and salt and call it a day until like 2 months ago. Now, I’m throwing veggies in the oven like it’s my job.

I actually made Kale chips (literally toss some kale on a pan with olive oil & salt and bake for 15 minutes!) last night in this way but I have no photos because they looked really gross. Though they were still tasty! I added too much olive oil but the crunchy ones were grand — and everyone knows you need to eat more Kale!

As for this lovely meal, let me get down to it. I came home from work and thought hmm, what’s for dinner? I noticed some frozen cod in the freezer and figured I could work with this. What else did I have? Panko. Japanese style breadcrumbs. Okay, still working for me. I had also just bought pineapple rings in hopes of grilling them with some kind of meat. Cod, pineapple? This could be islandy.

Panko Parmesan Baked Cod

— 3 medium-sized Frozen (or fresh!) cod
— 1 Cup Panko breadcrumbs
— 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
— 1 egg & 1 cup whole milk for batter mixture
— Sea Salt, Garlic Salt, Pepper (sprinkle over)
— 1 Tablespoon olive oil

*See instructions in paragraph below!

Then I saw the corn I bought and decided, why the hell not? So…I unthawed the cod, created a mixture of milk and egg to dip it in to make the bread crumbs stick. I lined a pan with pineapple rings and loaded some corn down with butter. Then I crusted the battered cod and set over the pineapple to bake with the corn. I also added my secret ingredient — parmesan. Not really a secret but I’ve been adding it to everything! I also added parm to the kale! I baked my masterpiece for 30 minutes until it looked picture perfect then topped the cod with a tad bit bit of salsa.

It was not the most tasty meal to date but it was healthy and light — a good summer meal, as Rick said. I went to bed feeling satisfied and not too full. I somehow managed to ignore my 9:30pm snack attack.

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