Eat Your Greens

We have been all told to "Eat Our Greens", but frankly eating them is ugh.  Finding a good recipe is difficult.  My son, the Vegetarian, loves Swiss Chard.  He told me he sautees the Swiss Chard in garlic and oil and then drizzles some lemon juice on it.  I followed his directions and well frankly - yuk!  I did not like it.  Then, I found this recipe in the March 19 Wall Street Journal and decided to give eating exotic greens another try.  But there were some obstacles, I did not have Wild Halibut,  I could not find Sorrel in the stores and I don't like steamed fish.  But that did not stop me from trying to make a healthy adaptation of this recipe.  My recipe serves 2, and since I like alot of sauce on my foods, I did not halve the sauce recipe.

I started with 2 six-ounce Haddock fillets.  I soaked the fish in an egg white bath.  Meanwhile, I poured 1/3 cup of cornmeal (I prefer yellow) into a plastic bag with a few shakes of Lemon Pepper seasoning and dredged the fish fillets in the cornmeal.  I heated up my skillet and sprayed it with Pam cooking spray.   I added the 2 fillets to the hot pan and then drizzled 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and let it run under the fillets to give them a bit of a crunch.  I turned once and then added the second 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan following the same procedure.  This way I sauteed the fish without using alot of oil.  I turned the oven on to 350 degrees and while the fillets were cooking lined a small aluminum baking dish with foil and sprayed it.  I transferred the fillets to the baking dish and placed them in the oven while I prepared the sauce.

For the sauce I decided to be brave and bought about 3/4 pound of Swiss Chard.  I cleaned it and cut it into 3/4-inch strips.  Since I have started this blog, I have been treating myself to some new cooking utensils.  So I pulled out my brand new Calphalon  21/2 quart saute pan (Bed Bath and Beyond had a $39.95 special - plus I used my 20% off coupon).  I sprayed the pan with Pam spray and about 10 sprays of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray for the buttery flavor.  I added the garlic, thyme (dried of course) and Swiss Chard, let it cook until the garlic was translucent.  Next I added the wine and covered the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes.  After that I added 1/2 cup of bottled clam juice (available in Shop-Rite and other local supermarkets) and let the it cook for another 4-5 minutes.  At this point I turned off the oven so that the fish would not over cook.  Instead of 1/2 cup of heavy cream (100 calories and  40 mg of cholesterol per serving), I used 1/2 cup of Fat Free Half and Half (20 calories 0 mg of cholesterol per serving) to turn the sauce into a something that my cardiologist would approve of.  I followed the remaining directions substituting I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoon of butter.  If you would rather use butter, then Land O' Lakes Light Whipped Butter has only 45 calories per tablespoon vs the 100 calories in every tablespoon of butter.  Whatever you decide to do, this recipe is a definite keeper and changed my mind about "Eating my Greens".

Matt Dillon's Steamed Wild Halibut With Sorrel Sauce | Slow Food Fast - WSJ.com