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It helps to have pre-made sauces to do all the work for you. Tabasco Pepper Jelly is mostly sweet, a little spicy, and requires nothing but a little twist of the lid before it’s ready to grace your fish, pork, chicken, or even alligator if that’s your thing. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

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Just spoon it on like they do in the bayou. I don’t actually know if that’s how they do it in the bayou, but I’m going to assume it is. They do everything with Tabasco down in the Lousiana bayou, so surely spooning must be on the list, right?

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Make sure you use enough. Wouldn’t want to skimp.

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15 minutes in a 425 degree oven, and your fish is done! Obviously the cooking time for alligator is going to be a little different, so adjust as necessary. Throw together a couple of sides (corn bread, sweet potatoes, and black-eyed peas are all suitable Cajun fare) and your dinner is ready to go!

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Happy Eating!

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Sweet Pepper Fish

2-4 fish filets
3 Tbs Tabasco Pepper Jelly

The author’s pretty proud of herself, even going so far as to name and patent her “new cooking method.” Who knew that all those frontier settlers using their dutch ovens in the 1800s were guilty of copyright infringement? Anyway, even if her “revolutionary” method is nothing particularly new, it’s still a great collection of very easy recipes, and the vast majority of them happen to be GFCF, or are very easily modified. (Who cooks hulled barley, anyway? Just substitute rice.)

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This is a variation on a recipe in the book called Cajun Fish, which turned out so delicious that it made me rethink my position on sweet potatoes — which prior to this meal had been, at best, indifference. First, peel and cube one sweet potato, and layer it in the bottom of your greased dutch oven.

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This recipe introduced me to another new experience as well: eating whole cooked cloves of garlic. Not for the weak of heart (or kids, for that matter,) but they’re easy to remove after cooking if you want to. I really do recommend trying it at least once though. You might be amazed like I was. Either way, just snip the ends and peel about 6-8 whole cloves of garlic, and toss them on top of the sweet potato pieces.

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Lay 1-2 pounds of fish filets over the garlic, and sprinkle them liberally with McCormick cajun seasoning blend. Do be aware that other brands of seasoning blends might contain gluten as an anti-caking agent, so you can’t just pick one willy-nilly. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning, so always check your labels!]

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Next, cut two roma tomatoes into quarters.

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You can cut the little stem connections off, but leave the insides and seeds, because that moisture is going to add to the steaming factor inside the pot.

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Layer about 1 cup of frozen green beans over the fish, then place the tomato quarters face down on top. Cover with the lid and cook in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.

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I wish I could do the texture of these sweet potatoes justice with my description here. They are soft, yet not mushy; savory, but still retaining a little of their natural sweetness… and most amazingly, they are completely and totally smooth, not a single string to be found. It’s really quite amazing. Oh, and the rest of the meal’s pretty darn tasty, too.

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Happy Eating!

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Cajun Fish

1 sweet potato
6-8 whole cloves garlic
1-2 pounds fish filets
1 Tbs McCormick Cajun seasoning blend
1 cup frozen green beans
2 roma tomatoes

I know you already know how to assemble your basic GFCF taco, so really this is about the preparation of the fish. Step one is to rinse the slime off your fish filets. Always rinse your fish — for one thing, it’ll help any seasonings or marinades absorb better, and for another, you won’t be eating slime.

Make sure you pat them completely dry with paper towels on all sides. Then slice them into decent-sized chunks for tacos. At this point, of course, you could roll them in GF breading and make fish sticks, but we’ll save that for another time.

Melt 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted (not Original) Margarine, then mix in 1/4 teaspoon of cumin…

…And 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder. None of the appropriately-sized measuring spoons were clean, so I improvised. I don’t have it in me to run the dishwasher more than once a day, or do dishes by hand just because we don’t have any more. If this means I’m serving something like hamburgers in bowls, so be it.

Lay your fish pieces in a greased baking dish, and brush the garlic butter liberally over the tops. Then bake in a 450 degree oven for only about 4-7 minutes, until the fish is flaking apart easily when you poke at it with a fork.

And the rest is just dressing. Or fixins, as we say down here. Corn tortilla, rice tortilla, salsa, guacamole, beans, whatever you fancy. Your fish is ready for it, bring it on!

Happy Eating!

Fish Tacos

2 fish filets
2 Tbs Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (not Original)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp garlic
Toppings as desired

It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for a good sauce. I especially love a meal where you can reserve a little extra and put it all over your veggies and potatoes or whatnot too. Also, I’m a sucker for honey. Best of both worlds, right here! 

First, lay your fish filets in a baking dish sprayed with canola oil. The GFCF Husband was working late, so I only needed to do two tonight. Plus, for whatever reason I ended up with more smallish filets than normal in this purchase, so I needed to pawn those off on the kids.

Fish is tricky, because on the one hand there’s a concern over mercury content, but on the other it’s chock full of omega fatty acids, which are important for brain functioning. Here’s a list of the highest and lowest mercury-containing fish. Freshwater trout or salmon are the best choices overall, because they are the lowest in mercury ratings while highest in omega-3s. But whatever you do, please don’t construe any of this to be medical advice. I’m not a doctor, I’m just some chick on the internet, you know?

Honey. Mustard. See how easy this is? That’s 2 Tablespoons of each, which will ultimately be enough to cover more than two fish filets, but like I said, I love having extra sauce. I’m using Grey Poupon because it’s my favorite, but if your kids aren’t so keen on the grainier mustards, you could easily choose a different one. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Check your labels, every time.]

Add 1/2 Tablespoon of lemon juice…

1/4 teaspoon of McCormick’s ground mustard…

1/4 teaspoon of McCormick’s dill weed…

And just a smidge of garlic. About 1/8 teaspoon of the jarred kind.

Mix well, and spread over the back of the fish. Keep that sauce bowl on hand so you can put the rest on your plate when it comes out of the oven.

Bake in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until the fish is cooked all the way through and flakes easily with a fork. That makes this, like, a 20-minute meal total, and it just doesn’t get any better than that. Plus, do you have any idea how good this smells? There’s only one way to find out–well, besides showing up at my doorstep, which I don’t recommend. I’m not sharing.

Happy Eating!

Honey Mustard Fish

2-4 servings of fish
2 TBS honey
2 TBS GFCF dijon mustard
1/2 TBS lemon juice
1/4 tsp McCormick’s ground mustard
1/4 tsp McCormick’s dill weed
1/8 tsp minced garlic (about 1/4 clove)

This is definitely a kid-friendly meal, but only if you don’t let them watch you make it. It looks all fancy and gourmet, and some of the ingredients have a mental gag-factor all their own, but trust me, the final product is to die for.

The basic premise of this recipe is you steam some fish filets, and then you turn the liquid from the pan into a sauce for the fish. As you can guess, we will be steaming them with something a little tastier than water. Here’s what we start with: sugar, white cooking wine, minced ginger, minced garlic, and… clam juice. Seriously, don’t panic. It’s just like fish stock, but it tastes better. They carry it in most grocery stores, over with the canned tuna. You can use plain ol’ fish stock if you really can’t handle the concept of cooking with clam juice, but then you’ll never know what a truly great meal you could have had. Come on, live a little.

Start by putting 3/4 cup of the wine and 3/4 cup of the clam juice in the bottom of a steamer pan. Then add in 1 Tablespoon of sugar.

Mix well so the sugar dissolves, then add 1 Tablespoon of minced ginger, and 1 clove of minced garlic. As you can see, my ginger is just like my garlic: pre-minced and in a jar. I already spend enough time prepping and cooking with ingredients from scratch, so I’ll take my shortcuts where I can get them. Plus, I always manage to grate my fingertips along with the ginger when I try to grate it myself, and while my blood is 100% gluten-free at this point, it’s just not that appetizing.

Get a good boil going, and let it simmer for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, chop up one green onion. (Do you still count it as one if the bulb has two stalks on it? I always do, but that may also be because I like green onions a lot.)

When your sauce has simmered for ten minutes, place the top rack in the steamer pan, and spritz it lightly with canola oil.

Lay in your fish filets, and drizzle them with 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. Just let the extra oil drip down into the pan, it’s cool.

And do the same thing with 2 teaspoons of La Choy soy sauce. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without notice. Always check your ingredient lists!]

Then sprinkle on your green onions, cover it with the lid, and steam until the fish is done (when it flakes apart easily with a fork.) I’m using pretty small Tilapia filets, so it only takes about 5 minutes. Now, the one major drawback of this recipe is you can only do two fish filets at once unless you have an unusually large steamer. This was a late night for us, so the kids had already eaten. But if you’re cooking for more than two, you can do everything the same except drizzle half of the sesame oil and soy sauce onto the first pair, and save half for the second round of filets. Most of it ends up in the bottom anyway, which is where we want it for the sauce.

Now, while the fish is steaming, prepare a cornstarch mixture. Check your brands, most but not all of them are gluten-free. Start with 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in the tiniest little container you can find.

Add just enough water to dissolve all the cornstarch into a slurry. We’re talking bare minimum here, a tiny drizzle. (Man, how many times can I use the word “drizzle” in one post?)

Move the fish out onto plates, and toss the steamer tray in the sink.

You’ll see the sauce underneath has changed greatly since we last saw it. Please forgive the abundance of steam in this shot. I was, ah, going for extra realism? Anyway, here comes the part that makes this meal kid-friendly: add 4 Tablespoons of brown sugar to the simmering sauce. I did tell you this recipe was called Sweet Wine Fish, didn’t I?

Pour in your cornstarch mixture, and mix well.

Continue to simmer the sauce for several minutes until it has thickened to your liking. TheGFCFMan likes a pretty thick sauce, but I’m usually starving by this time and very impatient to eat, so we meet somewhere in the middle.

Then all you have to do is… wait for it… drizzle the sauce onto your filets and enjoy. You will probably end up with extra sauce unless you choose to go beyond drizzling into soaking your fish, and I like to save that in a small tupperware for leftovers. It makes a great salad dressing, or a dipping sauce for chicken nuggets, or any number of things.

Happy Eating!

Sweet Wine Fish

3/4 cup white cooking wine
3/4 cup clam juice
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. minced ginger
1 clove minced garlic
2-4 Tilapia filets
1 green onion
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. La Choy soy sauce
4 Tbs. brown sugar
2 tsp. Clabber Girl cornstarch in water