Weekend Meals and Stretchy Pants

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”      ~ Luciano Pavarotti





My goal on Friday evening was to pick up a two-pound beef tenderloin roast for Saturday Night’s dinner with friends. I had a little extra time in the Marketplace so I visited the San Francisco Fish company again and grabbed a couple of six-ounce Sea Bass filets and a bag of Bay Scallops. I thought, instead of Friday night pizza, we could have some fresh fish. I knew I had some fragrant imported Italian lemon pasta in the pantry and thought how luscious it would be mixed with some garlic Alfredo sauce as a cradle for the fish.

Well, it turned out we were not very hungry on Friday night and opted for some cheese and crackers and a glass of crisp Chardonnay. It also turned out that our Saturday night dinner guests canceled on us, so we were left with the sea bass, beef tenderloin and scallops all to ourselves for our weekend meals. Hmmm. I thought we could handle it.

I threw the scallops in the freezer (even though I hate to freeze fresh fish – after all, isn’t that the point – to eat the fish when it is fresh? Oh, well.) But I wasn’t going to do that with the sea bass so I decided to make that our Saturday night dinner and save the beef for Sunday night.

I prepared the fish by seasoning it with a lemon-garlic rub and salt and pepper. I squeezed a little fresh lemon juice over the fish filets and dusted them with flour for optimal browning on each side in a grill pan with olive oil.


In the meantime, I melted about 2 TBS of garlic butter in a shallow baking dish by placing it in a 325 degree oven (you can make this butter yourself by mixing about a stick of softened butter with minced garlic, shallots, lemon juice, fresh parsley and salt and pepper or you can buy it prepared.) Once the fish was nicely browned on both sides I placed them in the baking dish with the melted butter, added two more TBS of the garlic butter to the top of each filet and roasted the fish for about 15 minutes until cooked through, flaky and delicious.

While the fish was cooking I made the pasta. This lemony, thick spaghetti-like pasta is so fragrant - it is as if you are boiling a bag full of lemons! Once drained, I mixed in enough garlic Alfredo sauce to nicely coat it (I sometimes make my own sauce but this time I used Paul Newman’s Garlic Alfredo Sauce in the jar – it is quite good!) Once the fish was done, I placed the filet on top of asparagus and a heap of limone pasta and served it hot with some fresh Ciabatta bread. I know - I really know how to turn a healthy fish meal into a wickedly decadent dish. My husband Brian told me it was outstanding! I have to admit, I agreed. It was very yummy. Here's a photo:

Roasted Sea Bass with Lemon Pasta

A couple of weeks ago, I prepared delicious Chicken Parmesan using thinly-shaved real, aged Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese with the Alfredo sauce and capers (instead of mozzarella and tomato sauce) served over Pappardelle and received similar accolades from Brian. Check it out:

I write about our more vibrant meals as the rest of the week we try to eat salads and lighter fare. It’s not as much fun to illustrate those!

The weekends in our house call for jazz on the Bose, great movies, cooking up a storm and s~t~r~e~t~c~h~y pants.







I’ll be back to tell you how the beef tenderloin and baked scallops turn out. Stay tuned.