Potato cheddar pie and fish taco brunch *featuring pineapple salsa!*

Preheat the oven to 350F. Shred 3 potatoes, 1 sweet potato, and half a head of cauliflower. This will take approximately forever unless you have a food processor in which case, la di da! Then, in case you hadn't had enough yet, shred some cheese. I used about a cup of cheddar and a third of parmesan. Put all this in a pan or pot or something else ... a bucket maybe, if that's all you have.

Calorie counters, avert your eyes! Add 2 cups of cream, as much dill as you can handle and heat through while heating up an oven safe skillet.When the cream starts to bubble up like a Bieber fan who catches a glimpse of his toes under the side stage curtain, add oil to the hot skillet and put all the potato mixture in. Pat it down a bit with the back of your spoon and put it in the oven for an hour or until the edges are dark brown.

While that is cooking, you can do an amusing dance for anyone in the house with you, tidy the living room, giggle at pictures of cats on the internet, or anything else for half an hour or so. Then get started on your fish tacos. I made a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper to coat my tiny ocean perch fillets. Cook them in a non-stick skillet or, as I did, in a george foreman grill until they are done. They should be opaque all the way through and flaky.

While that is cooking, lets make pineapple salsa. It's getting a bit Inception up in here. Cut up 2 tomatoes and an equivalent amount of pineapple into 1 cm cubes. I like it chunky. Chop up some cilantro, I used about 5 stems worth. Add it to the bowl with some salt, pepper, and a splash of olive oil. Salsa done. Delicious!

Assemble the taco! Get your tortillas, and load em up. I added fish, salsa, and a small handful of arugula. By this time the potatoes should be done. The music has ended so let's blow up the hospital and ride the kick back up the layers. Serve a piece of that golden potato pie with a taco and call it a meal. That's what I did and people bought it. *snicker snicker*

Leftover Trout Quesadilla

3 whole wheat tortillas
2 C grated old cheddar, grated
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tomato, seeded and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the pizza stone inside and prepare ingredients for assembly.

Once heated, remove pizza stone and assemble first layer with half the cheese, all the garlic and peppers.

Put second tortilla on top and assemble second layer with tomatoes, shredded fish and rest of the cheese. Be sure to put some cheese below and on top of ingredients in both layers to be sure it all sticks together.

Put final layer on top and put a pan on top to stop it from curling upwards. Bake for 10 minutes, remove pan and broil until golden brown and crispy on top.

Slice, eat immediately, and enjoy.

This came out pretty well, certainly better than previous efforts. The pizza stone kept the bottom really crispy and the middle tortilla gave some much needed stability to support all the toppings. I could pick up the slice and it held horizontal without anything falling out. It's a cheese miracle!

Normally I wouldn't put fish with cheese, but I liked this. The mustard atop the fish really came through. I would have kept the seeds in the jalapeno because it wasn't spicy at all. The tomato was a welcome burst of juices. I didn't taste much garlic, so I'd add a second clove next time. Cilantro is a must next time because I found it a bit heavy tasting.

Fish Cakes

5 small to medium sized potatoes, 1" cubed
1lb boneless cod filet, 1" cubed
1/6 spanish onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/2 red pepper
1 cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp whole grain dijon mustard
2 Tbsp cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 C bread crumbs
2 Tbsp flour to coat
salt and pepper to taste
Butter for frying

Boil potatoes. When they are almost tender add fish. Lightly saute onion, garlic & peppers.

Drain when potatoes are tender and add to a bowl. Add sauted vegetables to the bowl and mash together. Add mustard, cream, mix lightly. Add lemon juice and bread crumbs. Mix until even distribution.

Form into patties (mine were about 4" in diameter), coat in seasoned flour. Fry in butter. Flip when patties are a bit browner than this picture. These turned out to be like pancakes where the first batch (pictured) didn't brown as nicely as the rest.

Serve with sliced avocado and yogurt. Eat & enjoy.

These fish cakes turned out really tasty, but not at all fishy. Neither I nor Ladypants could pick it out at all, so next time I'd use more fish. so they aren't really fish cakes, more fried mashed potato awesomeness. Crunchy on the outside, creamy in the middle with a nice texture from the red peppers. They tasted great with the perfectly ripe avocado and the tang of the yogurt. I was surprised to find myself full after only three. They also quelled the caffeine shakes leftover from this afternoon's tasting session. Win, win, win!

Mustard crusted trout

This is an extremely simple and delicious way to prepare fish. Probably my shortest recipe:

Take some fish, I like rainbow trout. Put a thin layer of crushed whole grain mustard on top of it. Broil until opaque in the middle. I had a thin filet, so it took about 6 minutes. Eat and enjoy.

I served mine with some leftover curry brown rice with vegetables. The mustard highly complements the curry flavour of the rice. For a light lunch, a salad will work too.