Tilapia Fra Diavolo

Fra Diavolo (Italian for “Brother Devil”) is a spicy sauce, typically tomato-based and using chili peppers for spice. The term is also used for sauces that include no tomato, or that use cayenne or other forms of pepper. Mosts believe that the dish was named for Michele Pezza. [courtesy Wikipedia]

This dish features a parmesan crusted tilapia filet covered in a tomato sauce loaded with fresh vegetables and just the right amount of flare.

Make It Your Own
This is a dish that begs to be personalized. If you prefer cayenne pepper over crushed red pepper, go for it! If you like quick dishes, a can of Rotel can be substituted for the fresh vegetables. I prefer it this way, but to each his own. Add mushrooms, capers or black olives to enhance the flavor even more. Another easy variation would be to add small shrimp or crawfish to the sauce. Any firm white fish, such as orange roughie, cod or even Mahi Mahi could be substituted depending on what your budget and palet preference is. Whatever floats your boat, this sauce is basic enough that you almost can’t go wrong with making it your own!

Serving Suggestions
This dish is great served with any fresh vegetable side. Asparagus sauted in olive oil, salt and peppered to tast, makes an excellent accompaniment. We enjoyed it with brussel sprouts and a baked potatoes. It would be excellent with any pasta, the sauce This is a classic dish that is a blank canvas that goes with anything.

Beautiful Presentation
Someone who wants to look like a gourmet chef could take this dish and easily plate it in such a way that it makes for a beautiful presentation. With the red of the tomatoes, the green of the peppers and golden brown exterior of the fish this dish is appealing to the eye.

Poppy Seed Chicken

This is one of my favorite dishes that my wife makes! It’s simple and easy for the running family crowd. In fact it’s a great recipe to cook up ahead of time and put in the oven any time. It’s creamy, buttery flavor goes very well with the chicken and crunchy Ritz crackers.

Serving Suggestions
This is a classic casserole so there are tons of sides that compliment it pretty well. The question is: To mix or not to mix? If you’re the type that hates for food to touch each other, this is going to be a difficult dish for you without a lunch tray from your local elementary school. Personally, I love to mix it up, especially with corn. It’s great with any fresh vegetables for a good wholesome meal.

Perfect Pan Pizza – For Starters

For my inaugural post I’ll share some secrets that we recently learned that led to a GREAT homemade pan pizza. This pizza was the best I’ve ever eaten, much less made, with it’s crunchy, bready crust and it’s bubbly, crispy cheese. It was a labor of love but well worth the efforts!

Here are the results:

From the top (who needs Pizza Hut?!)

From the side…2″ thick.

Signature Pan Crust
We discovered, not because we’re great detectives but because we know the right TV show to watch, that a huge help to a great pan crust milk. Milk?! That’s right, adding milk and a little olive oil to the dough mixture instead of just water gives the crust that nice bready texture. It also gives it a little extra fat that makes the flavor out of this world. If you’re concerned about the fat, then you shouldn’t be eating anything that has peperoni or pizza in it’s name! Also adding what seems like a lot (3 tbsp) of olive oil into the cake pan in which we baked the pizzas helped give the bottom side of the crust a crunchiness that adds a certain something to the package.