Cowboy Fish

Anyone else thinking about a rockin' underwater rodeo?

No?

Uh, yeah. Me neither...

Tonight I made a quick meal in light of both the heat of August and the fact that Baby Girl now has a cough keeping her up at night. Plus, for some reason, she decided 2 am might be a good time to play and tried to open her door and walk into the hall. She was mightily ticked that I stopped her and insisted she try to lay her head. The little squall lasted only a minute, though, before she dutifully snuggled up again to sleep. It was almost like she was just checking her options.

For side dishes, I made frozen peas and also stuffing from a box. Okay, so it's not so much haute cuisine, but it was tasty and represented appropriate food groups. Everything we eat will not be gourmet and that's a life lesson, in it's way. Who are we to turn up our noses at nourishment, when so many in this world go hungry? Besides being tasty and relatively healthy, it was also cheap. 79 cents for the peas, $1.10 for the stuffing and there's left overs of both. I refuse to apologize because I have nothing to apologize for, and yet I feel as though I'm confessing to something culinarily shameful, like liking really cheap Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot. Maybe the difference is I recognize this food for what it is. I'm not thinking all spaghetti should taste like Chef Boyardee and turning up my nose at nona's marinara. Or believing that good merlot is cloying and flavored with blackberry syrup (or whatever the Arbor Mist people do. I won't knock it completely--I drank this in college for a semester until I discovered Bully Hill Love Goat Red. I've moved on from there, but still).

The protein was cod that I wrapped in bacon and crisped in a pan. I made a dry rub with cracked black pepper, cayenne, brown sugar and a spice mix called Citrus Basil (from Pampered Chef). Once I had removed the fish (bacon mostly crispy, definitely not soggy) I made a quick pan sauce. I deglazed with a little chicken stock from the fridge, then added cayenne, pepper and about a teaspoon of barbecue sauce, for smokiness. I let it reduce, then mounted the sauce with a bit of butter. Quick, inexpensive, flavorful and rather masculine, for fish. Sort of a cowboy fish dish.

Yee-haw, y'all...