My Progress

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 5 - Pistachio Crusted Tilapia

I have been a day behind for a bit.  Today I bought a scale as I referred to in yesterday's post, which was written today!  I had another of Jill's Orange Cream popsicles (83 Cal. soooo good!) for a snack and some diet cherry Jell-O (essentially 0 cal, maybe 1?) because I didn't wake up until 5 PM (slept all day and all night).

I decided to make something with the frozen fish we bought a few days ago at Giant Tiger.  Their mascot really should be a Giant Canary instead of a Giant Tiger.  CHEEEEEP!  The basa, tilapia and sole were really inexpensive.  I can't recall offhand but something like $1 per fillet.

Pistachio Crusted Tilapia
Logan Rating
Serves 4  - 364 calories per serving

Ingredients
1 cup shelled pistachios
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
4 tilapia fillets
salt and ground black pepper
2 Tbsp honey mustard (recipe I used below)
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil, divided

Directions
In a food processor, combine pistachios, oregano, thyme and garlic powder.  Process until finely chopped and transfer to a shallow dish.  Season both sides of tilapia fillets with salt and pepper.  Brush honey mustard over both sides of tilapia and then transfer to pistachio mixture.  Press misture into both sides of fish.
Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add tilapia and cook 2 to 3 minutes per side, until fork-tender.

Honey Mustard Sauce
3 Tbsp prepared mustard
3 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup mayonaisse

Not my best outing.  I wasn't that impressed with the recipe.  I don't have a food processor (something I have to rectify immediately), so I used the blender and it was a disaster.  It pushed the pistachios to the outside and refused to chop them, so I tried to stop and fork the stuff away from the sides and when that didn't work, I dumped it all into the strainer (I started with the finest size) and it wouldn't go through and by the time I had progressed through all four various sized of strainers/collanders in our house, I have pistachio/oregano/thyme/garlic powder over most of the surface of the shelf, sink and floor.  Eventually I triumped over the useless strainers only by reverting to my inner cave man (Hmph!  Grog beat stupid strainer into submission!  Take that!) and putting the powder part back in the blender and  blended until the sides were sloped and then dropped in the unchopped pistachio pieces back in the top where they promptly flew back at me, bounced off the bottom of the cupboards and hit me in the eye.
Now Grog the Mighty Hunter, half blind and in pain, beating the blender into submission, is forced to hold the little clear plastic center thingy over the hole while carefully pouring the rest of the nuts in through the hole and the slope of powdered nuts and spice ensures that the nuts keep dropping back into the blades and eventually they are all chopped up.  Time for a food processor (or a better blender) for Grog!

Everything else went fairly smoothly, other than Grog bashing his toe repeatedly on the wall corner, stove, fridge and table in successsion until Grog's mother insists he wear her extra pair of crocs to keep the Mighty Hunter unimpaired (Grog think he look fairly ridiki..  ridiklus...ridecel....stooopid in crocs), and was able to finish off the fish.

Not great.  I served it with 2 cups of Imperial Stir Fry each (100 Cal.) with butter on top (and important 70 Cal. for 2 tsp that rates a Mmmmmm!) washed down with Grapefruit Punch (1 can of Fresca with a pouch of Tangerine Grapefruit Crystal Lite and 2 cups of water - 2.5 Cal ) .  Mom thought it tasted unfinished, like it needed tartar sauce or something.  For me, I liked the background taste of the honey mustard, but next time I would process the spices to reduce them to a powdered state and crush up the pistachios in a bread bag with a rolling pin (Grog likes to bash) that way you would get more pistachio flavor and bigger nut chunks in the breading.  I tasted some mahi-mahi once with a pistachio coating at Ric's Grill and liked the taste of it, and that's primarily why I tried this recipe today and found it wanting, definitely not worth the 364 calories.  The punch was the best part of the meal unfortunately.  I would not recommend this until I have fixed it, but thought I would post it anyway.  It wasn't gross, it just wasn't up to par for me.

So my grand total for today is 620 calories (as I slept through 2 meals) and I'm down 18 pounds!

2 comments:

Chris Merrill said...

Nice job Logan! Keep it up. Whatever you do, don't call this thing a "diet", call it "healthy living". I believe the "diet" word has a subconcious effect on us humans. I've recently gone your route with eating more healthy and I'm working out every morning as well. I don't agree with the doctor's idea of not doing some physical activity EVERY day. I was a wrestler (if you remember) and worked my ass off for 7 straight years and was able to keep the weight off with no problems. For me it's keeping the matabolism up so I can burn off excess calories without much effort.

n.c.ackroyd said...

I've been there, with clogged strainers and bits of stuff everywhere. I was howling reading this.