What’s for Dinner Tonight?Lemon Thyme Tilapia with Baked Russet Potatoes

Yesterday was a whirl wind of a day – cooking for a corporate party at the local country club. When your in the the trenches, up to your eyeballs in marinates, up since the crack of dawn peeling and chopping, running back and forth from oven to fridge to freezer to work station, all you are thinking is please G-d let this food be GOOD ( and make sure I don’t overcook  or burn anything)!

So when planning menus for such parties, I always try to keep it as simple as possible, let the food talk for itself and try not to get crazy with fancy techniques and ingredients. Otherwise those 12 hours of me slaving away in the kitchen would be NO FUN, and the reason I do what I do, is because at the end of the day, I love it.

From the aching feet, to the burns and cuts all over my hands, to smelling like I bathed in deep fried chicken – I LOVE IT ALL!  I love the time I spend creating in the kitchen – but even more I LOVE seeing people ENJOY what I have made. This tilapia dish would have been a best seller at Tastebuds!

When people ask me why do I want the headache of opening another café?–the long LONG hours, the constant pressure, the unfortunately the not so rare- nasty customer, and the fact that cafes are really not the glamorous get-rich quick propositions most people think they are; its because there has never been a time that I have felt more satisfied and accomplished (my kid not included) then when I would take a brief moment, see the café full of people enjoying – and realize this was all because of something I created.

But enough about my café dreams, and back to making a recipe that is simple, but is delicious, but versatile enough to be served at any high end party or for a regular Monday Night Dinner at home!

I had a originally seen the idea in a cooking magazine –I seriously have forgotten which one – I read so many a week. What I do remember is that I loved the idea of cooking the tilapia over the thinly sliced russet potatoes. Besides the gorgeous presentation, I could just taste how delicious those potatoes were going to taste from all the lemon and thyme drippings of the tilapia.

Boy was I right, not only did it look good it tasted FANTASTIC and literally took minutes to put together and 20 minutes to cook – cant get better than that!

So for dinner tonight – I highly recommend trying this truly YUMMY mouth watering Tilapia fish recipe –it will be a hit even with those who are normally a meat and potato kind a crowd!

Lemon Thyme Tilapia with Baked Russet Potatoes

Tip: the best way to make this dish is to bake it on a cookie sheet or large flat baking tray.

Ingredients:

4 Tilapia

2 Russet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced into rounds

extra virgin olive oil

Fresh Thyme

sea salt or kosher salt

fresh ground black pepper

garlic powder

2 Lemon cut into rounds

Directions:

pre-heat oven to 400F

Spray your baking sheets with non stick spray or drizzle olive oil and grease the entire pan.

Lay your russet potatoes on the tray in 3 columns in rows of 3, overlapping the potatoes slightly with each other.

drizzle olive oil over the potatoes, and sprinkle some salt, pepper, and garlic.

Sprinkle both sides of the tilapia with salt, pepper & garlic and lay on top of the russet potatoes. Drizzle olive oil on top.

Add 3-4 fresh sprigs of thyme to the center of the tilapia.

Then place two slices of Lemon on top of the thyme.

Bake in oven for about 20 minutes and serve hot.