Good Morning, Darlings!

Yesterday I was feeling like the islands, but since I can’t jump on a plane and jet down to Negril, I thought I would bring the tropics to us.

First stop, Super H. Of course.  I picked out some gorgeous Jamaican Butterfish. Mainly, because I liked the color. Now, I looked online for a photo of this fish alive and just can’t seem to find one. So this gorgeous photo from Destination Jamaica will have to suffice.

I didn’t want to serve only fish. I wanted to make it special for Eric and me. I spied a package of crawfish for $6 and picked that up, too. Our buddy Jeff told us a while back about a sauce that had crawfish in it. Trying to recreate that, I had my butterfish filleted right there at the fish counter and after picking up a few real sugar Coca-Colas, I headed home.

Yesterday was crazy busy here at our house. Lots of cooking, planting and cleaning going on. Today is more of the same. But when Eric stops working for the day, it is our time to exhale and enjoy the evening. Last night we cooked together, stealing kisses between sauteing fish. Here are the ingredients we started with (that is, right after I peeled and deveined 72 crawfish. this is not pretty work, folks.)

Eric spiced up the Israeli couscous that was cooking on the stove. Please, if you have never tried this, you have to pick some up from your grocery store. Most stores sell it, and you could definitely get some at Whole Foods. It is the tastiest side dish ever. Pinky swear.

And here’s our pretty fish, cooking up nicely.

We sauteed this in a bit of olive oil, after dredging it lightly with seasoned flour. I just seasoned our flour with salt and pepper. Thinking that the olive oil with fish drippings would make a great base for our sauce, I got to throwing in some butter, some flour (to make a roux), white wine and heavy cream.

The sauce was vile.

But not to worry! We have more ingredients. So after cleaning up the pan, we started the sauce once again. First, a hunk of butter, then the crawfish went in, next some wine and a bit of cream. Bring to a boil, let simmer so it can thicken a bit and serve over your fish that has been nestled on a bed of that awesome Israeli couscous. Pour yourself a glass of wine, turn down the lights and play some Al Green, Marvin Gaye or some Bob Marley or Peter Tosh. Whatever you like.

Now enjoy every bite and feel the cares of the day melt away.

I wish you sunshine today!

xoxo, Patti