Braised Fish. Yes, Braised.

Yesterday, I had the unpleasant experience of coming face to face with my fall calendar. It was not pretty.

What is on the calender: work events galore, meetings with people that I successfully avoided all summer, weekend travel, everyone's wedding, the safe assumption that I will mostly not get home from work at reasonable hours, and house guests that, quite understandably, would rather do just about anything than have a homemade meal on their trip to New York City.

What is not on the calendar: cooking; quiet moments for blogging.

Ahhh. So this must be what everyone else's schedule looks like.

For the next couple of months, I predict a shortage of posts about do-it-yourself kitchen nerdery (making your own ricotta, carbonating water at home) and a wealth of information about clever new ways to feed yourself when you wind up with no time, mental energy, ambition, nor creativity.

...which is an apt segue into last night's dinner.

The first step towards making last night's dinner was talking myself into actually cooking dinner at all, as opposed to ordering takeout or eating a meal consisting of slightly expired cheddar, a Corona Light, and chocolate chip cookies. It turned out to be the right decision. I made the full meal in under an hour (which included some faffing around with laundry, channel surfing, and the like) and here's what I cooked:



-Tomato salad with fennel and feta: A reminder that a quick dinner doesn't have to be unsightly. I sliced the fennel and tomatoes that came in my CSA box and topped them with leftover crumbled feta, olive oil, rice wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. I took two extra minutes to think about presentation and ended up with something that I might actually serve to guests.



-Braised arctic char with lemon rosemary vinaigrette: the marriage of two things you probably never think to do, namely 1) use a vinaigrette on a protein and 2) braise a fish. I highly recommend both. Somewhere along the line vinaigrettes got pigeon-holed into the salad category, but they are so, so much better than that. A vinaigrette can make a versatile sauce as well as a braising medium. How to do it: sear the fish skin side down in an oiled pan over medium heat for 3 minutes, take it out of the pan, add vinaigrette (a cup or less), replace the fish skin side up, and let it sit in the simmering vinaigrette for about three minutes. Keep spooning the liquid over the fish as it cooks. Last night I used lemon rosemary vinaigrette (minced lemon rind, minced rosemary, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, and olive oil) but any kind of vinaigrette will do. I hesitate to call this way of preparing fish "idiot proof," but it's as close as they come.

-Brown rice: Nothing fancy here, just simple brown rice with some salt and olive oil. Always keep brown rice on hand for just these types of occasions. It's healthy and heats up well the next day for leftovers.