Tilapia with Crumb Topping & Cazorliva EVOO

When I said I was a lazy cook, I don’t think I thoroughly explained just how lazy I can be.   When I say lazy, I don’t mean, I cook like gourmet, super-organized, couponing, mamma extraordinaire only once a month.  I don’t mean that I cook from a can or box (all the time) either.  When I say lazy I mean that I take shortcuts like a queen.

I’m the kitchen-shortcut-queen. 

For example, this fish recipe – you don’t even have to defrost the fish!  Of course, when I was originally planning on make this (a whole 10 minutes ago) I had planned on the fish being defrosted.  But when I removed the packaging and discovered this gloriously thin and evenly placed frozen fillets, my kitchen-shortcut-queen was inspired.  just cook it all – at once.  Woot!  One step saved – no microwave necessary.

Then, in a stroke of genius, (I may have been inspired by google’s recipe archive) I discovered you can place the crumb topping on top of the fish and save yourself the entirely-too-messy goo that goes with drying, dipping, coating, and crumbing each fillet!  Brilliant!

And then I knew it to be true, when I zested the lemon and it looked like this:

 

Yep, I zested around the sticker.  Be inspired my friends to new heights of cooking lazyness.

How can I be such an inspired kitchen queen and keep my family in good health you ask?  Quality ingredients.  And easy recipes.

Begin EVOO Lesson of the Day

For example, the creme de la creme of olive oil for this recipe: Cazorliva Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  I was asked to review this olive oil, and frankly, I’m not much of a connoisseur, but my curiosity was peaked because I was in a store last week and was offered RICE oil because “olive oil isn’t good for cooking with, it has a low smoking point”.  Huh?  I thought olive oil was just better than anything else, because Rachel Ray uses it.  Apparently I need to be schooled in my olive oil use.  This is what I found out from the nice, local company, Olives and Things.

Ahem, in my most professor-like tone, here’s the highlights from their collective knowledge of all things EVOO:

  • The majority of EVOOs are mixed and blended with other varieties of olives. The problem with this, is that you can’t even taste the olives in those oils, you taste just oil. Our oil comes from just 1 kind of olive, the Picual variety.
  • Our variety, Picual- is the healthy olive. It’s the variety that contains the highest % of antioxidants and oleic acids, it’s almost 80%, comparing to other varieties like Manzanilla, that contains around 30%.
  • Because of the characteristics of this variety, it has the highest smoking point. You can cook with it up to 470ºF, you can even deep fry with our EVOO reusing it up to 4 times.
  • The Picual olive is a variety with a longer shelf life. Keeping the bottle propertly closed and away from direct sun and heat, it stays better for longer.  Some other oils get rancid very quick!  <– THAT would explain some nasty smelling stuff coming from the pretty glass bottles by my stovetop.
[end EVOO lesson]
So, don’t listen to the nice people offering you, yet another use for rice flour/ germ/ bran/ grain.   Just visit Olives and Things and get some Cazorliva EVOO and you’ll be just like Rachel Ray, ‘xcept healthier.  So you’re thinking, thats gotta be a (worth every penny) high cost oil, right?
Wrong.
They sell this little beauty for $12.99 a 750ml bottle at their website, Olives and Things.

Tilapia with Crumb Topping

And now that we’re done discussing how to zest around the sticker, and to purchase a lovely Picual EVOO, on to the easy-peasy recipe for dinner:

Crumb Topped Tilapia

Ingredients:

* 2 pkg frozen tilapia fillets

* 1 cup crushed rice chex cereal

*  1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

*  1 Tbsp lemon zest

* salt & pepper to taste

*  2-3 Tbsp Cazorliva olive oil

Directions

  1. Combine all topping ingredients and 1.5 Tbsp olive oil together until crumbly.
  2. Sprinkle olive oil on covered baking sheet.
  3. Place fillets on top.
  4. Pat crumb mixture thickly on fillets as shown.

Serve with cooked rice, veggies or salad.

Enjoy!

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About Cathy Tibbles

In 2007 Cathy's Hubby was diagnosed with celiac disease and Strawberries Are Gluten Free was born. The early days of SAGF are chock full of all the newly converted recipes. More recently the articles are trending to cool new products, events, local news and family tales.

Comments

  1. haha! too funny Cathy! i just did this last night too!! good thing my husband is learning to be adventurous with new recipes!! and our mom is the one who made everything from scratch and home made bread by hand etc etc! however did we turn out so CREATIVE in our cooking?? this was great! thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  2. We’ve just discovered PANKO style gluten-free breadcrumbs by Ogran. Slather some mustard (good quality and obviously GF!) over one side of the fish (telapia, salmon, sole… whatever!) and then cover the mustard with the crumbs – under the grill. You are done. Delicious and easy! I tend to like recipes with less than 5 ingredients (including the seasoning).

    Reply

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