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.

Tilapia with Crumb Topping

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!