Sarah's choice of nuts of nuts for this round posed a problem that I often run into with Feeding Friendship - too many choices! I have nutty recipes for every course - beet, goat cheese, and pine nut salad; peanut soup; walnut bread; hazelnut-chocolate crepes - but in the end I decided to dig into my enormous pile of recipes torn from magazines to make pecan-crusted trout. I had a recipe, but ended up mostly using it as a suggestion (I have issues with authority) and simply salted and peppered my trout fillets before dipping them the non-skin side in succession into (1) flour, (2) yogurt thinned with milk to replicate buttermilk, and (3) a mixture of a 1/4 cup of finely chopped pecans and 1/4 cup of panko bread crumbs. Cook the trout 4 minutes per side over medium high and serve with a squeeze of lemon. The combination of rich fish and oily nuts makes the dish deeply satisfying with the crunch provided by the panko and nuts offering up a nice contrast to the soft fish.
This was a Sunday night meat and two vegetable sort of meal (an unusual occurrence at our house where I like to shove my protein, vegetables, and carbs into a single dish). Spring time means peas for me so I simply blanched them and then tossed them with butter, salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Another easy side - perfect roasted potatoes. Have I told you about these before? My friend Summer taught me this rather obsessive method for cooking potatoes. Toss quartered red potatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper and then line them up, all facing the same way with one cut side down. Roast for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Flip each potato over so that the other cut side is down. Roast 10 more minutes and toss with whatever fresh herbs you have on hand. I promise, these will be the most perfectly crisp roasted potatoes you have ever had and they really aren't THAT much more effort. Perfect potatoes - because I'm worth it.
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