Parma-wrapped Fish with Mediterranean Sauce #FishFridayFoodies

Add extra flavor to your fish by pan-frying it wrapped in Parma ham, then sit it on a succulent bed of spicy tomatoes and olives, perhaps with pasta underneath, for a beautiful and satisfying meal.

I’m not sure if the two things go hand in hand for everyone, but we are beach people and we love seafood. There's nothing we enjoy more than traveling somewhere where the catch is fresh and putting it straight on the grill or into a pan! In fact, our favorite fish dish, ceviche, doesn’t even require heat!

So when my friend, Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm, asked me if I’d like to join a group she was forming, with the aim of putting more seafood on our tables in the name of health, I thought, sure, and yes, please! We do already eat quite a lot of seafood here - easily once or twice a week – so I’m looking forward to seeing all the great recipes my fellow bloggers will share for Fish Friday Foodies.

The Parma-wrapped fish in this particular recipe is so good that we had it twice in one week! Once one its own, and then with this chunky sauce.

Ingredients to serve two
For the fish:
Sea salt
Black pepper
2 thick sustainable white fish fillets, skinless, 7 oz or 200g each
4 slices Parma ham
Olive oil

For the sauce:
1 small red chili pepper
1/2 large purple onion
1 large clove garlic
2 large tomatoes
Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper
1/2 cup, sliced, or 65g black olives
Good handful fresh basil leaves – keep aside the tiniest ones for garnish

To serve:
About 4 oz or 113g dry pasta of your choice, cooked as instructed on package.

Method
Mince your garlic and chili pepper and chop your onions and tomatoes.

In a large non-stick saucepan, sauté the garlic, pepper and onion in a good glug of olive oil, over a low flame, until soft.

Add in the chopped tomatoes and give them a good sprinkle of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Cook for about 15-20 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft just starting to break down.

While the tomatoes cook, season your fish fillets with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then wrap them in the Parma ham.

Add the olives to the saucepan and cook for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Pile the chunky sauce into a bowl and set aside.

This is also a good time to boil and drain your pasta, according to package instructions!

Drizzle some more olive oil into the saucepan and turn the heat up. Cook the wrapped fish for about 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Actual times will vary depending on the thickness of your fillets.

While the fish is cooking, stack your basil leaves one on top of the other and roll them tightly, then slice them finely. This is what the fancy chefs call chiffonade.

When the fish is done, remove it to a warm place and return the sauce to the saucepan and reheat it till bubbling. Remove from the heat and stir through the basil.

Divide the pasta between two shallow bowls, spoon on some sauce, then perch the fish on top. Drizzle with a little good quality olive oil. Add a bit of the sauce and tiny basil leaves for garnish, if you have some.

Enjoy!

An InLinkz Link-up

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of every month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517@gmail.com.

Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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Shaved Broccoli Stalk Feta Salad #BloggerCLUE

Finally, a fabulous use for the oft-wasted broccoli stalks, this salad with lime juice and feta is simple, fresh and delicious!

This month for Blogger C.L.U.E. Society, my assigned blog is Taking on Magazines, internet home of Christiane, one of the founders of our little group, where we get together once a month using the same clue - ingredient or theme - and search through our partner blog to find tastiness to recreate. With many people trying to start the new year off right, our clue for January is “healthy eating.” Christiane says herself that her recipes don’t have a focus on health but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t tempted by several of them, including her Bibb Lettuce with Citrus Herb Dressing, Vietnamese Caramel Pork and Garlicky Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Spinach, which she swears is healthy, honest! I can tell you they all look delicious!

In fact, I ended up making two dishes, her Superfast Crispy Chicken Thighs, which are started on the stovetop and then finished in the oven, crisp fried in only 1 scant tablespoon of oil, and the fresh salad I’m sharing today. Man, those thighs were good! So good, in fact, that they were eaten before I could take a decent “finished” photo. And I cannot tell you how long it’s been since that happened!

Exhibit A

Thank goodness I had planned to make the broccoli stalk salad too. I was excited to use a part of the broccoli that I know many people discard and put it on center stage.

Even though Christiane says, “serve immediately,” I wasn’t taking any chances with not getting a photo of the salad. I made it in the afternoon and took the photos well ahead of dinner. I am pleased to say that the shaved broccoli was still crunchy, fresh and delicious a couple of hours later!

Ingredients
Leaves and stalks from 1 bunch broccoli (2-3 fat stalks)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Flakey sea salt and black pepper
1/4 cup or 28g crumbled cotija or feta cheese
Optional: few slices of radish - my addition.

Method
Cut the very hard outsides off of the broccoli stems. Nip off the leaves and save them. My broccoli didn’t have very many leaves, so just for a little more green, I also kept one tiny floret cut into small bits.

Use a sharp potato peeler to trim off any more stringy hard bits and discard them.

Continue shaving off thin slices of the stalks with the potato peeler until they are all gone.

And you are left with this:

Pile the strips in a bowl and add in the oil and lime juice. Sprinkle on the sea salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper. Give it all a good toss to coat.

Crumble on the feta and stir gently. Add a few slices of radish if desired.

Serve immediately or refrigerate covered until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Our participating society members this month, with their Healthy Eating picks:

• Apricot Muffins by Azmina from Lawyer Loves Lunch
• Broccoli Stalk Feta Salad by Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Citrus Shrimp by Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Couscous with Chicken and Vegetables by Sue from A Palatable Pastime
• Ginger-Citrus Grilled Salmon by Kathy from A Spoonful of Thyme
• Irish Seafood Cocktail by Kate from Kate's Kitchen
• Massaged Kale Salad by Anna from annaDishes
• Mediterranean Chopped Salad by Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva
• Middle Eastern Vegetable Salad by Christiane from Taking on Magazines
• Orange Banana Matcha Smoothie by Kim from Liv Life
• Red Lion Inn Swordfish by Lea Ann from Cooking on the Ranch
• Roasted Carrots and Cauliflower (with a kick) by Debra from Eliot's Eats
• Sophie’s Chopped Salad by Rebekah from Making Miracles
• Thai Salad with Peanut Dressing by Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• White Bean Chili by Lisa from Authentic Suburban Gourmet
• Winter Salad of Roasted Beets, Avocado and Grapefruit by Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm

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Dimbleby's Breastfeeding Bread #BreadBakers

A flavorful, low gluten bread made with spelt flour, this subtly spiced loaf is divine toasted, which enhances the nuttiness of the pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and sunflower seeds.

First, let me set your mind at ease by saying that I am not going to tell you my lactation stories, although I did nurse both daughters until they were 13 months old. Nor will there be a single photo of anyone’s breastal region, although I firmly back your right to bare yours if you are feeding your baby, even in public. (Oh, the strange and wonderful places that I have bared mine for the cause... but I promised.)

The name of this bread recipe comes from its creator, one Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the highly successful Leon restaurants and food writer for the Guardian, who wanted to use up a packet of spices given to him to make an infusion for his wife, supposedly to stimulate her milk production, just after she had given birth. He made the hot drink, tasted it and decided that his wife had suffered enough. So he used the rest of the spices to bake bread, which seemed to have the desired effect in a much more appetizing package. He assures his readers, so I duly assure you on his behalf, that it works only on lactating women; the rest of us can enjoy it for the taste.

This month Bread Bakers is hosted by Robin of A Shaggy Dough Story, who challenged us all to make bread using only ancient grains, defined loosely as grains that have remained largely unchanged/un-hybridized over the last several hundred years, which means NO MODERN WHEAT. Some examples include spelt, quinoa, millet, sorghum, amaranth, teff, freekeh, chia seeds, farro, kamut and einkorn. I already had a bag of spelt flour hanging out in my freezer from before I made these super fudgy brownies, so that’s where I started my recipe search. Many thanks to Robin for this most excellent challenge! If you haven't read A Shaggy Dough Story, do head over there. Robin is an over-achiever that grinds her own flour, bakes gorgeous loaves and takes beautiful photographs, but I love her most because of her fabulous sense of humor.

Mr. Dimbleby’s recipe makes three loaves so I have adapted the ingredients for only one deliciously nutty spelt loaf. Check out the original, if you’d like three on hand. He says they freeze well in freezer bags.

Ingredients
Soft butter, for greasing your loaf pan

For the bread dough:
1 teaspoon aniseed
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek
4 1/8 cups or 500g strong wholemeal spelt flour
7g fast-acting dried yeast (I used Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise.)
2 teaspoons sea salt flakes (Use less if yours is fine grain.)
1/4 cup or 50g pine nuts of which: 1 tablespoon set aside
1/4 cup or 50g pumpkin seeds of which: 1 tablespoon set aside
1/4 cup or 50g  sunflower seeds of which: 1 tablespoon set aside
3 tablespoons or 45ml extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups or 350ml warm water

For the egg wash:
1 egg
Splash water

To decorate:
1 tablespoon of each of the pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, set aside from the original amounts for the dough.

Method
Grease your bread pan generously with softened butter and set aside, along with your one tablespoon of each pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds for decorating.

Grind your spices with a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.

Mix all of your dry ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer or in a bowl large enough to knead the dough in.

Add in the oil and mix well.

Add in the warm water and mix again.

Knead with your bread hook or by hand in your bowl for just a few minutes, until smooth. Mr. Dimbleby says you can add more flour if necessary but “wetter is better.” I was using my bread hook so I just kept going. The dough was very slack and it would have been very sticky to knead by hand, so do what you need to, if you don’t have a machine.

Scrape the dough out of the bowl and use damp hands to shape it into a loaf and pop it into your buttered loaf pan.

Whisk the egg with a splash of water to create an egg wash.

Cut some slashes into the top of the dough and then brush it with your egg wash.

Sprinkle on the reserved seeds and nuts, tapping them down gently so they stick.

Place in a large plastic bag in warm place and leave to rise until doubled. When my kitchen is cold, as it is this time of year, I like to partially fill one basin of my sink with hot tap water (about halfway up the loaf pan) and place the loaf pan in the water, covering the whole basin with a large cutting board and “sealing” the gaps with multiple dishcloths. Behold!

When your dough is nearly ready, preheat your oven to 450°F or 220°C.

Bake the bread for the first 20 minutes at that temperature, then turn the oven down to 400°F or 200°C for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cover with foil if your toppings look like they might begin to scorch.

Turn out to cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Do you like to bake using ancient grains? Hope we inspire you to try if you haven't before. And give you a few new ideas if you are already a fan. Here's what our creative bakers came up with.

• Ancient 4 Grain Breakfast Bread from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Ancient Grain Carrot Bread from The Schizo Chef
• Barley Flour Donut Muffins from I Camp in my Kitchen
• Blueberry Peach Quinoa Oatmeal Muffins from Magnolia Days
• Buckwheat Savoury Pancakes from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Dimbleby's Breastfeeding Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Eggless Sorghum and Pearl Millet Banana Muffins (Eggless Jowar and Bajra Banana Muffins) from G'Gina's Kitchenette
• Foxtail Millet Bagels from Cooking Club
• Garlic Cheesy Einkorn Crackers from The Wimpy Vegetarian
• Injera Bread from Spiceroots
• Little Millet Banana Bread from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Millet Idli from Gayathri's Cook Spot
• Multigrain Seeded Loaf from What Smells So Good?
• Quinoa Banana Bread from Wholistic Woman
• Seeded Spelt Boules from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Spelt and Buckwheat Soda Bread from A Shaggy Dough Story
• Spelt and Einkorn Sourdough with Caramelized Onions from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Spelt Bread from Hostess at Heart
• Spelt Sweet Potato Paratha from Cook's Hideout
• Teff Crepes with Spinach and Mushrooms from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Yeasted Jowar Naan from Sneha's Recipe

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the #BreadBakers home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send Stacy an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

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