Tilapia Pouches with Squash and Tomato

I'm pretty terrible at cooking fish.  Every time I cook it on the stove, it breaks apart.  Things are doubly bad on the grill.  It's a delicate meat, and I am not a delicate cook.  For a long time, my solution to this problem was the easiest one;  I didn't cook fish.  Of course, I could have just banged away at it, and I'm sure I would have gotten a handle on it soon enough, but while Wife is tolerant of the average screw-up in the kitchen, she isn't enough of a fish fan to try faulty flounder.  Not wanting to ruin everyone's dinner, I stayed away from fish each time I went to the store, at least since my attempt at crispy battered cod the summer before last turned into a paste that smelled like cat's breath.  I like a good piece of fish, but not enough to face down a horde of angry diners when I'm not on point. 

At least not until I heard about pouch cooking.  I was familiar with it from camping, of course, but somehow I'd never made the logical leap to the oven.

If you're not aware, you can cook any number of meats and/or vegetables together in sealed foil pouches; providing you've found the right balance of ingredients, they will come out of the oven as little bundles of perfectly cooked individual dinner portions, steamy and aromatic.

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

We'd finally gotten into a rut.  As I've mentioned on this blog already, friend of the family Lotus and her son have been staying with us for the past month and a half, and to save wear and tear on the oven as well as the budget, it was easier to plan meals as a joint unit instead of seperately.  This has meant that, apart from the lunch meat I take to work and a bit of smoked salmon on Mother's Day, we have effectively turned into vegetarians.  Now, I've said it before.  I like vegetarian food.  While many people find it restrictive, I actually think I am a more creative cook when I can't rely on meat to supply its flavor to whatever I am cooking.  That being said, this past week I hit a wall when it came to menu planning.  Black bean burgers were on the menu for a third time.  I'm growing to dread the sight of any form of noodle EXCEPT ramen.  Without revisiting Asian flavors Wife could do without or breaking her calorie budget, I'd pretty much exhausted every meatless recipe on Eating Well, Epicurious, Simply Recipes, and the other websites I visit for inspiration (not to mention traditional cookbooks.)  That's when I remembered it.  Catfish's Dishes.  Not this blog, but the ink-stained source material.  In the cabinet where I keep all of my cookbooks is a tiny notebook, lightly tan in color to emphasize how recycled it is.  It was part of a three pack I recieved one Christmas, and I think it was meant to hold poetry or personal musings.  Instead, I wrote recipes.  Just a handful; I didn't know much at the time.  The children were still toddlers, Wife was still Fiancee, and I knew plenty about cooking improvisationally, but I didn't have many recipes of my own.  There was a chili recipe that I still use to this day, and a chicken enchilada recipe that I most certainly don't...and then there was several pages of vegetarian recipes.  I pulled the book out and began looking for an idea to set me free.  Deep-Fried Tofu with Mashed Potatoes and Mushroom Gravy looked good, but doesn't fit Wife's diet.  Green Tofu Enchiladas ceased to be a possibility when the local Winco stopped carrying tomatillos. (Edit: This was only temporary. The tomatillos are back.)  Several others were shoddy things that should probably never see the light of day; edible at the time but not worth writing about.  What stood out, though, were the stuffed peppers.  I used to make them all the time when we were vegetarian.  I made them because I'd always liked my mom's stuffed peppers, but I have to say that the traditional beef-and-rice filling doesn't interest me as much ever since I came up with this stuffing mix.  The original recipe called for couscous, and you can substitute it if you prefer, but I have started using quinoa instead  because it has a much higher nutritional content.