Repurposing a Caprese Salad – really. (Summertime Goodness)

dievca had her first experience with ordering fruit and vegetables from Whole Foods.

Her knee is still gimpy and the stores around her are too close for a cab ride and too far for a walk on her knee. So, she ordered online and had it delivered.

Buying fruit and vegetables is more personal than pasta or milk, dievca made her choices and hoped for the best.  The shopper did pretty well.  The peaches were a bit riper than dievca buys and the two heirloom tomatoes were HUGE.  A single tomato barely fit into dievca’s hand.

The tomatoes needed to be used immediately, so dievca chopped BOTH of them into cubes combined them with a package fresh mozzarella pearls, then added fresh basil chopped with herb scissors, olive oil, red balsamic vinegar, and salt/pepper.

Master and dievca could only eat half the tossed salad, so dievca put the leftovers into the fridge for later.

When she pulled it out there was a lot of liquid and as a salad it didn’t appeal.

What to do?

Cod was on the menu within two days and dievca had seen recipes of Cod baked with tomatoes, so she decided to be creative.  dievca removed the mozzarella pearls from the leftover caprese salad and marinated the wild caught cod with the salad liquid, tomatoes and basil. She then baked the cod, including the tomatoes and liquid, at 400 F (205 C) for 15 min. (she started with 10 min, but the liquid didn’t look like it was evaporating enough so she went to 5 min more) When the cod came out of the oven she put the mozzarella pearls on top to melt and added a dash of lemon juice.

She served the cod, tomatoes and cheese over plain white rice with a side of sautéed fresh sugar snap peas.
(recipe below)

The meal was a success!

dievca thinks it worked because cod has a tendency to take on flavors very well.
she was very happy to use the rest of the heirloom tomatoes!

Sautéed Sugar Snap Peas inspired by the Pioneer Woman blog recipe:

Ingredients

1 lb. sugar snap peas

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 clove of garlic minced

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. lemon juice