Broiled Catfish and Garden Vegetables

I got an e-mail from my dad yesterday titled “Catfish!” When I opened it, I was pleased to find a food photo and a recipe – looks like dad has been reading my blog. Thanks, dad. 😀 Here is the photo from today’s guest blogger:

Broiled Wild Catfish Fillets with Green Beans and Corn

He says:

“Here’s a pic of the catfish I caught Saturday. He was about 30″ long, so one filet was enough for two servings.”

Fortunately, there was also a recipe in the e-mail!

“Place catfish fillets in a baking pan with sliced onions.

Mix Italian seasoned olive oil, lemon juice, and orange juice and pour over fish.

Add lemon zest, diced garlic, dried oregano, dried basil, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika to top of fish.

Cover with foil and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until opaque.

Remove foil and shred parmesan on top.

Broil until bubbly.

The green beans and corn you see on the plate came from my grandmother’s garden.

I don’t know much about catfish, so I checked nutritiondata.com to find the nutrition info. A wild catfish fillet has 150 calories, 4g of fat, and 1g of saturated fat. Farmed catfish is apparently not as lean as wild catfish, with 217 calories, 11g of fat, and 3g of saturated fat. Still, both are tasty, healthy choices in my book. Dad’s cooking method (broiling) is a much healthier cooking method than battering and frying, which is a common way to cook and eat catfish.

As for being cheap – the vegetables were grown by my grandmother, and well, you can’t beat free! I don’t know how much the fishing equipment cost, but the fish itself was free. Good job, dad. 😀 If I were to buy the ingredients at the grocery store, I would estimate the cost of this meal at around $3.50 per serving, less than that if catfish is on sale (as it frequently is).

Maybe dad and I can work something out where he sends me a food picture (and a recipe!) every week or so. What do you think?