Quick and Easy Summer Fish

My apartment doesn't have air conditioning. I'm not complaining - not yet, anyway, but check back with me in July - because it's just the way it is, but it does mean that as it has started getting hot and humid in DC, I've had to made adjustments to my normal routine. Exhibit A: cooking dinner.

The last thing I want to do at the end of a muggy day is stand over the stove or oven for an hour while preparing a meal. There's tons of inspiration out there if you want to make an easy chilled dinner, but the recipes don't often satisfy my need to feel like I've created a dish rather than just assembled it. I could eat a simple plate of layered mozzarella, tomato, avocado, and basil almost any night in the summer, but I also want to put a little work into my dinner. So what how do I square that with the discomfort of slaving over a hot stove on a summer day? Quick-baked white fish!

This really is the easiest and most flexible way to cook fish; you can use almost any fish and you can experiment with the basic recipe to make it whatever you want. Below is the recipe I start with, but I'll include links to (and, since you know how awful my food photography is, pictures from) a couple other options. From start to finish, these recipes shouldn't take more than 30 minutes - and, when you sit down to eat, you'll still be cool!

Baked Halibut with Spinach and Tomatoes

Simple Baked Fish
serves 2

2 filets of white fish (I love using tilapia)
1 lemon
1 tbs butter
salt and pepper to taste
parchment paper (or you can use aluminum foil)

Preheat oven to 400°f. Lay out a sheet of parchment paper and place two small pats of the butter about 5 inches apart on the paper. Place a filet of fish over each piece of butter and then squeeze the lemon on top. Salt and pepper to taste, and zest the de-juiced lemon over the fish. Divide the remaining butter over the two filets and then fold up the parchment paper into a parcel around the fish. (You can use paperclips or toothpicks to keep the package wrapped up.) Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish; you want it almost fully cooked, but remember that it will continue baking a bit even after you take it out of the oven while it sits. Let the fish rest for five minutes while you prepare your sides and then serve and enjoy!

I ate my tilapia with cold leftover quinoa and flash-sautéed sugar snap peas, but almost anything will be delicious with this easy fresh dish - baked spinach and tomatoes, as above, or roasted asparagus, since the oven is on anyway. Because of all the gorgeous juices that you'll find in the bottom of your parchment/foil packet, you could also just have a chunk of crusty bread on hand, ready to sop up all the yumminess!

Have you ever prepared fish like this?  I'd love to hear your variations.  The forecast this week indicates that I'll be making a twist on this dish in the next few days...

Ginger Cilantro Baked Tilapia