Halibut Baked in Coconut Milk Curry

We defrosted the second piece of Halibut from Shani and John.  I came home thinking that a Lemon Grass Jalapeno Shallot kind of thing baked in coconut milk would be good, but after cruising around on line and looking up recipes,  ended up doing this:

1. Heat Oven 350 degrees.  Use a  Oven Proof Creuset flat bottomed saute pan for this.

2. 1/4 sliver and saute a yellow onion.  Once browned, add some minced garlic, 1/2 a seeded (or not) jalapeno, and minced ginger.  Saute for 2 more minutes.  Add Spice Mixture.

3. Spice Mixture

4tbl or so of coriander

1/2 tbl of cumin

ground together in spice grinder

mixed with:

1 tsp of smashed (loosely ground) fennel

1/4 tsp of Cayenne

1/4 tsp of tumeric

1/4 tsp of freshly ground pepper

1 tsp of salt

4. Stir and add a chopped perfectly rip heirloom and some halved orange cherry tomatoes from Tutti Frutti.  Allow to cook until tomatoes break down and sauce becomes "lumpy" as one recipe called it.

5. Meanwhile, Cut the giant fillet that Shani's husband John caught into four 2"+ pieces. Rub with oil and squeeze a little lemon on it.  Place on a baking sheet and bake in oven from 8 to 10 minutes.

6. Once tomatoes sauce has gotten "lumpy", add 1/2 can of coconut milk and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.

7. When fish is 1/2 baked, remove and add to pan with sauce.  Cover and put in oven for 10 minutes.  (Longer if fish is not cooked when you check).

8. Serve with Lemongrass Rice.  Cilantro would be the obvious herb to sprinkle on top, but we have a lot of Steve's amazing basil, so we used that and it was Delicious.

Baked Ricotta with Pepper

Took this idea from Donna Hay's Flavors. Cross referenced her with Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Deborah Madison suggested draining the ricotta if it was too runny. I used Organic Valley Ricotta and it seemed dry enough to just use.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Oil a tin or small rectangular pyrex dish.

3. Mix ricotta with lots of freshly ground pepper and whatever herbs you would like. (I stuck with just pepper cuz there were so many other tastes already in the appetizer selection).

4. Pour some olive oil on top.

5. Place in oven. Donna estimated 45 minutes for the ricotta to "set". It took about an hour and 15 minutes. We had lots of stuff in the oven, so most likely that was a factor.

6. Once seems "set", turn out on a baking sheet. (This was super difficult. I had to engineer it a bit to not end up with Ricotta splat). Pour olive oil on top of the ricotta and place back in the oven to allow it to become golden brown. This took about 20 minutes.

7. Getting the Ricotta from the baking dish to a serving platter took me and Uschi together. Double spatula action plate sliding under kind of thing. We sprinkled some chopped parsley on top for looks and served.