This past weekend, I attended a college friend’s wedding. I had a great time seeing old friends, reminiscing and catching up on the new events in our lives. I was happy to be able to share updates on Healthy  Recipe Ecstasy. I’m lucky that all my friends and family have been very receptive to and supportive of my blog. One of my friend’s, Jenny, has actually been sharing my blog with her coworkers and encouraging them to make some of my recipes. She’s amazingly supportive and provided me with great feedback over the weekend. One of the things she suggested was adding a tips section. Keep an eye out for that! Another suggestion she had was adding recipes with minimal ingredients. Jenny said sometimes she’s overwhelmed by the amount of ingredients listed in a recipe. I totally understand that!

It’s not cheap or easy to constantly make new recipes from scratch. I’m lucky to have built up an arsenal of spices, oils, vinegars, flours, etc from years of experimenting. However, it seems like every new recipe I come across needs some new kind of spice that I don’t have.  Alasdair is always challenging me to “use what we have” rather than buying multiple new items to clog up our pantry. Another way to keep costs down is to make simple recipes. I have an old cookbook called Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking. It’s been gathering dust on my book shelf for a while because, though the recipes only use four ingredients, they are often complex. But, in honor of Jenny and those who are still stocking their pantries, I pulled it out to make this recipe, and I promise to pull it out more often. I added one ingredient to the dish so this is actually a five-ingredient recipe, but, in my opinion, olive oil doesn’t count! Note – I also don’t count salt and pepper as ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

2 thick skinless cod fillets (or similarly mild white fish)

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 ounces prosciutto, thinly sliced

1 pound tomatoes, on the vine

Two tablespoons fresh basil, chopped

Freshly-ground black pepper

Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pat fish dry with paper towels and lightly season on both sides pepper. The recipe says to season with salt also but I think the prosciutto adds enough salt.

Place one fillet in an ovenproof dish coated with cooking spray and drizzle one tablespoon of oil over it. Cover with the second filet, laying the thick end on top of the thin end of the lower fillet to create an even shape.

Wrap the fish in 3 slices of prosciutto, overlapping the slices to cover the fish from end to end in an even layer.

Using kitchen scissors (regular scissors work fine as well), snip the tomato vines into four portions and add to the dish. Drizzle tomatoes and fish with the remaining olive oil and season with pepper.  Add fresh basil.

Roast for about 25-35 minuets, until the tomatoes are tender and the fish flakes easily. The recipe calls for 35 minutes of roasting but I felt like that dried out the fish a little too much so I would recommend less time.

Cut the fish into two portions and spoon the cooking juices over the fish and tomatoes and serve immediately.

Healthy Recipe Ecstasy? If you can get the cooking time of the fish right, then this is a great low-carb dish. Tomatoes go perfectly with the fish and prosciutto, and not only do they have major cancer-fighting properties, research is also starting to show that the lycopene in tomatoes could protect our skin from UV damage from sunburn. The perfect recipe to help counteract the summer sun. I paired this dish with a zucchini fritters with feta.  Check Cook Your Dream for the zucchini recipe. Delish!