Our favorite new fish... Talapia

This is a recipe so easy my husband can make it and if you know my husband you know that's saying something.I highly recommend making the polenta and the snap peas before cooking the fish since it cooks quickly.


Ingredients:
1 large skinless Talapia filet per person ( these can come out a little small so we will sometimes get 3 filets for the two of us)
lemon olive oil
Extra Virgin Olive oil ( around a Tablespoon)
around a Tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme
salt and pepper
A little fresh lemon juice

Sugar Snap peas ends picked off ( enough for 2 people)
1 Tablespoon of butter
salt

Polenta from here.

For the Snap peas:
Bring a pot of water to a boil
Once the water is boiling throw the peas in and blanch for 2-3 minutes. Pour into a colander once the water is drained, put immediately back into the now empty pot, throw in the tablespoon of butter and toss it all about until the peas are coated . Sprinkle with salt. Cover and set aside.

For the Fish:
Rub the fish down on both sides with the lemon olive oil, I just use my fingers but you could use a brush. Then sprinkle on both sides with the thyme, salt, and pepper.
Pour the EVOO into a high sided sauce pan and let the oil heat up. If you want you can add a little bit of the lemon olive oil to this mix. Once the oil is starting to shimmer, place the fish in the pan. cook on one side until there is almost no pink left to the fish and you can see browning around the edges of the cooking side. Then flip and cook for another 3 minutes. Once you've plated the fish I like to add a generous squeeze of lemon.

Polenta!

While trying to lose some weight, I found that cutting carbs made a huge difference in my progress. I also learned that I can't live without carbs. So I decided to change the type and amount of carbs that I eat instead. Sandwiches for lunch made way to platters of meats, cheeses and veggies. Pasta dinners were decreased in frequency and wherever possible pasta was changed to multigrain high protein pasta. Potatoes were turned into Sweet potatoes and rice has been mostly eleminated ( except when I make stir fry). We've also added a lot of Polenta into our diet. It's not too bad as carbs go, and it doesn't contain too many calories as long as you keep to an actual serving size, AND you can have it multiple nights in a row possibly in different forms. While I haven't perfected the fried polenta cake yet, this plain old polenta recipe is enough for a side dish for 6 people and is pretty easy and quick to make.
(note this is a smaller portioned update to a previous polenta recipe, but I make it so often that I felt it deserved its own post.

Polenta!
3 3/4 cups water
1  teaspoons table salt
Pinch+ baking soda
3/4 cup polenta ( I use quick polenta)
1 tablespoons unsalted butter
Ground black pepper
1 cup pecorino romano


Bring the water to a boil
Once the water is boiling, add the salt and the baking powder ( this helps keep the polenta from clumping)
Then slowly pour in the polenta while stirring. Make sure you keep stirring until all of the polenta is thoroughly wet. Continue to stir continuously for 1 minute.
Then turn down the heat and leave the polenta to simmer for 5 mins stirring occasionally. pour in the cheese and incorporate. turn off the heat and stir in the butter.
It is now ready to serve.