Last night I made a delicious green sauce. It was supposed to go on the roasted sweet potatoes, but when I tasted it, it didn’t seem quite right (for sweet potatoes). I decided it was meant for fish, some kind of plain, white fish.

Shane brought home Cod and asked if I was going to cook it the Adriatic Way. I said no, I was going to pan fry it, because I had this delicious green sauce. He warned me that it would be very flaky. I didn’t know what to make of that warning, and so I pan fried it in butter with salt and pepper and a teensy sprinkling of flour for about 7 minutes. What I ended up with was very tasty little bits of cod, because it all broke apart when I tried to flip it.

Long story short, I don’t know how to tell you to cook the cod if you want it to be intact when you serve it. But I highly recommend the green sauce (recipe below) which was greedily consumed by all three of us. Yes, even the kid. Let me say that again in case you missed it, the kid ate the green sauce.

On the side, we had my new favorite oven fries. These fries are easy, and totally worth making if you happen to be lucky enough to have an hour to prepare dinner. It’s not an hour of hands-on time, just an hour total.

For salad we had cilantro and lime coleslaw. It was an off the cuff recipe, and it was fine, but not spectacular.

• Green Sauce for Fish (or something else?) •
1 bunch Italian parsley, washed and de-stemmed (don’t go crazy though)
5 anchovy fillets (from a jar, ideally)
2 Tablespoons non-pareil capers, rinsed 
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup olive oil 
Pinch of red pepper flakes 

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or with a hand blender until relatively smooth. Serve over fish, or whatever.

• Farro with Leek and Cannellini Beans •
Boil 1/2 cup dry farro in ample, salted water until al dente. Meanwhile sautee one chopped leek (white and light green parts) in olive oil until soft. Add a can of drained and rinsed cannellini beans, and chopped parsley to the leek. Cook stirring until warmed through and remove from heat. When farro is cooked, drain and mix with the leek & beans. Good!

The Sweet Potatoes were topped with ricotta salata, parsley and almonds. They were fine but missing a little something. The inspiration was this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. You should probably just go with that instead of doing what I did. I’ll try to improve on my version, and if I do, I’ll post.

I can’t tell you much about the pork tenderloin (way in the background there) except that I marinated it, Shane cooked it and Rose and Shane made it disappear rather quickly.

Tonight was an anomaly. I had dinner alone for the first time since before my daughter, now five, was born. I knew I was committed to the family dinner, but really, should I be embarrassed about this?

So what do you have for dinner when there’s no one else to consider? If I had planned ahead in the slightest bit, I would have had salad, bread and cheese, my all-time favorite dinner. Instead, I had a baked sweet potato with delicious sauce.

• Creamy Cilantro Sauce •
Take a bunch of fresh cilantro and blend with either, or any combination of, yogurt, sour cream and/or mayonnaise. Add lime juice and salt and blend some more. Voila! Delicious sauce.

No, not what you think, but equally wonderful in it’s own way. My five year old daughter, Rose, has decided to make my blog into a book. She’s calling it Rose’s Book Blog. Shown here is a glimpse of the cover and first five pages. We’ll see where it goes.

For me: Yesterday’s Carrot & Cabbage Salad, made more substantial with chick peas and feta. For her: Tri-colored farfalle with butter, oil and cheese. Good enough.