Today's Recipe - Lemon Fish with Puree of Sweet Peas

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...

The combination of lemon flavored fish with the sweet peas in this recipe is a great way to enjoy a Healthiest Way of Eating meal in just 25 minutes. The peas are a not only a great alternative to rice but add extra health-promoting nutrients and flavor as well. Enjoy!

Lemon Fish with Puree of Sweet Peas
Prep and Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:

• 1-1/2lb cod filets (thick cut)
• 3 TBS finely minced lemon rind
• 4 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 3 TBS chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 tsp salt
• pinch cayenne
• Pureed Peas
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 medium cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 TBS + 3 TBS chicken or vegetable broth
• 15 oz frozen sweet peas
• 4 TBS sunflower seeds
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
2. Chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to enhance its health-promoting qualities.
3. Mix together minced lemon rind, lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt, and cayenne.
4. Rub cod filets generously with mixture and place in baking dish. Place fish in oven and bake for about 10-15 minutes.
5. While fish is baking, heat 1 TBS broth in a 10 inch stainless steel skillet. Healthy Sauté onion in broth over medium heat for about 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until translucent. Add garlic and continue to sauté for another minute. Add 3 TBS broth, peas, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper, and heat for about 3 minutes.
6. Purée pea mixture in blender, scraping the sides with a rubber spatula from time to time to mix well.
7. Serve cod with peas. If there is a little juice in the pan, you can drizzle it over the fish and peas.

Serves 4 Serving suggestions: Serve with

• Tomato Dandelion Salad

Printer Friendly Version of Lemon Fish with Puree of Sweet Peas
In-Depth Nutritional Profile for Lemon Fish with Puree of Sweet Peas
Healthy Food Tip

Do pickles have about the same amount of nutrition as raw cucumbers?

There is some nutrient loss that occurs when a vegetable, like a cucumber, is pickled. The exact nutrients that are lost and the exact percentage depends on (1) the liquids you use to pickle and marinate and (2) the length of time you keep the vegetables in the solution before consuming them. A certain percentage of some water-soluble nutrients, like vitamin C, can naturally transfer to the pickling liquid over time.
Here are some specifics regarding cucumber pickles:
A raw unpeeled 8-inch cucumber weighs about 300 grams, provides about 45 calories of energy, and contains about 8.4 milligrams of vitamin C. Two 4-inch pickled cucumbers (sour, not sweet) weigh about 270 grams, provide about 30 calories of energy, and contain about 2.8 milligrams of vitamin C. So you can see that there is a moderate amount of vitamin C loss involved with the pickling process. I say "moderate" here because pickles do not contain a very large amount of vitamin C to begin with, and even though the loss is fairly high in terms of percentage, we are only talking about 5-6 milligrams here.
This same type of nutrient loss applies to a vitamin like folic acid. In the 8-inch raw cucumber referred to above, there are about 21 micrograms of folic acid. In the sour pickle example, there are only 2 micrograms. Once again, this nutrient loss is very substantial as a percentage, but since DRI (Dietary Reference Intake) recommendation for adults is 400 micrograms of folic acid each day, these 19 lost micrograms, while still important to notice, only constitute about 5% of the DRI requirement.
Many of the minerals in cucumber are contained in the skins, and keeping the skins on when pickling would be important if you wanted to maintain the mineral content. (Of course, I would highly recommend organic cucumbers, especially when leaving on the skins, since it's the skin that gets the most exposure to potentially toxic sprays.)
I don't object to the pickling of vegetables and think they definitely can have a healthy place in your Healthiest of Way of Eating. However, I do see them as significantly different (in terms of nutritional value) both from raw vegetables and from minimally cooked vegetables.