Today's Recipe - 15-Minute Halibut with Avocado Salsa

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
Get an extra boost of lycopene from the tomatoes and heart-healthy monounsatured fats from the avocados in this great addition to your Healthiest Way of Eating.
15-Minute Halibut with Avocado Salsa
Prep and Cook Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:

• 6 medium cloves garlic, pressed
• 1/4 cup minced scallion
• 1-2 tsp finely minced jalapeno pepper
• 3 TBS chopped fresh cilantro
• 8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 medium ripe but firm avocado, diced into 1/4-inch cubes
• 1/4 cup + 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 4 6 oz halibut steaks or fillets
• salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Press garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out its health-promoting properties.
2. Mix together garlic, scallions, jalapeno pepper, cilantro, tomatoes, avocado, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
3. Heat 2 inches of water in the bottom of a steamer and let it come to a boil.
4. Rub halibut with 1TBS lemon juice and season with a little salt and black pepper. Place in steamer and steam 10 minutes for every inch of thickness. (e.g., 5 minutes if it is 1/2-inch thick)
5. Place fish on plate, and top with salsa.

Serves 4 Serving Suggestion: Serve with Mexican Corn on the Cob and Green Salad.
Printer Friendly Version of 15-Minute Halibut with Avocado Salsa
In-Depth Nutritional Profile for 15-Minute Halibut with Avocado Salsa
Healthy Food Tip
Does the use of olive oil in your diet cause a fat buildup in the body? I eat two tablespoons of it each day.

No, using olive oil in your diet does not automatically cause fat buildup in your body. Weight gain (including the accumulation of body fat) occurs when we intake more calories than we expend. If your diet, including those two tablespoons of olive oil, provides you with the amount of calories needed to maintain your present weight, then the olive oil shouldn't cause you to accumulate fat.
There are about 120-125 calories in each tablespoon of olive oil, giving you about 240-250 calories per day in your two tablespoon example. If you needed 1,800 calories per day to maintain your weight, that amount of olive oil would account for about 13% of your total day's calories.
While that amount of calories from one food might or might not be a good fit for your individualized diet, I would also encourage you to consider how you are using the olive oil in support of your health. Is it a part of your salad dressing? Are you using it as an ingredient in a recipe?
At the World's Healthiest Foods, I always encourage consumption of whole, natural foods as much as possible. (Olives, for example, are the whole food from which olive oil is obtained. They contain fiber and many other nutrients that the oil alone does not.) I also, however, recognize that many food traditions and great-tasting recipes call for the use of a plant-based oil, and I love the superior health benefits of extra virgin olive oil for this reason. However, even when I am thinking about the benefits of the oil, I am thinking about olive oil in the context of food-not as a dietary supplement. This kind of thinking can lead the way to many delicious and nutritious discoveries in the kitchen, and I encourage you to adopt this type of "food thinking" in your dietary approach as well.
For more information on this topic, please see:

• Olive oil, extra virgin