Outfit #84 - Apologies to Crispin

Outfit details:

Skirt and singlet: Hot Options.  Shoes and belt: Target.  Shirt: Miss Shop (from Jeannie).  Earrings: made by me.

Today is the feast of Crispin and Crispinian, patron saint of shoemakers.  With all the fabulous shoes in my shoe cupboard, I should have had a fabulous pair of shoes on my feet today, right?  Well, no...  I only found out about this feast day over breakfast.  I did have a bit of a look in the clothes and shoes cupboards, but couldn't piece together an outfit in time.  So, boring shoes today on this feast of shoes.  Oh how sad!  My apologies.

(Dorky smile means I was just really hungry by photo time.)

Today's photo:

Yes, I've missed a few days.  This week is intense.  Next week I'm having my studio concert, and my little grade 2 was really worried about what to play.  We decided to do a piece with the 'sun' harmonic in it.  She really wanted me to play a duet, and so I was going to take a photo of the piece and then write one over the weekend.  But then she suggested we play a canon, and she pointed to where she wanted me to begin (this kid is so great to teach!).  After one go, we decided to move the place where I began, so all our ti-tis align.   

Mexican Baked Fish

This coming Thursday (May 3), Viola Man and I are performing in the cathedral.  We are playing some duets for violin and viola, and he's also playing some duets with a double bass player.  We had a play-through last week, and thought another rehearsal would probably be a good idea.  I also owed him dinner, so last night he came to my place, I cooked him dinner and we practiced our duets.

A few weeks ago I was flipping through some recipe books for inspiration and came across this dish - as yet uncooked by me.  As Viola Man is originally from Mexico, this dish seemed an obvious choice for dinner last night.  I halved the quantities so I wouldn't be eating this for a week, but the quantities below are the original, which serves 4, from Jill Dupleix's Good Cooking: the New Essentials.

Recipe:
Heat the oven to 200C.  Rub 4 thick, firm white fish fillets (180g each, skinned), with 1 tablespoon lime juice and 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, and set aside.

Finely slice an onion into rings.  Cut a sweet red pepper into strips, discarding the core and seeds.  heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan and cook the onion for about 10 minutes until soft and pale.  Add 1 garlic clove, finely sliced and cook for a minute.

Add a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, the red pepper, and 150mL water, stirring.  Add 10 pitted green olives, 1 tablespoon salted capers (rinsed), 1 tablespoon pickled jalapeno chillies, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and 1 bay leaf.  Cook gently for 10 - 15 minutes until the sweet red pepper is tender.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a frying pan and sear the fish fillets for a minute on each side, then transfer to an oiled baking pan.  Spoon the sauce on top and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until the fish is cooked through, depending on thickness.  Scatter with coriander leaves and serve with rice.

I forgot the coriander leaves for garnish and don't usually eat rice... and I forgot to turn off the oven (youch! expecting a massive power bill now).  But the flavour was good (although not as much kick as I expected), it's really easy, and we didn't need to resort to calling the local pizza place.  Phew.

For those Brisbane readers: free concert, Thursday May 3, 11:30 am, St John's Cathedral.  Duets by Halvorsen, Beethoven, Piazzola and more.