Skillet Potatoes with Shallots and Lemon

My mother-in-law (Justin's mom) had shared a recipe she saw on Facebook for skillet potatoes.  They reminded me of our Accordion Potatoes, only sliced all the way through and in a cast iron skillet.  I really liked the concept and wanted to give it a try.  Anything in a cast iron skillet is delicious!  But I wanted to combine what I was doing with the Accordion Potatoes... so I decided to add shallots and lemon.

They came out delicious!  Sort of pretty, as far as presentation goes... but the taste!  Man!  So delicious!  The lemons were thin enough that they sort of candied and you could eat them, rind and all, a fantastic flavour along with the potato and shallots.   The potatoes had so many different textures... some on the outside were as crispy as potato chips, the tops crisped up great, the bottoms were just tender, delicious, seasoned potatoes.  I loved this dish, and I am not a lover of potatoes! 


I chose some Off With Their Heads for this recipe - "Nightlife".  I dig this band.  I swore I had used them before on a recipe, but I can't find anything... so here we go.  -jen 
 

SKILLET POTATOES WITH SHALLOTS AND LEMON
Prep Time:  30 minutes
Cook Time:  75-90 minutes
Serves:  6

• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 large shallots
• 2 large lemons
• 4 medium garlic cloves
• 3 large baking potatoes, skin on (we used russet)
• 1 tablespoon Caldo de Pollo (dried bouillon - optional)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick)
• 2 tablespoons bacon fat (if you don't keep bacon fat, you can just use 2 more tbsp of butter)
• 1/2 a lemon, juiced
• one-gallon-size Ziplock bag
• 12" cast iron skillet

Before baking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Use 1 tablespoon of olive oil to coat bottom and sides of cast iron skillet.

Using a mandolin, thinly slice shallots, lemons, garlic cloves and potatoes.  (If you don't have a mandolin, just make sure you slice everything super thin... like a potato chip.)  Place the sliced potatoes into the gallon-size Ziplock bag.  Add 3 tablespoons olive oil, Caldo de Pollo, salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne.  Seal bag and use your hands to move the potatoes around and really mix it all up, separating all the sliced pieces so everything gets coated.

Arrange one layer of potatoes around the outer most edge of the skillet.  Once neatly arranged, carefully intersperse 1/3 of the lemon and shallot slices between the potatoes.  Repeat with a second and third layer inside the first.  Once the skillet is full, sprinkle the garlic slices over the top.  Melt the butter and the bacon fat (about 30-45 seconds in the microwave).  Pour all across the arranged potatoes.  I sprinkled a little more salt and pepper over the top.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 75 minutes.  Using a fork, test by piercing the center potatoes.  The fork should easily pierce the potatoes when cooked through.  If there's resistance, bake for another 15 minutes and fork-test again.  Baking times may vary since potato sizes vary and how tightly you arrange them - if your potatoes were bigger than mine, it could take up to 90 minutes.  Just keep fork testing every 15 minutes after the first 75 minutes.

When potatoes pass the fork-test and are golden brown, remove from oven and pour the lemon juice over the top while hot.  Serve hot (we served it with homemade pesto over the top).

Topped with homemade basil pesto

Before baking

Italian Orzo Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

We do a lot of salads similar to this, but Justin was specifically craving an orzo salad.  We thought we'd use the cherry and yellow tomatoes out of our garden, as well as the poblanos Justin grew.  (Poblano taste real similar to green bell peppers, and I figured most people are more familiar with bell pepper, so I put that in the recipe.)  What I really love about this salad, though, is the Lemon Basil Vinaigrette!  I so love making my own salad dressings.

I know I just used Op Ivy a few recipes ago, but we were listening to them in the car whilst running errands this morning, and so all day I've been singing "Bombshell".  Actually, I've just been singing the "Oh yeah!" backup vocals part.  I'm really good at that part.  -jen

ITALIAN ORZO SALAD
Time: 40 minutes (mostly just chopping veggies)
Difficulty:  Easy
Makes:  6-7 cups

• 1.5 cups dry orzo pasta
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cups broccoli florets
• 1 cup cucumber, seeded and diced (about 1 medium)* 
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cup bell pepper, diced (about 1 small pepper)
• 1/2 cup green onion, diced (2-3 medium onions)
• 1/2 cup carrot, shredded (about 1 medium carrot)
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 cup green olives, rough chopped
• 6 oz mozzarella cheese, small cubed
• 1/2 cup Lemon Basil Vinaigrette (see recipe below)

*  To seed a cucumber:  Cut off both ends.  Cut cucumber lengthwise.  Run a small spoon down the length of the seeds, scooping them out. 

Bring chicken broth to a boil in a large pot.  Stir in orzo and cook 10 minutes, pasta should be al dente.  Drain in a strainer and transfer to a large bowl.  Set aside to cool slightly.  (Good time to cut veggies and make the Lemon Basil Vinaigrette!)

Add all remaining ingredients to cooled orzo and toss.

LEMON BASIL VINAIGRETTE
Time: less than 5 minutes
Difficulty:  Easy
Makes:  about 1/2 cup

• zest of 1 lemon (about 1/2 tbsp)
• juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 cup basil leaves, packed
• 1 small green onion
• 1 large garlic clove (about 1/2 teaspoon)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon anchovy paste (optional)
• 1/8 teaspoon sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• pinch of red pepper flake

Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined.

Pasta Puttanesca

We don't eat a lot of pasta, but lately I've been craving a lighter pasta dish.  Generally, I love marinara and bolognese sauces, but don't really dig putting them on pasta - I'd rather put them over some spaghetti squash.  This time, I felt like pasta, but didn't want one of those heavy sauces, so I did my own version of Puttanesca.  It's mostly traditional, but a little of my own preferences thrown in there.  Came out really delicious.  When I minced together the garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes and olives, it looked like a tapenade of the Gods!  I just wanted to spread it on some garlic toast!  Admittedly, I was spooning some of it onto the tomato halves, sprinkling some basil on top, and munching them that way as I was cutting them in half, heheh.  The dish was really quick and easy to make!

I was reminded the other day that I hadn't used anything from Rancid's new album with one of our recipes.  So here is another Rancid Recipe - the title track, "Honor Is All We Know".  -jen

PASTA PUTTANESCA
Prep Time:  10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 mimuntes
Difficulty:  Very easy
Serves:  4-6, depending on serving size

• 6 large garlic cloves
• 6 anchovy filets (I'm inclined to use the whole 2oz can)
  
• 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, diced
• 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives (or green, or black, or D-all of the above)
• 12oz dried pasta (your choice: spaghetti, bow tie, rotini)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 large scallions, diced (about 1/2 a cup)
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 
• 3/4 cup dry white wine (or chicken broth)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
• 1/4 cup pasta water
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup basil, chopped or julienned
• 4oz Romano cheese, crumbled

Bring large stock pot of salted water to a boil while preparing the following steps.

Mince together garlic, anchovies, and sun dried tomatoes.  Roughtly chop the kalamata olives right into the minced mix.  Set aside.

Add pasta to boiling water, bring back to a boil, and then turn down to a low boil, cooking 6-8 minutes until al dente (still slightly under-cooked.  Pasta will cook more in skillet.)  Drain and reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water.

Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep skillet.  Saute scallions and red pepper flakes for 1 minute.  Add white wine and simmer for 2-3 minutes, until wine has cooked down by half.  Add grape tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the minced garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, olives and the rinsed capers.  Cook for 2 more minutes or until sauce is reduced and thickened. 

Add pasta to skillet mixture with 1/4 cup pasta water.  Cook another 1-2 minutes (sauce will mostly absorb into pasta).  Remove from heat and toss with lemon juice and zest, basil, (a dash more of wine, if you like,) and crumbled Romano.  Add salt and pepper to taste (careful with the salt since the olives, capers and cheese will add a lot of salt).  Serve immediately while hot, however, it is quite tasty left over cold, straight out of the fridge.

Spiced Cranberry Sauce

(Not my pic.)

We both grew up with cranberry sauce out of a can... and when we discovered how easy it is to make your own and customize it,  I don't think we could ever go back to the canned version.  Earlier in the year I discovered Pomanders, which are oranges studded with whole cloves and used as a room freshener.  We hung several of them up in our house, in closets, in the hallway, and they really made our house smell amazing... we both fell in love with the smell of oranges and cloves combined. So when I decided to make a cranberry sauce today, I decided to go heavy on the orange and also use cloves.  Sweet, tart, slightly spicy... it pretty much smells like the holidays.

Fresh rinsed ranberries

(Here's a how-to for making your own pomander.)

I've really been trying to cut back the sugar in recipes and I did so in this one as well.  Most cranberry sauce recipes you find will use up to a cup of sugar or honey.  With this one, I figured I've got the orange juice, the cranberry juice, the apple, the Triple Sec... plenty of sweet but a lot of tart.  If you're not big into tart, you might want to use 1 cup of sugar in the recipe.

And in the holiday spirit, I chose Jim Carroll singing "People Who Died".  (I apologize for the video showing Leo and Marky Mark.)  -jen

SPICED CRANBERRY SAUCE 
Difficulty:  Easy
Time:  20 minutes
Makes: 2 and 1/4 cups

Orange & Lemon Zest

• juice and zest of one orange (about 1/3 cup juice)
• juice and zest of one lemon (about 3 tablespoons juice)
• 1/2 cup cranberry juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries, rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup Triple Sec liqueur 
• 1 apple (your choice), diced
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

In a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat, bring orange juice, lemon juice, cranberry juice and sugar to a boil.  Add rinsed cranberries and bring back to a boil (about 5 minutes).  Lower heat to a simmer and add citrus zests, Triple Sec, diced apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.  Simmer for 10-15 minutes (but not more than 15 minutes or it won't set).  Remove from heat and let set.  Serve at room temp or chilled - it's up to you. 

Chicken Piccata

One of my favorite dishes from my youth.  My mother didn't, nor did anyone else in my family, cook anything piccata but one of the jobs I had for a couple years in high school was as a waiter and they had veal piccata on the menu.  I used to get it quite regularly and as I've gotten older I've done fish piccata every so often when I get the craving for that butter fat, lemon, white wine tanginess.

The dish is pretty simple and versatile so, as I stated before, you can use pork, veal, chicken, or fish for this recipe as piccata refers to a style of preparation as opposed to a specific protein or sauce.  Pounded, breaded, fried, and served in sauce.  I generally use snapper or sole when I do fish and have done pounded out pork tenderloin steaks as well so mix it up if you like.

And to accompany this delicious dish I went with a classic song from a classic punk group who I'm shocked to say, has not yet been featured in a recipe of ours.  These guys are also a flashback from my youth because it was my high school days when I first heard Agnostic Front and it may very well have been this song, "Gotta Go".  I know it was one of the first that I'd heard from them so it's fitting that I go all the way back to sophomore or junior year. - justin

CHICKEN PICCATA
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Servings: 3-4

• 3-4 chicken thighs, deboned, skin removed, cut in half
• 1cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp butter divided into 2 tbsp halves
• 1 cup onions, minced
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup white wine

Preheat oven to 350.

Pat your thighs dry with some paper towels.  Toss your flour and panko in a gallon zip lock bag, along with some salt & pepper to season it up.  Beat your egg and water together to make a little egg wash.  Dredge your half thighs in the egg wash and toss inthe flour and bread crumbs to coat.  Set aside until all are done.  allow them to sit while you heat a large skillet to medium high heat and add your olive oil and 2 tbsp of the butter.

Brown the chicken on both sides until the breading starts to crisp up.  Place the thighs on a sheet pan in the oven for 10 minutes to finish them up.

While the chicken is in the oven, toss the onions in the skillet with all the drippings from the chicken.  After 5 minutes or so, when the onions should be translucent, add the lemon juice, the white wine, and the capers.  Simmer for about five minutes and when the chicken is done add the last 2 tbsp of butter to the sauce and stir it in as it melts.  When the butter is all incorporated, serve the chicken and drizzle the sauce all over the servings.

Creamy Roasted Garlic Soup

We love garlic in our house even more than we love bacon.  Massive quantities of garlic go into just about everything we cook.  I've been meaning to make some more soup recently because we had several containers of vegetable broth in the freezer as well as bags full of frozen veggies to make more stock, so I knew I had to use some up.  Roasted garlic soup is something neither of us had tried, but we've seen it on a few cooking shows and wanted to try it!  Lots of the recipes I saw online were for a completely smooth, creamy soup, but I wanted a little bit of chunky vegetable bite in mine.  Man, this soup came out great... we'll be making this one again soon, no doubt!

If you're not real familiar with the qualities of roasted garlic, I think it's important to explain that as the garlic roasts, it loses it's sharp, pungent taste and becomes much more mild and sweet.  So if you're not as into garlic as we are, don't let the 4+ heads of garlic in this recipe scare you away!  It's really got a pleasant, smooth flavour to it.

Thought I'd go with some F-Minus for this recipe... we'd just finished watching the movie/documentary "Give 'Em the Boot" again the other night, and I was thinking how I don't have many female singers posted on the blog here.  So F-Minus, performing "Light At the End".  -jen






CREAMY ROASTED GARLIC SOUP

Prep Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Cook Time:  45 minutes
Difficulty:  Easy
Serves:  4-6 

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup finely diced onion (or 1 small onion)
• 3/4 cup finely diced red bell pepper (or 1 small pepper)
• 3/4 cup finely diced carrot (about 2 medium carrots)
• 1 and 3/4 cup finely diced Yukon Gold potato (or 1 medium potato)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons flour (or 1/4 cup for a thicker soup)
• 1 quart vegetable or chicken broth
• 4 bulbs of roasted garlic (see roasting instructions below, takes an hour to roast)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon sherry
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 cup heavy cream
• black pepper to taste
• shredded Parmesan cheese and lemon wedges for serving

To Roast Garlic:  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Chop the tops of the garlic heads off.  Peel away the outer skins (leaving the clove skins in tact).  Place on aluminum foil.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.  Fold foil up around garlic heads and seal.  Place foil packet in oven, directly on rack, and bake for 1 hour.  Remove from oven, carefully open foil, and allow to cool.  To remove garlic from the garlic paper, just squeeze the whole head and the garlic will deliciously ooze out... just be careful not to mix any of the garlic paper in.
** For this soup recipe, I took about 1/2 a cup of the broth and the roasted garlic and blended it until smooth.  I highly suggest doing this.

In a stock pot, heat butter over medium-high heat.  Add diced onion, bell pepper, carrot, potato and minced garlic.  Cook until onion and pepper are tender, 5-7 minutes.  Stir in flour to coat vegetables and cook another 3-5 minutes.  Add stock and roasted garlic all at once and whisk so that the flour doesn't clump.  Add Worcestershire, sherry and thyme.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 25 minutes.  Stir in cream and let simmer an additional 10 minutes.

To serve, place Parmesan cheese in bottom of bowl, ladle soup over the cheese, and squeeze the juice of 1-2 lemons into soup.

Lemon Ricotta Cake With Blueberries

What I like about this cake is that it sounds sort of decadent (to me, anyway), but it was solely inspired by the extremely tight budget we're on simply by using what we had in the house.   Had some leftover ricotta from making lasagna, blueberries in the freezer that I'd picked last summer, and we almost always have lemons in the house.  Just had a sweet craving and decided to do something about it!

While baking, we had some Pandora station on that played this song about forty times, and though I tried to think of something cakey or lemony to go with the recipe, I just kept coming up with this song, so I might as well just get it out of my freaking head!!  Dramarama's "Anything Anything".  -jen

 LEMON RICOTTA CAKE WITH BLUEBERRIES

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup Ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup milk
• zest of 1 large lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• juice of 1 large lemon
• 1 cup blueberries**

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Generously coat a bunt pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add the egg, 1 at a time.  Then add the Ricotta, milk, lemon zest, and vanilla until combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt.  Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture until completely blended.  Then add the lemon juice.  Stir in the blueberries by hand.

Spoon batter into prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes, or until tester comes out clean.  Remove cake and allow to cool completely.

**Note: I found my blueberries all sunk to the bottom of the pan (top of the cake) and think next time I would spoon 2/3 of the batter into the pan, sprinkle the blueberries on top, and spoon the remainder of the batter over it.  I imagine you'd just get a layer of blueberry still, but they'd sink to the middle rather than all the way down.  Just an idea!


LEMON ICING

• 2 cups confectioner's sugar
• zest and juice of 1 large lemon
• 2-3 tablespoons Limoncello (optional)

Whisk to combine sugar and lemon juice.  Use Limoncello liqueur or water in tablespoon increments to thin icing just until it's a consistency that can be drizzled over the cake.  You don't want it too thin, or the cake will just absorb it!

Accordion Potatoes

We started out the new year with a great brunch with new friends (new for me, anyway).  I'd been wanting to try my hand at some sliced baked potatoes because I had a ton of different ideas for them.  Our friend Mike had made some a while back, showing us pictures - they looked great!  Then we saw some made on television and decided we had to make them.  Today presented a perfect opportunity, as we were hosting brunch and needed something to go with the Greek frittata that Justin was making. 

I'm not a huge fan of potatoes - baked, mashed, scalloped.  It's not that I dislike them, they just don't do a whole lot for me.  Until... today.  These potatoes were so freaking bomb ass, I ate two servings at brunch, and went back for a half of a potato for a snack.  I want to make more right now... we just don't have any potatoes left.

C'mon.  Irish.  Accordion.  Potatoes.  This was a total no brainer for music.  Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies".  I love these guys.  -jen

ACCORDION POTATOES

• 3 large baking potatoes
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons seasoning salt
• 2 teaspoons dried dill
• 1-2 lemons, sliced super thin
• 1-2 shallots, sliced super thin

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Scrub outside of potatoes clean.  Lay potato on cutting board and slice into 1/8-1/4" slices, not slicing through the bottom of the potato.  You can use two wooden spoons on either side of the potato as a bumper to stop you from cutting through it like in this photo.

Drizzle all but a teaspoon or two of the melted butter over entire top of potato, using your fingers to separate the pieces and get butter down into the crevices.  Sprinkle seasoning salt and dill over potatoes, separating pieces again to make sure seasoning gets into all the slots.

Squeeze sliced lemon and shallots, alternating, in between the potato slices.  Brush the tops of the potatoes with the remaining butter.  Place on a baking sheet and bake for 60-80 minutes, until potato is tender.  (Timing depends on how large your potatoes are.  Test a middle piece with a fork - if it slides in easily, it's done.)


Remove and serve.  Don't forget to pull out the lemon wedges if you're not into eating lemon rind.

You could really season the potatoes with anything you wanted.  I actually used Penzey's Forward spice mix, some salt, and the dill.  Next time I'd like to use one of our chile-based spice rubs we make, and sprinkle some shredded cheese on during the last 10-15 minutes.

Crab Stuffed Fillet of Sole in Lemon Dill Sauce

So, growing up here in California in general, and more specifically the North Coast, I've always been exposed to awesome seafood.  From fresh snapper, to abalone, to salmon, my family and I have always enjoyed the fruits of the Pacific.  I caught my first catfish at 8 and my middle brother caught his first mackerel in the open Pacific at 9.  I've fished bluegill, rainbow and brown trout, steelhead, small mouth bass, lingcod, and a myriad of other fish since my childhood.  While I rarely fish anymore, I love to cook seafood here at home for Jen and myself.  Living in Eureka, one of the old fishing capitols of California, affords us the opportunity to get fresh seafood at an affordable price almost anytime of year, from a variety of outlets and vendors.

When Jen moved out to Cali, she'd only been exposed to seafood in the Midwest and was not much of a fan at all.  I don't blame her.  After living here a couple of years, she started falling in love with sushi, fresh pan-fried catfish, all kinds of shellfish, and basically any kind of crustacean (i.e. crabs, lobster, shrimp, etc.), many of which she had liked before but rarely had fresh.  Since then we've made it a regular part of our menu.  Recently, we'd wanted to do some seafood and she suggested stuffing some whitefish with some crab.  Since I'm no moron, I said, "Of course!"  I decided to do something simple and easy, some canned crab, as opposed to fresh, as it involves much less prep and it tastes awesome regardless.

As I made the dish, I was listening to an all time classic of one of my favorite bands, Primus, "Fish On".  Though this song is not punk rock, per say, it is none the less a part of my musical repertoire from earlier days and I happen to love Les Claypool's bass action, especially in their earlier years.  Since he happens to reference San Pablo Bay, which is located in the north eastern part of the Greater San Francisco Bay, it seemed perfectly appropriate for me to use as I grew up in what San Franciscan's refer to as the North Bay, but the rest of us call Ukiah.

This is a simple dish that can be a perfect meal to serve to company as it seems far more complicated than it is.  We served it up with some steamed broccoli and used wild Dover sole for the whitefish, but you could substitute your your favorite mild, whitefish or garden veggies very easily.  The sauce is simple to put together and takes no time at all so it really is a snap to prepare as long as you have the ingredients all chopped and measured out ahead of time. -justin

WILD DOVER SOLE STUFFED WITH CRAB

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced yellow onion
• 2 tablespoons minced mushroom
• 2 tablespoons minced green onion 
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 cup crab meat (I used canned, lump crab but you could use whatever you prefer)
• 2 tablespoons grated Gruyere cheese
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper
• 6 fillets of wild Dover sole (or whatever whitefish you prefer)

Preheat oven to 400F degrees.  Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a 3-quart sauce pan and heat to medium-high.  Add the yellow onion and cook until golden brown.  Add mushrooms, green onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.  Pull vegetables from heat and transfer to a large mixing bowl.  Add the crab, Gruyere, lemon juice, white pepper, and Mexican oregano and mix thoroughly.  Add salt to taste.  Lay out fillets and salt and pepper both sides.  Divide filling evenly among the fillets and roll them closed over the filling, using toothpicks to secure the ends of the fish fillets.  Place evenly spaced on a lightly oiled sheet pan, brush tops lightly with 1 tablespoon olive oil, and place in the oven.  Cook for 25-30 minutes or until tops are starting to brown.  Serve with the following sauce which can easily be prepared while the fish is baking:

LEMON DILL SAUCE

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup diced shallots (or onions)
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 cup white wine
• juice of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped dill
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste
• 5 tablespoons sweet cream butter

Add the olive oil to a small sauce pan heated over medium-high heat.  Add shallots and cook until golden brown.  Add garlic and cook 2 minutes.  Add wine and cook 5 minutes.  Add lemon juice and zest, dill and Dijon and stir until combined.  Add heavy cream and black pepper, taste and add salt ass needed.  When properly seasoned, add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, making sure each is melted and incorporated before adding the next.

We served this with steamed broccoli, as I mentioned before, as the sauce goes with it beautifully.  One could also use cauliflower, asparagus, or artichokes, etc.