Baked Tchoupitoulas

Thank you for your support and well wishes during my job search. I've had several interviews lined up these past several days, along with a lot of testing. I have three second interviews lined up the remainder of this week. The job search is consuming a lot of my time these days and I am also working on a few recipes for review with the possibility of publishing a cookbook. I'm trying to work on my posting this morning. This afternoon and this evening I am hoping to get caught up on your blogs. Wow, I miss all of you so much. Let's bake some fish!

Did I get you with the word "Tchoupitoulas"? Can we all say it together? Chop-pit-tool-us. See it's really not that difficult! Once you taste the flavors this dish renders, you will have no problem fitting Tchoupitoulas in your vocabulary!

Fish is a summertime staple. It's a blank palette where your imagination is your limit, plus it's a light and satisfying main course that most of us seem to crave during these warm summer months.

Did you know that A.J. has a green thumb? Yep, I think he can make a shoe grow. These are two of his tomatoes I picked to make this dish. Aren't they beautiful?

Two orange Roughy fillets were used. You can use any kind of sturdy fish, such as halibut, talpia and red fish.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a baking pan with sides with foil and spray with a non-stick cooking spray. Chop 1/2 of a medium onion, 3 scallions, 2 ribs of celery and 2 tomatoes. Evenly spread the chopped vegetables over the bottom of the pan.

Thoroughly clean your fish and pat dry. Liberally season fish both sides with season salt, lemon pepper and garlic powder. Season ONE SIDE ONLY with a pinch of cayenne.

Place the fish on top of the vegetables in the baking pan. Lay lemon slices on top of the fish, overlapping slightly and sprinkle the top with paprika. Place the pan in the oven and bake uncovered for 1 hour.

Remove the pan from the oven and carefully move the fish fillets to a platter and tent with foil.

Pour the veggies and drippings into a pot and bring to a boil.

Once the drippings come to a boil, add in one cup of dry white wine. Allow the sauce to reduce by half over medium high heat.

Once the sauce has reduced, your kitchen will smell amazing...people will wander in, even the non-fish eaters, and start nosing around. Once the sauce has reduced pour the contents into a strainer over a heat safe bowl. Mash down on the veggies to force out all of the liquid. Discard the veggies and pour the liquid back into the pot.

Heat the sauce over medium-high heat and add in 4 tablespoons of cold butter cut into cubes. Add a 2 to 3 cubes at a time.

Add the cubes and very gently stir or swirl the sauce until the butter is melted before adding more cubes.

Whisk 1 tablespoon of flour into the sauce to thicken it slightly. Simmer sauce for about 10 minutes to cook flour.

Ladle sauce over fish and serve. Oh my, talk about mouth watering!