Tonight's Dinner

Tonight's inspiration ingredient was sorrel. Why?, you may ask, and you'll get a long winded response. Above, is a picture of my herb garden. I don't have a nice deep window sill in a sunny window and my outdoor herb gardens have been complete failures. Like all of my other gardening efforts that fail, I blame it on the clay we have here in North Carolina. I do have gardening successes, but we'll get to that when Spring comes. So, back to the electronic herb garden. This was my Valentine's Day present last year from my always thoughtful husband. We were both tired of buying fresh herbs at the grocery only to see half or more go to waste. The Aero Garden is a revelation! Beautiful thyme, basil, oregano, and dill in the dead of winter! Our garden was out of commission over the summer due to excessive travelling. While Christmas shopping, I picked up a new seed kit at Sur la Table. I chose the Fish and poultry mix, comprised of, dill, sorrel, sage, chives, oregano, and thyme. I've been watching it grow over the last couple of weeks and all of the sudden the sorrel started to take over. In the picture above, it is the plant in the back right that is tall and has big leaves that are obstructing the other plants from their photosynthesis. Hence the long story and why I felt the need to harvest it.

So the routine was much like yesterday, I got to epicurious and typed sorrel into the search engine. The choices were limited, especially well rated choices. Drumroll......the winner was.....Halibut with Tomato-Sorrel Sauce! Embedded as a companion to this dish was a recipe for Garlic Mashed Potatoes, O.K., that sounds good. Both recipes originated from a restaurant, Island Cottage on Hare Island, Ireland. A lot of butter was required and thankfully I had this in my fridge, leftover from Christmas cookies:

This meal is heavy on cream and butter. I, like most, are trying to watch my caloric intake due to pressures (enforced by me) to have a New Year's Resolution. Thankfully, I picked out the recipe this morning and was able to keep the tummy grumblings at bay throughout the day with small hand fulls of almonds to save calories for dinner and wine. It is Friday night after all.

Preparation was not to difficult, again because of my rock star sous chef. He didn't even have to break out my professional mandoline to produce matchstick zucchini. I must also note, halibut was on VIC (very important customer) Special at Harris Teeter today. What would have cost me $40 cost $20. Perk!

This finished product is as follows.... Halibut on a bed of Garlic Mashed Potatoes, surrounded by Sautéed Mushrooms and Zucchini, with a Beurre Blanc Sauce with Tomato and Sorrel:

My Husband claimed restaurant quality..... Great compliment! I really enjoyed it also. The mushrooms and zucchini were nice with a slight kick from some crushed red pepper. The sauce was the star, drizzling it's rich goodness on all aspects of the dish. But then again, how can you go wrong with heavy cream and a stick of butter. Geez, I need to go for a long bike ride tomorrow...

Again, this is a kid approved meal! My kids at least.