Dinner by the sea

Yummy Haddock

James was scheduled to row with his rowing club on Thursday night, so we drove down to the sea together with the intention of picking up some fresh fish at Kyler's Catch for Pam to prepare at our beach house while James got his exercise. Little did we know that the row had been canceled earlier in the day. While James was disappointed when he arrived at the marina, we did not despair. We still had fish to enjoy, plus which it was also National Cream Cheese Brownie Day!

We went to our classic 1980s era Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook for a fish recipe and selected Baked Fish with Mushrooms (because we had mushrooms). The recipe also called for bacon (which was also on hand). We decided to substitute the shallot we had for the green onions. 

The first step involved cooking the bacon - a rather straightforward instruction. Unfortunately, our electric stove has three different sized burners nested in concentric circles, with each having settings from Low to High which are all part of a single dial. The "low" setting on the smallest burner (which I did not intend to set) is next to the "high" setting for the middle burner (which I did intend to set). I put the bacon in the skillet, turned the dial, and waited wondering why the two slices wouldn't cook at all. I eventually discovered the problem and reset the dial, but what I didn't realize was that the middle sections (the only part getting any heat) of each slice had in fact started to cook, so that when the rest of the bacon was heated it heated unevenly. By the time the ends were cooked the middle sections were burned. They looked like long figure 8s. I threw out the burned parts and used only the ends.

After removing the bacon I sautéed the chopped shallot and the chopped mushrooms in the bacon fat and added 3 T. butter and some dried oregano. The fish (Haddock) was placed in a baking dish, topped with the mushrooms, shallot, butter and oregano and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. The bacon was crumbled and added to the top. We served with a spinach salad and paired with a buttery Chardonnay.

Cream Cheese Brownies: The secret is to 'spray with spray'

I don't always celebrate the food holidays I learn about on National Day Calendar. I imagine I would "fall away to a ton" (as my grandmother used to say) if I did, but I could not resist National Cream Cheese Brownie Day. I started with a recipe I found on spendwithpennies.com, but had to make a few substitutions, so my revised recipe follows:

For the Brownies:

12 T unsalted butter

1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

a dash of vanilla extract

1/2 t. salt

1 c. flour

For the Cheesecake Swirl

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

1/4 c. sugar (I had used up all the granulated sugar we had in the brownie mix, so I had to crush up a bunch of sugar cubes)

1 egg

a dash of vanilla extract

The instructions specifically said to "spray a 7x11 pan with baking spray". I ended up using a 9x13 pan because I didn't have the size recommended. Fortunately I did have plenty of my eponymous baking spray.

I melted the chocolate chips and butter together in the microwave (stopping every 30 seconds to stir). Cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, and flour were added and mixed together to form a batter which was poured into the well-sprayed dish. I also saved out 1 dollop of the batter as indicated in the recipe.

The cheesecake topping was made by mixing the cream cheese with the sugar and mixing by hand. The recipe says to use an electric mixer, but we don't own one. Next I added the egg and the vanilla extract and stirred until well mixed. I poured the smooth cheesecake batter on top of the brownie batter already in the pan, then plopped the reserved brownie batter on top of that and used a knife to swirl everything together. This baked at 350 for 25 minutes. It cooled a bit before we sliced it, but it was still warm and creamy when we ate it. So good. Not too sweet with a wonderful mouth feel, warm and chocolatey.