Today is not only Veteran’s Day, as it is also my anniversary, celebrating my not messing up my first relationship for three whole years.

All jokes aside, today is all about gratitude. I’m grateful to those who fought for us and I’m grateful to my boyfriend for sticking with me all this time.

Since we are going to one of our favorite places for dinner tonight, I thought I’d make us some dinner last night. I couldn’t decide which meal I wanted so I made both baked tilapia and linguine with shrimp scampi at my boyfriend’s place. He didn’t have every ingredient I wanted, but considering he usually tries to keep his kitchen more low-maintenance, I was really excited at what I did have on hand. I guess I was actually REALLY excited because I wanted to throw together a post based on our meal, but just please remember how my recipe posts go.

First, since it sits in an oven for a while:

Baked Tilapia

(Similar recipe used as reference)

Ingredients:

• 2 tilapia fillets (thawed from frozen)
• Butter
• Seasoning
  • I used garlic powder, onion powder, and a dash of salt & pepper. At home, I’d also use some Old Bay, but you can use whatever you’d like.
• 4 slices of lemon
• Frozen veggies
  • I used a mix that contained cauliflower, broccoli, & carrots, but feel free to use any veggies that you like to enjoy with fish. I would recommend a hardier veggie like broccoli versus something really small like peas, due to cooking time.

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F.
2. Line your baking dish/pan with aluminum foil and cover with butter/oil/cooking spray.
   • This ensures that you can remove your fish for serving.
   • I used sesame oil because I was feeling cheeky and I love sesame oil.
3. Place tilapia fillets on the foil and season.
4. Put little bits of butter on the tops of the fillets.
   • Then they melt and ooze flavor and it’ll be good stuff, really.
5. Place 2 lemon slices evenly-spaced on each fillet.
6. Put frozen veggies on tray around the fish and lightly season.
   • Optional: Drizzle a teeny amount of oil/put teensy bits of butter on veggies. They won’t really need the extra fats but it’s up to you.
7. Cover the dish/pan with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes in the oven.

I served this with Trader Joe’s Chimichurri Rice (very yummy!) and kept my seasonings and buttering of the fish very light so that it wouldn’t be too heavy with the seasoned rice.

While you wait for the fish to finish cook in the oven, you can work on:

Linguine with Shrimp Scampi

(Adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe)

Ingredients:

A lot of these ingredients

• Linguine
• Shrimp, peeled & deveined
• Butter
• Olive oil
• Minced garlic
• Lemon zest
  • HACKS: If you don’t have a zester or microplane like me, try using a vegetable peeler to get the zest off and then mince it up.
• Lemon juice
  • And yeah, you could probably throw lemon slices in there like Ina did
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
  • I’m going to be really honest with you guys, I almost never cook without garlic powder
• Red pepper flakes
  • My boyfriend doesn’t have these but I do and wished I was weird enough to bring them with me for this recipe.
  • Plus, that chimichurri rice is really flavorful, so it’s okay if this isn’t too heavily seasoned

Directions:

1. Boil your linguine according to the instructions (boil a pot of salted water, put your pasta in, cook until a bit more than al dente because you’ll be cooking it a tiny bit more soon.)
2. While your pasta is boiling, melt your butter in a pan with olive oil over a medium-low heat.
3. Add minced garlic and sauté.
   • Don’t burn your garlic! Minced garlic burns especially easily because it’s so small.
4. Add your shrimp to sauté until they just turn pink while adding in your dry seasoning.
5. Remove from heat and add lemon zest, lemon juice, (lemon slices,) and any other yummies you may have, e.g. red pepper flakes, parsley.
6. Drain your cooked linguine and put it back in the pot with your shrimp and other goodness.
7. Toss everything well and enjoy!

Happy Veteran’s Day and happy anniversary to my better half.

Share a recipe that you got really excited to cook lately, please? I’m really in the mood to cook as the weather gets cooler, so I’m super excited to make my kitchen werk.