No Whine with Dinner: Whole Baked Red Snapper with Herbs

by The Meal Makeover Moms on November 21st, 2009

The Yummy Mummy is one of those food blogs you’ll want to visit a lot.  The Yummy Mummy is Kim and her approach to feeding her two girls, 4-year old Lucy and 3-year old Edie, is right up our alley. According to Kim, “I don’t cook ‘food for kids.’” Instead, what she does prepare are fresh, delicious meals that appeal to adults. As for the kids, she expects them to eat what she and her husband eat, and she has a great sense of humor too!

If you’re wondering how Kim manages to get her family to eat the same meal happily — even the whole baked snapper recipe below — read on. We guarantee you’ll find lots of new ideas and a refreshing approach to mealtime.

Whole Baked Red Snapper with Herbs

  • One 2-to 2 ¼-pound whole red snapper, cleaned
  • 1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or a few generous squirts from a lemon
  • 5 or 6 sprigs of lemon thyme
  • 10 chives (uncut)
  • Parsley, minced and used at the end for presentation
  • 1/4 stick butter, cut into pieces
  • 2 lemons, cut into wedges (save a few for presentation)
  • Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a good size baking pan. Butter the pan a bit to keep the fish from sticking. Wash fish, pat dry with paper towel and place it in center of a pan.

2. Season cavity of fish with garlic, salt and pepper, and lemon juice. Dot cavity with butter. Arrange some lemon wedges, lemon thyme sprigs and chives inside cavity. (You really can use whatever herb combination you like – I won’t yell at you). Season outside of fish with salt and pepper. Squeeze lemon over outside of fish. Salt and pepper the outside. Top with a couple lemon slices, if you like.

3. At this point, you can store the fish in the fridge for up to a day. If you can prep the fish ahead, dinner is just putting a pan in the oven. Simple.

4. Bake fish in oven until cooked through, about 35-40 minutes, depending on the size of the fish. Transfer fish to platter. Serve with a sprinkle of parsley and a generous little pile of lemon wedges.

Q: Where did you get the recipe?
A: Well, I made this myself without a recipe, but I hardly created it. Better cooks than I have done this dish in their own way. The great thing about this recipe is that you can use whatever combination of herbs you have on hand and it will turn out beautifully. You can be the creator of the dish.

Q: What do you like best about this recipe?
A: This is a really beautiful dish that you can bring to the table whole out of the oven, with juices bubbling and herbs crisped. And no one will ever know how ridiculously easy it is to make. It’s great for a special weeknight dinner because you can prep the fish ahead in the morning and just pop it in the oven after you get home from work or a busy day. I think it’s also important for kids to see that “fish” does not come from a fish stick box. And this is great way to have that discussion without actually having to have that discussion.

Q:  What do your kids think about this recipe?
A: The key part of this dish is that you serve the fish whole at the table “with eyes.” My kids love all things fish, but the first time they saw a roasted whole fish at a Chinese dinner party hosted by a friend, they completely freaked out. Now, they ask for “fish with eyes” regularly. They are tickled to see the whole fish, to be able to inspect it, touch the scales, the gills, even pick up the fish head and put it on their plate and look closely at the eyes. The adults can flake the fish off the bone and put it on their plate while they are mesmerized by the fish itself or they can dive in with their own forks. It’s such a tactile dish and perfect for curious, young ones who haven’t quite figured out that a fish head might be “gross.”

Q:  Other than the fact that this recipe makes everyone in your family happy, do you have any other tips for taking the “whine” out of dinner?
A: I have a pretty un-orthodox approach when it comes to family eating. I don’t spend a lot of time making my kids eat or worrying about how much they eat. I try to recognize that sometimes kids are hungry and clean their plates and other times, they don’t. I trust they know when they’ve had enough and when they want more. I have friends who follow their kids around the table with forkfuls of food begging them to eat “one more bite.” That just makes dinner painful for everyone. I want my kids to learn to be responsible for their own eating. I’m not saying this works for everyone, but it makes our meal times much more fun.

Here are five other clever mealtime tips from The Yummy Mummy:

> Make Soup: One of the best things I ever did was introduce soup as a lunch time meal when the kids were babies. They eat some kind of home-made soup at least every other day. This has helped me feel good about what they are taking in and it has become a go-to meal for us. There is always a pot of soup in the fridge or freezer, ready for a quick, healthy meal. If they don’t like dinner, for instance, they can have some soup. When I know they’ll eat nothing else, I know they’ll eat a bowl of soup.

> No Box Mac and Cheese in the House. Ever: Nothing kills a palate like the box. It is never in our house. They can enjoy it to their hearts content at their friend’s houses and it is a real treat for them, but they don’t have any expectation that it is served at our house. Why? Because once they taste it, they’ll want it all the time. And you can never go back. It’s like a drug. So, I just don’t introduce it in the first place.

> Never Order off the Children’s Menu: Shrimp cocktail is our go-to restaurant meal for the kids. If you start ordering chicken fingers and pasta with no sauce, you’ll have to do it every time you go into a restaurant. If you start this when they can’t read the menu, they’ll have a better shot at ordering more varied items as they get older and can choose for themselves.

> Say No to Carbs Whenever Possible: Limit carby snacks, no Goldfish or Wheat Thins to curb hunger. Fruit and nuts are great as snacks, but crackers are too filling and offer no nutrition. And that’s room in their stomachs that can house fish and meat and vegetables.

> Buy Parsley: Keep a bottle of dried parsley in the fridge. Dust every dish with a little dried or even better, fresh parsley. This helps kids realize there is no such thing as “white food” and it gets them used to the idea that herbs are supposed to be in food. Nothing goes out of my kitchen that is one color. Ever. And my reward for this is that they don’t pick the rosemary out of the chicken when we are at a dinner party.

Q: Tell us about The Yummy Mummy. By the way, we love your tag line: In the Kitchen with a Couple of Spatula-Wielding Toddlers:
A: The Yummy Mummy is a humor blog that focuses on parenting and cooking with small children underfoot. I don’t cook “food for kids.” I do cook fresh, tasty, dishes that appeal to adults and we expect our kids to eat what we eat. No gimmicks, no angles, no food with smiley faces. I have some big victories, but a lot of the time, the kids just throw food at us. And that’s okay too.

If you want to follow Kim, here’s a link to The Yummy Mummy.

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2 Comments | Filed Under Dinner, NoWhineWithDinner, PickyEaters, Seafood 

2 Responses to “No Whine with Dinner: Whole Baked Red Snapper with Herbs”

  1. Laura Lagano on November 23rd, 2009

    i could not agree more about never ordering off the children’s menu. i just posted about that myself on Nutrition Heals!

    http://nutritionheals.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=113

  2. Warner (aka ntsc) on November 24th, 2009

    I’ve been following Kim for a couple of years now. She blogged about an experience I had had, 30 years and one boro apart, but we shared. Making Coq au Vin with the help of a toddler. In my case I was also trying to get lucky. (I did.)

    We will be having Thanksgiving for 13 including 6 children down to age 3. No special dishes for children, but choices everywhere. Even two turkeys.

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