The Pork Boys Do Pescado Florentina

That's the name we came up with for our main dish Thursday night, with an Italian nod to my truckbuddy Frank, who came up with this totally, postively, absolutely scrumptious recipe for fish cooked on a bed of spinach and rice.  Too easy, and so damn good!  You fellas who cook have got to try this, you will love it - and it's good for ya, too.

The ex-roommate, being the kind of inventive guy he is, couldn't help putting his own little Tex-Mex spin on it:  to Frank's recipe he added tomatoes and lime juice and some Mexican seasonings, which were just enough to give the perch (Frank uses cod) a delightful undercurrent of zingy flavor without overwhelming the very succulent fish, which by this method comes out steamed to perfection - and the rice and spinach are both very delicately flavored by the fish. 

Man, I just can't tell you guys how larupping good this is - trust me, you gotta try it for yourself.  Today.  You won't be sorry, and it's a practically foolproof recipe.

The XR surprised me with some delightful little quichettes, as we call them, for appetizers:  minature quiches filled with oh I don't know what all - eggs of course, and I think spinach and ham and mushrooms.  Whatever.  Awfully good to start a meal with, or just to snack on anytime.  He actually made a whole big tray of them, but these are all that were left by the time dinner was ready.

We also decided we wanted cheese grits to go with the fish dish, and that was a very good idea indeed, as you can see.  It tasted just as good as it looks:  the perfect accompaniment to our main course, yummy, gooey, cheesey, and lightly browned for a slight crunch.

My big contribution was another Southern favorite, butter beans and bacon - okay, so the beans came out of a can, but they were good just the same, seasoned with the bacon and some butter and black pepper.  And I slaved over fixing some homemade bake-n-serve rolls too, I want you to know.  We love those, but hot corn muffins would have been a good choice for this meal, too.

Of course we had some White Zin to wash it all down with.  And for dessert, which I didn't get a pic of, vanilla ice cream with caramel and chocolate syrups on a piece of warmed double-chocolate loaf cake.  Yeah, so it was all store-bought, so what - we enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.

I'm going to see if I can't get the XR to blog those recipe versions and share the bonne cuisine with you guys.  It was some kinda good, I tell you what.