Broiled Tilapia with mixed vegetable and brown rice

This is a really easy meal to make, and it is really good for you, too. Tilapia is a great fish that is inexpensive and easy to find. I used Emeril's Original Essence on my Tilapia fillets with a little salt and pepper, but you can use anything dry you can think of.

Prep Time: 20 minutes (or however long it takes to cook rice)

For TWO PEOPLE
2 Tilapia Fillets $6
1 zucchini $.50
1 squash $.50
8 oz. of brown rice $.85
16 oz. of water $.00
1 tbsp. butter $.20
1 tbsp. EVOO $.25
parsley $.10
thyme $.10
salt and pepper $.05
Dry seasoning for tilapia $.10

Total: $8.65 or $4.33 a serving


Preheat your oven to BROIL. Drizzle EVOO in a oven-safe pan or dish. Place the tilapia fillets in the pan and drizzle a bit of EVOO on them and coat with your seasoning. Once your oven is preheated, you will broil the tilapia 5 minutes on one side. Take the pan out. Flip the fillet. Coat the other side with EVOO and seasoning and return to the oven with the newly seasoned half facing up. Broil for five minutes and it's done.

To sautee fresh veg is easy. Slice your squash and zucchini into wheels, and you can get as small as you'd like or keep them in cirlces. Heat 2 tbsp of EVOO in a pan. Once it is warm, drop in the zucchini and squash. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme. Toss veg around for approx. 5 minutes. You want them to be slightly soft, but with a bit of crunch still. Don't cook them into transparent mush.

And brown rice is easy. 2 to 1 water to rice. So boil two cups of water. Drop in the rice and let cook over medium heat for approx. 20 minutes. The rice is done cooking when there is no water left in the pot and the rice is tender. The New Orleans way to cook rice is to put the rice into the boiling water, and to not disturb it at all through the cooking process. This will cause a lot of rice to stick to your pan, and clean up will be lengthy, but it ensures well cooked rice.
When your brown rice is done you can drop in a tbsp. of butter and stir in some salt and pepper and parsley. Easy.