Swai and Grapes

Fish. Chances are you need to eat more of it. The American Heart Association tells you all about it, so I don't have to (side note: that's the great thing about blogging versus article writing - lazy shortcuts). So, while I no longer patronize a food bank like I did a year ago for a short time, I'm still on a tight budget. I'd love to eat more salmon - who wouldn't - but it's not the cheapest fish around. Here's where you learn about Swai.



Swai is farmed in Southeast Asia. My fillet flew all the way from Vietnam (not by itself of course, it had a little help). The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch notes that it has good potential for sustainable aquaculture, but there's little oversight at the moment so there could be conservation concerns. You'll have to read about it and make your own determination. What decided me is that it's currently rated as a good alternative and it's $3.99 per pound in my local markets. Keep in mind a serving size is 3 to 5 ounces. It's probably the most economical fish around.

A 5 ounce serving of cooked swai has 70 calories, 2 grams of fat with one of those grams saturated, 210 mg of sodium, 55 mg of cholesterol and 14 grams of protein. Pretty healthy. It's an alternative to catfish, with a similar but less earthy taste.

Time to get to the good stuff, right? On to the recipe. If you've read previous posts you know I'm a slapdash, lazy cook and I want things to be fast, simple and tasty. That's not asking too much in my world. I decided to make an all-in-one broiled dish. This literally took 15 minutes from opening the refrigerator to sitting down to eat.

You may also remember I measure nothing, but this dish is so simple and scalable you shouldn't have any trouble duplicating it or doing something similar on your own. Lay down a large amount of baby spinach, keeping it mind it will reduce by a lot. Put your fillet on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay a few lemon slices in there. Put red table grapes all around the fish. Drizzle the whole dish liberally with olive oil. I like a Spanish olive oil for this - less intense flavor (also on sale at Safeway for $5.99). Broil on low for 10 minutes, then broil on high for 2 minutes to finish. I used aluminum foil for quick and easy cleanup, and this would be a brilliant dish to make on a camping trip.

Dinner. Done. If you've never cooked grapes before, try it. Broiling, roasting or grilling intensifies the flavor and sweetness of grapes. They're amazing. Also, cooked spinach is a good source of magnesium, which some alternative health sources claim is in short supply in most American diets. I get debilitating foot and leg cramps and am upping my magnesium intake to compensate. So far, so good.

This is an incredibly simple, fast and flavorful meal. You can make individual packets for each family member or cook it for one. It's very economical, especially right now during grape season when they're on sale. The trick to cheap, healthy eating is eating with the seasons. This isn't a dish that gets served in the spring.