I’ve posted about my new favorite fish recipe already, but I made different sides with it the other night, so I wanted to give you a run-down of how the kids liked everything.

Wednesday night we had:

• Tilapia cooked my new favorite way
• Sugar snap peas, steamed with a little salt
• Brown rice
• Leftover sweet potato “fries”

Lucie (5 1/2) was feeling a bit sick, so she mostly ate the brown rice with some butter on top and a bunch of the snap peas. No fish, no sweet potatoes. Oddly enough, my very un-picky daughter does not like apple sauce, sweet potatoes or macaroni and cheese.

Ronan (2 1/2), who many of you know almost never eats any dinner, ate a lot of rice, a few snap peas and a bunch of sweet potatoes. I don’t think either kid touched the fish, unfortunately.

The sweet potatoes I made came from an Epicurious recipe that I found ages ago:

Roasted Sweet Potato Slices

They’re pretty good. But I noticed the other day that the recipe says not to peel the potatoes and none of the reviews said that they should be peeled, so I made them this time unpeeled. Not a good idea. They really need to be peeled. So make sure if you do make this recipe you peel the potatoes and cook them a good long time so that they’re nice and crisp.

Image by Mharrsch

Last night I made this very easy recipe for fish (which I’ve reprinted below) that my mother gave me about a month or so ago. I think I’ve made it three times since she’s given it to me. You can use it with any mild white fish. I happen to buy tilapia most often for my family since it’s so inexpensive and tends to have no problems with mercury or other contaminants (see The Environmental Defense Fund’s Seafood Selector for more information).

I usually serve the fish dish over brown rice and last night we also had brussels sprouts.

Lucie (age 5) who usually eats a great dinner, was not so interested last night. She had a few brussels sprouts, which she loves, despite the fact that they are clearly not in season right now and were very bland-tasting. She also had a few of the grape tomatoes that were on top of the fish, and maybe a bite or two of rice and fish. Ronan (age 2), who never eats dinner, ate a bunch of fish and rice and maybe one brussels sprout.

My verdict: Fairly successful

Here is the fish recipe:

1 container of grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1-2 lbs. white fish
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Sliced lemon (2 under each fillet)
3 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
1.5 Tbsp. drained capers

Preheat oven to 400° F. Line baking pan with foil, drizzle with 1 Tbsp. oil. Salt and pepper fish. Put fish skin-side down with lemon slices underneath. Heat oil in frying pan, saute garlic for 30 seconds, add tomatoes and a little salt, stir for 1 minute. Add in capers. Spoon over fish. Cover with foil and crimp edges. Bake 12-15 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork.

The lemon, oil and tomatoes make a nice sauce that you can spoon over rice or cous cous when you’re ready to serve the meal. I added a little white wine last night as well, which of course never hurts!

Sunday evening we had dinner at a friend’s house. While my friend made Jamie Oliver’s Simple Baked Lasagne for the grown-ups (and any of the kids who asked for it), she took my advice from a recent Parenting magazine article, 6 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Eat Fish, and made a quick tuna ragu for the kids.

The ragu was made using a jarred tomato basil sauce and a can of light tuna, drained. That’s it. I tasted it myself and it was delicious. Even my friend’s husband said he would have been happy having that for dinner. Although, don’t get me wrong, the lasagna was incredible!

The ragu was served over mini cheese ravioli. I’m not sure how much of it Lucie (age 5) ate because she was sitting at a separate table from me (although she did request some lasagna and had a lot of Italian bread!). But Ronan (age 2) who, as you may know, is not much of a dinner eater, gobbled it up. He even took some of the sauce with his fork and spread it on his Italian bread and ate it that way.

As I was perusing the Jamie Oliver site for the lasagna recipe, I found his version of a tuna ragu, which is a little more complicated, but not very:

Our Favourite Tuna Pasta

If you’re concerned about feeding tuna fish to your young child, check out KidSafe Seafood for information on how to do it safely.

Image by John Kratz

Small Bites was recently interviewed for an article for Parenting Magazine’s website. Check it out:

6 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Eat Fish

Good information from a recent article in Mothering Magazine:
Fish facts for families: seafoods are packed with great nutrition. Here’s how to choose the most sustainable and healthiest options for your brood.

I’ve written about this brand of low-mercury tuna before, but had not been able to find it in stores until the other day. I was shopping at Fairway in Red Hook and finally found King of the Sea tuna in the kosher section.

If you’re looking for a well-priced, low-mercury tuna, this just might be your brand. Check the kosher section of your supermarket (if there is one) to see if they carry King of the Sea.

In keeping with the fish theme from the Small Bites September newsletter, I’m reprinting for you some tips from KidSafe Seafood on how to get your kids to eat seafood. Here they are:

Take Your Kids Shopping
Frying Isn’t All Bad
Use Kid-Friendly Flavors
Let Your Kids Help Do The Cooking
Play With Your Food
Experiment With Fun Shapes And Sizes
Get Creative With Dips And Sauces
Even One Healthy Fish Is Great

Visit the Kidsafe Seafood blog to see descriptions for each of their tips.

I just discovered a brand of canned tuna that’s supposed to have the lowest mercury content of all canned tuna: King of the Sea.

Independent lab tests found King of the Sea to contain less than 0.1 parts per million of mercury.

Visit their website at kingoftheseatuna.com to find out where you can purchase this “trustworthy tuna.”

Consumer Reports announced yesterday that, after doing an analysis of Food and Drug Administration data, they found that canned light tuna sometimes contains as much mercury as (if not more than) canned white tuna. This stands in contradiction to all past recommendations stating that pregnant women and young children can safely eat up to 12 ounces of canned light tuna per week.

Consumer Reports goes so far as to recommend in their article, Mercury in Tuna: New Safety Concerns, that pregnant women avoid canned tuna entirely. The article is fairly comprehensive about the dangers of mercury in fish and has a good Q&A. However, as is the case with every other mercury advisory I read, the article avoids giving us information about what can actually be done about the mercury problem.