Stir-fry veggies add healthy touch to efforts to replicate time-honored baked fish recipe

Recently I mentioned how our route to the downtown hospital in which our grandbaby was born took us past the scene of the old Casa Linda Wyatt's cafeteria, where my parents took me to dine at least once a week as I grew up. I mentioned my affection for carrot salad, which always has seemed like a taste of heaven and which I've never been able to replicate--or even move close to it--in my own kitchen.

Another Wyatt's staple during that era was its baked fish with a piled-high crusty topping of crushed almonds and bread crumbs. Carrot salad, baked fish, Wyatt's inimitable green beans, and a layer chocolate cake--those were my selections in the cafeteria line. Those choices never varied. How I longed now to be able to prepare something akin to that fish entree as well!

A few years back Family Circle magazine helped my cause by printing a recipe for Nut-Crusted Fish Fillets with Stir-Fry. The herbed bread-crumb-and-almond topping absolutely made the flounder underneath it to die for. Just last week I turned to this long-preserved-but-yet-untried recipe in my binder. With the deed accomplished, I thought I was back in the cafeteria line and dining at Wyatt's again in the secure company of my parents, one on either side. Precious memories!

Healthening-up this Family Circle recipe is the inclusion of the stir-fried vegetables ("stir-fry" being surely unheard-of, at least in my family, in my growing-up days). Green beans and matchstick carrots made the dinner complete, not to mention colorful as everything.

Nut-Crusted Fish Fillets

4 slices reduced-calorie wheat bread

1/3 cup sliced almonds, chopped

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

4 flounder fillets, about 6-ounces each

Stir-Fry:

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 gloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 carrots (1/4 pound), peeled and cut into 2-inch matchsticks

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2 large scallions, chopped, for garnish

lemon slices, for garnish

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Coat 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside. Place bread in bowl of food processor; whirl until fine crumbs are formed. In a small bowl combine crumbs, chopped almonds, thyme, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of the pepper. Stir in olive oil, lemon juice, and lemon zest until all ingredients are moistened. Season fish with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Fold fillets in half and place in prepared baking dish. Spoon 1/4 of the bread topping over each fillet. Bake in 400- degree oven for 17 to 19 minutes or until fish flakes easily.

Stir-Fry: While fish is baking, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add green beans and carrots. Season with salt and pepper. Stir-fry for 14 to 16 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender. If skillet gets too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water. Serve fish with stir-fry vegetables. Garnish with scallions and lemon slices.

Apples make delightful, healthy addition to fall-like Carrot Salad

No coincidence that my spotting a clever new recipe for Carrot Salad, a staple I enjoyed in my childhood, and frequent drives past the setting for that enjoyment--the Casa Linda Shopping Center in Dallas--occurred within the same week.

Hubby and I motored by this east Dallas treasure--in my growing-up days known as Casa Linda Plaza and once home of the revered Wyatt's Cafeteria--on the way to the Dallas hospital which housed our newborn grandbaby.

No, August, did not turn out to be Baby Month as we expected. That little guy, with a mind of his own, must have decided that August was just too hot and that he'd wait until September, that great fall harbinger, to make his entrance.

But once September swept in, Precious Grandboy did, too. As Hubby and I blitzed past Casa Linda (now home of the revitalized Highland Park Cafeteria, a successor to the beloved Wyatt's of former day) to get to our many hospital visits, I again recalled to Hubby the story of my dining on carrot salad there so often that my hair could have turned orange.

Lo and behold, what should appear before me that same week but a delightful new recipe for Carrot Salad--not mimicking the cafeteria legend but an enjoyable one nevertheless. I was drawn to this recipe, featured in my "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" cookbook from the Chickasaw Nation, because it featured grated apples along with the standard carrots and cabbage. Resembling coleslaw, on preparation this dish immediately was tasty but became even more delectable after it marinated for about eight hours.

Apple days and more apple days are ahead of us. (What says autumn--especially September--more appropriately than does a shiny red apple?) My apple recipes already are getting a dusting off as I shelve my summer recipe binder and replace it with the one that says "fall".

Besides apple crisp and apple cobbler and some of the more expected apple-based menu items, I was happy to find apples in this most unexpected place--"healthening" up Carrot Salad.

Carrot Salad

2 red delicious apples, grated

1 lemon, juiced

1/2 pound carrots, raw, shredded

8 cups cabbage, shredded

Dressing:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon mustard

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper

Put the oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, honey, and oregano in a screw-top jar. In a large bowl sprinkle the grated apples with the lemon juice; toss to coat. Add carrot and cabbage; mix thoroughly. Shake the dressing, pour over the salad, and toss well. Chill and serve. Makes 4-6 servings.