Happy Sunday!

We’re happy to report that Lucas’ condition continues to improve every day, and he’s almost 100% back to normal. While it’s possible he won’t have to be on a restricted sodium diet forever, this little brush with kidney problems has made us both a lot more aware of how much sodium we’re eating each day, and it’s been an eye opening experience. It feels like there’s sodium in everything, and quite often a lot of it, too. It’s helped us get back to cooking with more raw ingredients and being more aware of what we eat. So just because Lucas may not have to keep his sodium at a minimum any longer doesn’t mean we don’t want to keep track of it and try to cut out as much excess sodium wherever we can. We’re still preparing low sodium dishes and finding ways to cut sodium from our regular favorite recipes, and today is no exception.

This is actually the second time we’re prepared tonight’s dish, with the first time being just this past week. Yes, it’s that good. Tonight we prepared Broiled Parmesan Tilapia, and it’s seriously the best way I’ve had fish in a long time. We used fresh tilapia fillets from the seafood counter at our local grocery store along with real lemon juice, parmesan, and mayonnaise. It’s a fast dish, too. Since you broil the fish, it takes around 10 minutes to make, start to finish. Really! While the broiler was pre-heating, I mixed together the parmesan mixture. After the first 6 minutes in the broiler (3 mins per side), I pulled the fish out long enough to scoop the mixture on top – but before I did, I splashed the tops of the fillets with a little extra lemon juice because I found it helped make the thick parmesan concoction spread easier. Plus you can’t really go wrong with a little extra hint of lemon when it comes to fish, if you ask me.

The result is a golden fillet with irresistible flavor in every bite; not too fishy. Last week we paired our fish with mixed brown rice and veggies; this week we went with just a mountain of green beans because we had larger fillets. Both times were pure perfection.

To lower the sodium in this recipe, which wasn’t too bad to begin with, we used unsalted butter and celery seed instead of celery salt. Depending on your parmesan cheese you can get this down to around 200 mg of sodium per fillet. Being paired with fresh veggies (sans salt) or whole grain brown rice means you’re not adding any extra salt to dinner, either. Win-win! This will definitely be in our usual rotation; it’s delicious!