Cod Filet and Black Bean Sauce

It's funny how things happen where you think your discussions or thoughts seem to have no relationship to anything.  They are just random; just like last night at a fabulous and tasty dinner at the home of Alisa and Greg's, close friends of my daughter's, the conversation, as usual, turned to everybody's take on food.  The food was great!  There were many cooks in attendance, 8 people out of 9, as a matter of fact.  Greg made the Shrimp Creole. Gerri made a Key Lime Pie to which she added toasted coconut and Alisa and Wendy W made a delicious salad.

 Of course, with that many cooks at the table, the conversation naturally turned to food.  Then, the discussion shifted to the subject of vegetarianism and "organic foods."  I mentioned that a friend of mine from Ethiopia who travels extensively in Europe laughed and noted that only in America are people concerned with "organic" foods and vegetables.  She said that in Europe, and in many other countries, the food is fresh, in other words, it's already pesticide free. 

Then, the hostess, Alisa, my daughter Wendy H's contemporary, commented that when she first stared cooking a cookbook she used started every recipe with the ingredients, "a can of this" and 2 cans of that.  We all laughed and tried to figure out what foods we still use from a can.  Not too many we thought, with a slight bit of arrogance.

We pretty much poo-poo'd the idea, thinking of the foods we still use from a can as if everything else is beneath us.   Everybody thought of beans and I thought of anchovies, because that's also a favorite of mine that I use salted from my favorite Italian deli or from a can.  However, like food snobs, we decided canned foods are relatively obsolete and it's passé to use them in healthy cooking.  So, I didn't think that anything more about the subject of canned foods.

Today, however, after an entire day of not eating because I overslept and then was really busy all day and unable to eat until I got home at 4:30, I was ravenous.  So right away, I made a salad of only romaine (because it was right there), sprinkled on some grated Parmesan and a bit of salad dressing and started on that.  I knew that I wanted some fish so I took a couple of frozen cod fillets out of the freezer to thaw out.

Did I mention that I was extremely hungry?  So, after I ate the salad, I thought about the kind of taste I wanted for my fish.  The night before, we had eaten Greg's Creole shrimp, which was delicious and took a little while to chop and cook the ingredients. 

Yet true to my way of cooking and the state of my hunger, I didn't want to wait too long to eat.  So I opened up, guess what?? A can of black beans and a can of tomatoes and hot chilies, threw them into a pan in which I had already melted a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of light butter for flavor and let them cook about 5 or 6 minutes to let the liquid evaporate and thicken the sauce.  Then I placed the cod fillets into the black bean sauce.  (I was so hungry,  I couldn't even wait for the fish to thaw completely.) 

I lowered the fillets gently into the sauce and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side, smothering them, so to speak, with the black bean and spicy chili tomato mixture.  Then I let them simmer for about  3 minutes more to soak up the flavor of the sauce. I didn't add anything extra; no salt, no pepper, not even any herbs or spices.  I was ready to eat!  Lo and behold—the fish and canned vegetable were delicious; and satisfying and healthy to boot!

I realized that there are many foods we still use that are canned and bottled and can be a lot healthier than some so called "healthy, low fat" foods that have loads of sugar and sodium in them so they taste good.   Just like this cod filet and black bean sauce recipe.  Way yum!