I needed to be able to make a light and quick meal tonight.  In my freezer, I had a bag of individually frozen and packaged fillets of Tilapia.  In my pantry I had a can of Italian Style canned chopped tomatoes.  My answer was obvious:  Fish Pouches!  This is a dish that I have been making for years.  It’s one of those dishes that is wonderful on a hot day or if you are in a hurry and don’t want to eat anything greasy or heavy.

Here’s all you need:

1 small onion, sliced

1 can of Italian Style chopped tomatoes

1/2 Tblsp. salt

1/4 Tblsp. black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2-4 Tilapia fillets

Mix the onion slices, the tomatoes, salt and pepper, and the olive oil together in a bowl.

Now you need to make some pouches.  Because of the tomatoes, you can’t wrap this only in aluminum foil because the acid in the tomatoes causes a chemical reaction.  It’s simple to get around this.  Just wrap your fish in parchment paper first and then wrap the parchment package in aluminum foil.

Just place your fish in the center of a square of parchment paper and spoon the vegetable mixture over the top.  Wrap it up and make a pouch.  This can be messy and you’ll get liquid coming out of the sides.  This is one of the reasons why we also need to wrap this in aluminum foil.  It makes a better seal and it conducts heat better so that we can have a relatively short cooking time.  Wrap your parchment package in the foil and seal the edges well.

Place your foil pouches on a cooking sheet and place in a 425 degree F  oven and cook for 20 minutes.  When the cooking time is over, let the pouches sit out for 5 minutes before opening and serving.  Be careful of the steam!

Some people think it is fun to just plop the entire pouch on the plate and let everybody open their own pouches.  I don’t do that.  It’s messy….and I’m just like that.  I like to serve this with some brown rice and either a salad or some sauteed greens.  This is a light and healthy meal and it’s effortless and quick as well.