There really is nothing better than fresh caught wild fish when you’ve got a hankering for seafood. I didn’t really have the hankering until I got the phone call from my sister. She and my brother in law had just returned from Florida with a cooler full of freshly caught fish. Immediately I thought about the last time they brought home a bounty of amberjack and could almost smell it cooked under a mixture of pineapple, peppers, and onions. Hearing her say “Red Snapper” tempted my taste buds even more.
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ – 2 pounds red snapper, this was approximately 1″ thick, ¾ – 1 pound fillets, I cut them in half down the middle to make four portions. (Leave it in the fridge iced down until you have made the salsa.)
- salt and pepper
- 2 T coconut oil (I like the taste and use virgin coconut oil. If you don’t like the taste, use olive oil, melted bacon fat, or melted butter)
- 1 fresh pineapple
- Red, yellow, and orange bell pepper
- 1 jalapeño
- 1 red onion
- 1 bunch cilantro
- ½ t cumin
- 1 T lemon juice, divided
Wash peppers and remove tops and bottoms, set aside. Remove seeds and membranes from the “body” part of the peppers and julienne the peppers. Place half of the strips in a large bowl and the other half in the freezer for future use. Chop the pepper tops and bottoms and place them in a medium bowl.
Left: chopped tops and bottoms for salsa. Right: Julienned for marinade.
Remove top and bottom from jalapeño, cut in half and chop each half. Add half to each bowl. Julienne half of the red onion and chop the other half. Put the strips in the strips bowl and the chops in the chop bowl. Chop the cilantro and put half in each bowl. Remove the top and bottom from the pineapple, slice off the outside, and slice it ½” thick lengthwise. Remove the core from which ever slices have part of the core in them, and chop the rest. Place a third of the pineapple in each of the two bowls and put the rest in a container for another use. Add cumin to the bowl of chopped fruit/onions. Add ½ T of lemon juice to each of the two bowls and mix well.
The mixture on the left will be cooked on the fish. The salsa on the right is more like a condiment for me, I put a bit on my bacon fried sweet potato chunks…
Once you have mixed up your ingredients in both bowls, cover them and place them in the fridge.
Place a large piece of heavy duty aluminum foil, dull side up, onto a large tray. Brush a bit of coconut oil onto the middle. Once again, if you don’t like coconut oil, use melted butter or what ever you like. Place your fish close together in the middle of the foil on top of what ever lube you chose.
These fillets were pretty social, they didn’t mind hugging up to their neighbors… 🙂
Brush or drizzle the rest of the coconut oil onto the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. It as at this point that these guys would be pretty content with just a squeeze of lemon, but we want them to be happy… Heat up your grill around medium (350° if you’re using the oven) and pull out your bowl of marinade.
Ok, you got me, it’s not really a marinade but marinade was the closest thing I could come up with at the time.
Generously cover the fish with the “not really marinade, just stuff sitting on top”, and close your foil into a pouch. It should be loose like in the following picture.
Leave some space away, wrap it loose, but seal it tight.
I placed another piece of aluminum foil over the grill grates prior to placing the fish pouch on the grill, shut the lid, and left it alone for 30 minutes. I removed it from the grill with oven mitts onto a large tray and opened just a corner to release the steam (use mitts, it is very hot). I let it sit for a few minutes and then just ripped it open since I didn’t have to worry about the steam anymore.
Red snapper, bacon fried sweet potatoes, and salsamole.
It was so good. I served Michael’s on tortillas with some of the pineapple salsa. I ate my fish on a plate with some bacon fried sweet potatoes and a spin off from the regular “fauxtato salad” that I normally make.
This recipe is not really low carb. My plate was lower carb than my husbands because he had a couple of flour tortillas and more salsa for each taco. Since this is the first time in over two years that I’ve consumed pineapple and 50 carbs in one setting, I decided it would be nice to test my blood sugar.
- Preprandial blood glucose reading 85
- Postprandial 1 hour 115
- postprandial 1 ½ hours 73
- postprandial 2 hours 80
I was pretty shocked at my readings. I figured they would be higher. Earlier in the day I had gone on a two mile walk, done 100 squats, 50 triceps dips, road-tripped with my sister and nieces to tour a goat farm and pick up her new goat (ended up with 10,056 steps for the day). Since I figured I had eaten quite a bit of carbs for dinner I opted to visit my fatsecret account and log my food. I had eaten nearly 70 carbs for the day which is more than I normally eat over a few days. Needless to say I figured it would be a good idea to test my blood sugar at bed time and upon waking. I didn’t eat anything after dinner, but I drank some carbs in the form of a chai latte a couple hours before bed.
- bed time reading 90
- 8 hour fasted this morning 100
Looking at my numbers I could easily fall into the “it’s gone” category, but I remember that wonton a few months ago that jacked up my blood sugar and helped me have the dawn phenom… My “carb loading” < lol day showed me that all carbs are not created equal. Carbohydrates in the form of pineapple, peppers, onions, and sweet potatoes are not nearly as bad on my diabetes and me as carbohydrates made from grains.
The truth is that once you are type 2 diabetic, you are always type 2 diabetic. You can keep your numbers in check by eating according to your meter, but too many higher carb days are not a good idea.
My daughter, my nieces, and me. They’ve been snoozin’ til noon-thirty for a while now. For the past three days though, I’ve woken them up at 7:00am for a two mile walk.
mydiabetesandme 