Flouder Piccata with Spinach

Someday maybe our daughter will eat this. For now, we're thrilled that she ate a hot dog, which was once on her "will eat" list, then disappeared for a good year.

Not such a good day on the home front, apparently, but food heals many ills. Cooking Light's "Superfast" column has been a steady source of recipes for many years now, and I think this one will go into the "tried and true weeknight" binder. It's a solid, basic recipe for nights when I have little time to cook and less to think about it. Aside from the fish, the ingredients are usually on hand, and the flavor is bright with lemon and rich with butter. Extra sauce went happily to the plain rice with which it was served.

I don't do sauteed spinach, though; I steamed some carrots. And even if I was going to make spinach, I wouldn't do it the way they tell you to (just use another pan for Pete's sake). And my store didn't have flounder, so I used some slim haddock fillet. I have omitted the suggestion of boil-in-bag rice from the recipe because I think that stuff is silly. Rice only takes 20 minutes to make. That's less time than the pizza guy will take to get there.

Flounder Piccata with Spinach
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
4 6-ounce flounder fillets
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp olive oil
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp capers, drained, chopped
2 Tbsp butter
4 c fresh baby spinach

1. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper, dredge in flour.
2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add fish to pan, cook 1 1/2 minutes per side or until fish flakes easily.
3. Add wine, lemon juice, and capers to pan; cook 1 minutes. Add butter to pan, stirring until melted. Remove fish and sauce from pan; keep warm.
   
4. Wipe pan clean with a paper towel. Add spinach to pan and saute 1 minute or until wilted.

Their serving suggestion is: Place 1/2 c of rice onto each of 4 plates. Top each serving with about 1/3 c of spinach, 1 fillet, and 1 Tbsp of sauce. The results of this are a dinner with only 332 calories, which is good, because at those serving sizes you're going to eat two. Maybe three.