En papillote is a healthy, low-fat cooking method where you steam bake your food in a pouch of parchment paper. If you’re looking for a delicious, healthy, aromatic meal… you have to try this cooking method! You can use this method to cook poultry but we have only used it for fish. When Orlando made it the first time, he made it with Salmon and I was blown away. The thing about it is that your entire meal is sealed in this little pouch, and when you open it up, it’s like a little piece of heaven. It has this delicious, earthy smell. The fish is completely moist and juicy, and the whole meal takes the flavors that you put in that pouch. And its actually one of the easiest recipes to make. Oh, and one added benefit…no mess. When you’re done, toss the pouch and relax because there will be no cleaning pots this evening!

These are the basic steps:

• Preheat oven at 350
• Slice the veggies you want to use (if you’re in a hurry or don’t want the extra hassle, you can buy a pre-sliced (unfrozen) veggie bag with a mix of veggies). Orlando used for our meal Green and Red Peppers and Red Onions.
• Slice a few lemons
• toss the veggies in a bowl with some light olive oil, light salt and pepper (the salt and pepper is always optional, and we like to err on the side of too little instead of too much!)
• season the fish (in our case wild salmon) with a little salt and pepper
• place on top of parchment paper 
• then you fold the parchment paper and staple all the sides to make sure that you make a little sealed package
• Pour in some fresh squeezed lemon juice and a little white wine
• Put in the oven to cook for 15 minutes.
• Open the pouch and enjoy!!!!

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT GRAINS IN YOUR MEAL….

I happen to think this is such a fantastic meal that it can be eaten by itself or maybe with a side of roasted asparagus…but a lot of people just aren’t satisfied without some sort of grain in their dinner.

Orlando tried this same recipe with a delicious snapper, but this time added pre-cooked quinoa into the pouch. (I had made the quinoa for the boys earlier so it didn’t add to his cooking time.) This recipe had some yellow peppers also…and just because he loves me, he snuck in 2 pieces of scallops in the pouch because they are my favorite. The meal was spectacular!!!!!!! The beauty of the quinoa was that it soaked in all the juices of the lemon and white wine. WOW!!!!!

I highly recommend this recipe. And your options for what goes in that little pouch are endless. Next time I’m going to ask him to put some delicious herbs in there. Will let you know how it goes!!!!