Basil Pesto Tilapia

On one of my recent trips to Costco, they were giving out samples of this new item- basil pesto tilapia, and it sure smelled good. It was a Thursday, and so I refrained from tasting it, even though it was very tempting. Now Thursdays are supposedly "pure vegetarian" days in our household. I don't remember why we started doing this in the first place. I mean, for starters, we don't even eat meat everyday. In fact, we are pretty timid meat eaters and moreover, we are more vegetarian than meat-eaters. So it is really not a big deal at all..... but anyway, that's just something we do every Thursday. So coming back to that basil pesto tilapia- I almost picked up a packet from the frozen section, however, I decided not to. I mean, why buy frozen stuff when I can re-create it at home, all nice and fresh, right? It seemed pretty darn simple anyways.

I took:

1. 4 tilapia filets, marinated for 30 minutes with lemon juice, garlic powder, salt and black pepper

2. Pesto sauce from a bottle. I usually have Costco's basil pesto- a great thing to have in your refrigerator for anytime use; though making pesto is a breeze. All you need is some fresh basil, pine nuts and olive oil. A couple pulses in the food processor and there, you got yourself some great, fresh pesto! If you don't have pine nuts, no problem- a great substitute would be almonds.

Costco's Awesome Pesto!

Um, yeah, that's pretty much my ingredient list for this preparation!

Method:
 
1. I took my pan, put in a teaspoon of oil. You could just spray some Pam, if you'd like. Then got the heat going.

2. I placed each filet onto the pan with the hot oil. While the first side was cooking, I spooned in a little bit of pesto onto each filet and spread it out.

3. After about a couple to 3 minutes, I flipped each filet and cooked the side with the pesto. And then I spooned in a tad bit more of that pesto onto the already cooked side. A couple more minutes and it was done and looked gorgeous! And the taste couldn't go wrong with that delicious pesto in the lemony background- fabulous!

Basil Pesto Tilapia

I served this beautiful basil pesto tilapia with brown basmati, jazzed up with pesto as well, and some carrot and cucumber salad. I also made a lovely dill and chive bud sauce to go with the fish and the rice. Mm, mm, mm- a very delectable meal indeed!

Simple carrot and cucumber salad

Fresh, not frozen stuff!