It gets one star for …. easy!

And one star for …. fast!

And one star for …. yummy!

And two stars for …. healthy!!

Okay, you’re right, I just couldn’t think of anything else for the last star.  But it definitely is healthy.

For this lunch (yes, I made it for lunch.  What a fancy lunch!  It would be fabulous as dinner too …)  you will need:

Parchment Paper (An easy find beside Saran Wrap and waxed paper in most grocery stores.)

Mild White Fish (I chose halibut but I think tilapia or cod or ____ would work too.)

Squash – Yellow or Zucchini

Cherry Tomatoes

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

Herbs of Your Choice (I chose fresh thyme out of my garden but you could use a mixture of dried herbs just as well.)

Ahhh, the beauties of produce.  Isn’t it simply drop-dead gorgeous?  I could sing the praises of fresh produce.  In fact, I do sing them.   Every week when I pick up my fresh crop share.  And I sing them in the aisles of Whole Foods.   And in the streets at the farmers’ market.  And to my clay pots of herbs on the patio.

Focus …

And you’re correct, I did not tell you that you needed lettuce for this recipe.  You don’t.  The lettuce merely sneaked into my picture to be a part of a sideline salad.  The lettuce is not part of the main show.  But it’s beautiful nonetheless!

Okay, first tear sheets of parchment paper roughly 15-16″ long.  Fold them in half, crease them down the middle, and open them.  You’ll need one sheet per person, or per serving.

Next, julienne the squash.  I promise, this isn’t hard.  Slice off the ends of the squash, then slice it in half.  Then slice it lengthwise down the middle so you have a flat side to lay it on.  Then continue figuring out the slicing (sorry, I should’ve taken more pictures!) until you have 3-4 inch long strips of squash roughly the diameter of a pencil.  Thin, in other words.

Lay nice piles of julienned squash to one side of the crease on each parchment paper. Lightly season with sea salt and pepper.

Add a nice serving of fish (4-6 oz.) on top of each pile of squash and season lightly with herbs and/or salt and pepper.

Pile the cherry tomatoes and (OOPS!  Another show-stealer.  Olives.  I forgot to mention the olives.  These are optional, and I opted for kalamata for a nice burst of flavor.)

Pile the cherry tomatoes and olives beside the fish.  Drizzle it all with 1 T. of olive oil.

Fold the other half of parchment paper over and make a fold in one corner.

Then make another fold that starts in the middle of the first fold.  Then fold again from the middle of that fold.  Etc., etc.

I did think to take pictures of this.  I could foresee it being confusing!

Finish folding all the way around the edges of the parchment paper until you have a half-moon shape.

Tuck the final fold into the fold just before it.

Ahhhhh!!  Beaut-a-mus!

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.  The contents of your beautiful packets are steaming.

You may need to lift a corner and test the flakiness of the fish with a fork to be sure that you don’t overcook it.

However, please be careful of escaping steam when you do so!

I do NOT have pictures of the final result.

They were inhaled before I even remembered that I own a camera.

All four of them.

I have since made four more, but with salmon!  They were just as excellent.  And just as inhaled.

One beauty of this recipe (it has many!) (bonus: count how many times I’ve used the word ‘beauty’  in this post!)  is that you can easily interchange ingredients!

Swap out the proteins and veggies to create your own yummy combinations!  Chicken, leeks, and potatoes anyone?  Or salmon and spinach and lemon?

I cannot overemphasize to you how EASY this is once you’ve done it once.  Today on my second try at them I prepped them in just under 10 minutes.

And who doesn’t love one-pot wonders?  10 minutes and it’s all cooking in the oven, a complete meal waiting for you on the other side of 15 minutes of baking!

Bon Appetit!

PS – I owe the inspiration for this meal to Body+Soul magazine.