Budget Friendly SOLE Food

Pre-broil. Seasoned sole fillets with tomatoes and caramelized leeks and peppers.
Don't let my poor food photography deter you -- this was delish.

Lately I find myself cooking the same things over and over again. Never a fan a monotony, last night I decided to try something altogether different. I'd been craving white fish and thought halibut would hit the spot. But then I got to the store and saw that it was $22 a pound. The sole fillets? $4.99 a pound. SOLD.

I'd found a recipe for roasted halibut with leeks and tomatoes on Pinterest earlier (predictable), so I cut down the quantities and altered it slightly to accommodate the substitution of sole.

In addition to the leeks and tomatoes called for in the recipe, I threw in some sweet peppers. It gave the dish another layer of flavor and made everything pop with its colors of orange, yellow and red. Taking a play from Giada's book, I also used lemon juice and zest to brighten the flavors up a bit.

Oh, and I added shrimp because I just love the stuff and was worried I wouldn't have enough food. Yes, portion control evades me.


Ingredients:

• 1 lb. sole fillets, preferably 1/2 lb. each*
• 1.5 lbs. leeks, white and green parts -- halved, rinsed and thinly sliced
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3/4 lb. shrimp, cleaned and deveined
• 1 cup sweet peppers, thinly sliced into rounds
• juice and zest of half a lemon
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• paprika

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees
• On a baking dish lined with aluminum foil, arrange the leeks and sweet peppers in a single layer
• Drizzle with about 1 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Toss to coat.
• Roast the leeks and peppers for about 10 minutes, until soft
• Remove from oven and turn broiler on high
• Place the sole fillets on top of the leeks and peppers. Season with olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika on both sides. Add the tomatoes. Broil for five minutes and remove from oven.
• Add the shrimp! I had mine chilling in a plastic bag in the fridge, so I threw in some pepper, salt and olive oil, sealed it back up and mixed up to coat them evenly, then threw them into the mix. It probably doesn't matter, but I put the shrimp on top of the veggies so it wouldn't affect the sole cooking evenly.
• Broil for another five or six minutes and remove from oven.
• Squeeze fresh lemon juice, grate lemon zest on top -- this step could probably be skipped, but it added a really nice freshness and brightened the flavors

That's it! To come clean, I had never broiled anything before in my life, so I may have left the fish in there longer if it hadn't been for fear of overcooking the shrimp. And everything cooked perfectly, but I was sort of hoping I'd achieve crispiness on the fish. No such luck, but it was delicious anyway. J even told me this was "the best yet" of the dinners I've made!

*Cook's note: These sole fillets were thicker than ones I've had in the past. If you're working with thinner, more delicate sole, cooking times may vary.