Baked Tilapia with Spinach and Tomatoes

Another new tilapia recipe.  I found this one on Recipezaar.  I made just a couple of changes to it.

Baked Tilapia with Spinach and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) bag baby spinach, rinsed and drained

4 cloves garlic, sliced

4 tilapia fillets

¼ cup parmesan cheese

1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, and garlic

1 small onion, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.  Spray or oil a 9 x 13” baking dish.  Layer dish this way: spinach, garlic, tilapia, parmesan, tomatoes, and onions.  Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes.  

Serve over couscous or rice.

Makes 4 servings.

The first picture is of the dish going into the oven.  The one below is when it came out of the oven.  The original recipe didn't call for garlic, but I love garlic and spinach together, so I threw some in.  It said to bake it only 15 minutes covered, then to uncover it and bake until the fish flakes.  When I checked on it after 15 minutes, I saw that the spinach hadn't wilted down like I had expected.  So I left the foil on, thinking that would help the spinach wilt, and baked it another 15 minutes.  After that, the spinach still wasn't quite as wilty as I was expecting, but I didn't want to overcook the fish, so I took it out.  It was okay the way it was, but I think it would have been better with softer spinach.  I will probably try this again.  Maybe I will try decreasing the oven temp a bit so that I can cook it longer without turning the fish to mush.

Jim loved this dish.  He doesn't usually like tomatoes, but he loved them in this.  He ate so many he had bad heartburn that night!  I'm still having to force myself to eat the tilapia, but I did like it prepared this way.  As you can see in the photo below, there is so much other stuff on the plate, you can barely see the fish!