Heart Healthy Basa on the BBQ

I have returned from my recent holiday with a new mission to be more conscientious about my diet.  One week spent in Calgary with my daughter and five days in Las Vegas with my sister and a friend.

What’s that got to do with my diet you may ask.

Well, two days of my time spent in Calgary were with me in the hospital.  After the recent passing of a friend from a heart attack at the young age of 57 and news of another friend that experienced a heart attack at the age of 48, when I awoke one night with an odd and painful feeling in my chest, there was no doubt about visiting the hospital to get checked out especially since I was to fly off to Vegas in two days time.

The nurses and doctors checked all my vital signs. Things were looking okay.  Blood pressure and cholesterol are good.  No previous problems to report.  The smoking gun for me however, is the history of heart problems on my mothers side of the family.  That was enough for the doctors to take their time and leave no rock unturned as far as checking me over.  I had a stress test done, and then because they told me that women often have a false positive on one part of the test, they admitted me to the hospital so that they could put me through another stress test, this time the test would involve being given a nuclear isotope and then have a CAT scan to make sure I didn’t have a blocked artery.  To make a long story short…I passed the tests and was given the okay by the doctors in time to head off to Vegas.  At least I know that the old ticker is in good shape for now, but that had me thinking of the future.  As the kindly cardiologist said to me with a smile, perhaps this was my mid life crisis and the wake up call for me to make a few lifestyle changes like shed a few pounds and exercise more.

To that effort I have started reading up on heart healthy diets.  So far it has been a pendulum of information..going from one extreme to another.  Some recommendations for heart healthy diets call for no fats whatsoever, being picky right down to removing all the yolks from eggs and being strict vegan, to others that are more vegetarian and high fiber.  I have determined that one has to look at their own health and any issues they have to decide on what they need to do.

For me, I have decided that I need to regain a consciousness about my diet and lifestyle, instead of just moseying through life.  I don’t want to run into a wall and then try to figure out afterwards why I didn’t see it before hand.  I will choose to change the things I can and learn to work around the things I can’t!  Life is too short not to make the most of it.

One decision is to serve a what I consider is a fat free meal at least once a week.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to serve fish.  Now there will be some die hard anti fat folks out there that would cringe at this because there are oily fish out like salmon that would have them running out the door.  But in my book there is good oil and bad oil.  They say that fish oils are good for the heart and yet I have read some diets that have you avoiding the fatty fish.  Again I think that one has to remain logical and look to themselves to decide.  If you have blocked arteries or high cholesterol, I should think that any consumption of fats and oils should be gravely considered.

Last week the local market had a sale on Basa fillets and so I bought a couple of packages.  I had never bought Basa before and until I looked it up on Wikipedia, I didn’t know that Basa is a type of catfish found in Vietnam and Thailand. A vegetarian fish at that!

To keep with my fat free idea, I had a hankering for steamed fish, but with our daily temperature running about 32C during the day, I wanted to cook outside on the barbeque rather than in the house.  My barbeque has a side burner and I could have steamed my fish in my bamboo steamer, but since we don’t have a canopy over our deck, it would be pretty hot to stand outside and have to keep an eye on my cooking.  I decided to season the frozen fillets and wrap in tin foil to create a steam cook environment that could be baked inside my barbeque.About an hour before cooking, I placed the frozen Basa fillets in a pan lined with tin foil and gave them a splash of light soy sauce, fresh ground pepper, chopped green scallions, diced red pepper, thin coins of carrots and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes.  Then I covered the pan with another piece of tin foil, sealing the edges to make a tight fitting lid.  I put the pan in the refrigerator until it was time to bake the fish.

The fish will take about twenty minutes to a half hour to cook depending on the heat of your barbeque and how frozen the fillets are when you go to bake them.  I heated the grill to 400F and then baked my fillets for 25 minutes at that heat in the covered grill.  While the fish was baking, I cooked up a pot of Basmati rice and a small pot of green summer peas.  When the rice was cooked, I added the strained peas to the rice and kept the dish hot while we waited for the fish to finish cooking. After 20 minutes, remove the fish from the grill and carefully open a corner of the tin foil to check to see if the fish is fully cooked.  Be careful when opening the foil as lots of hot steam will escape.  Return to cook for another 5 to 10 minutes if required. The sight of the steamed fish was heavenly and the aroma to die for!  When served with the Basmati rice with peas it made for a very satisfying fat free summer meal.  My husband was very complimentary by stating, ‘It’s not a steak dinner but it’s still pretty good.’

Despite everything it was a great holiday.  I got to knit and watch old movies with my daughter.  I had a wonderful time with my sister and friend in Las Vegas.  I didn’t win big in Las Vegas, but I figured my luck happened while I was in the hospital.

Life lesson learned….takes chances in Las Vegas or the lottery and not on your health!

Good Day and Good Eats!

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