Chilli & lime haddock sheet pan

My quest to find a blow-me-away white fish recipe goes on and on and on. After trying this recipe, my mission is still ongoing, as it totally failed to hit the spot. In fact, the spot was so far away that it was barely visible. The spot was a dot in the far distance.

It was edible, but most food is. The best thing with this meal, apart from keeping us alive and fed yet another day, was the leftovers the following day. Even though the vegetables had been cooked with the haddock and smelt rather fishy, I fried them up with bbq seasoned chicken and pineapple. Yes, you read that right. Fishy vegetables, chicken and pineapple... It was awesome! The point I'm trying to make is that even though you may serve a totally naff dinner one day, don't get so frustrated that you throw the leftovers out the window (or into the bin, like a civilised person). It may be possible to turn them into something truly nice the following day. Don't be scared of trying wild ideas. After all, you wanted to throw the leftovers away in the first place and now you have a chance to fed your family once more. I can't really be worse than the previous day. Well, it can, but hopefully it won't.

Anyway, back to the promising looking fish dish. It looked fantastic in the Pinterest photo and I'm a sucker for a good picture. I keep telling myself to tone the excitement down when I see something fabulous looking, to lessen the future disappointment, but if I never got excited there would be very few new meals. It is just who am I and I can't help jumping for joy when I see something nice. Then I do my thing and it doesn't alway work.

My thing... Time for a confession. I swapped rather a lot of the original ingredients. That may of course have altered the taste, although to be completely honest, I don't think it made that much of a difference. Let's have a look at what I swapped.

• Tilapia for haddock: I hadn't actually heard of tilapia before, but when I googled, it was described as muddy and many people dislike it. Haddock was mentioned as a good substitute and that's what I had in the freezer. Also, I used 8 fillets instead of 3, but they were only small.
• Sweet potato for carrots: I had other plans for my sweet potato. Carrots have the same colour, as well as some of the sweetness. Carrots also works well as batons, like the sweet potato was meant to be cut into. I ended up cutting them differently in the end, but that wouldn't alter the taste.
• Broccoli for chickpeas: This may sound like an odd swap and without a doubt, it did alter the flavour. My hubby does however hate broccoli with a passion and I didn't have any cauliflower at home. That would have been a more obvious substitution. I thought chickpeas would add some extra umph to the dish. They didn't.
• Fresh coriander for dried leaf coriander: No big deal, although perhaps a little.
• I added a bit more cumin than the recipe stated, because why would you ever use 1/8 tsp of anything?
• Finally, I added a courgette. 

I could write a proper recipe for the meal I made, but as I started this blog by saying that it wasn't very nice at all, I doubt anyone is going to think 'Oh, I think I may try that'. So no, I won't do that. I will however show you what I did, so you can either avoid it or swap for more successful ingredients and try with those... at your own risk. 

1. I got all ingredients out. 

Take note and do not combine them in a similar dish. It won't be impressive. 

If you do, don't blame me afterwards. You have been warned.

2. In a bowl, I mixed the juice of 2 limes, 1 tbsp dried leaf coriander, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp water, 

1 tbsp honey, 2 tsp garlic granules, 1/2 tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp cumin, salt and pepper.

3. Carrots were cut into a nice shape.

4. Carrots, sliced courgette and chickpeas were tossed in a little olive 

oil and seasoned with salt and pepper on an oven tray.

5. Instead of brushing the fish fillets with the seasoned liquid, I dipped them in it for maximum flavour. That turned out to be pretty pointless, but at least it didn't make it worse.

6. The fish fillets were placed on top of the vegetables. At this stage I honestly 

believed the dish had great potential. It could have worked. 

7. The fish and vegetables were baked at 200 degrees for approximately 25 minutes, until the carrots were soft enough to eat. By then the fish was a little bit over cooked.

8. The fact that I zoomed in on this piece of haddock says a lot. I was hopeful.

9. Finally I dished up one of the healthiest meals I had cooked in a while, but also one of 

the most boring and disappointing ones. Everyone ate their dinners and the final fish 

fillets were finished off, simply not to waste them. There was a fair amount of 

vegetables left and luckily I kept them for a much nicer meal the following day. 

In case you missed the earlier warning, don't let the picture tempt you in any way.