Seafood Casserole

It's Lent, and for many people, that means no meat on Fridays.  Normally I just have a peanut butter sandwich (or a grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwich if I'm feeling ambitious!), but this week I figured I'd go a little fancier and decided to try out a seafood casserole recipe one of my coworkers found a few weeks ago.  To make this dish, you'll need: 2 Tbsp butter; 2 Tbsp flour; 1 C milk; 1/4 tsp salt; 1/2 C sharp cheddar cheese; 1/2 C sour cream; 1 lb fish fillets cut into chunks (I used tilapia); 1 C crab meat; 1 C scallops; cooked wide egg noodles; 1/4 C toasted pecans.

Preheat your oven to 325.  In a medium sized skillet melt the butter over medium heat and mix in the flour and stir in the milk.  Cook this, stirring constantly, until it's thickened up a bit.  Add in the salt and cheese and stir until the cheese melts. 

Set it aside and when it's cooled a bit, stir in the sour cream.  Spread the cut up bits of fish on the bottom of a greased 9 x 13" pan.  Mix the crab meat and the scallops into the cheese sauce, then pour into the pan over the fish.  Stick in the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the fish is cooked (it won't be translucent anymore).

Serve it over some wide egg noodles (or regular noodles, or rice, or whatever you want) and sprinkle some toasted pecans over it.

And you've got dinner!  This was pretty tasty, but I'll be honest: it was kind of bland.  What I did with the leftovers (and it warms up pretty well, by the way) and what I'll do the next time I make this, is I added some Old Bay seasoning.  It's also a kind of pricey dinner, what with the crab meat (though you can substitute shrimp instead).  I'd definitely make this again, probably for the folks, but it's really a once-in-a-while kind of thing.