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A simple meal this evening – a 3-jar meal (meaning we used 3 full jars of preserves to make it).

The ‘feature’ was 2 rather large sardines we picked up from Hooked this afternoon.  They weighed about a quarter pound each and were delightfully freshly flown in from British Columbia.

Sardines are simple to cook – liberally spread with salt, pepper and olive oil and grill for 3-4 minutes per side.  We were out of propane so we cooked them in our cast iron pan for about the same time.

Serve with lemon wedges.  To eat you simply peel the skin back (our dog loves it) and pull the flesh gently off the small bones (you can eat the smallest ones).  It can be picky eating if you’re not a fan of the small bones but they taste like the ocean itself.

Dinner was served with two sides:

• Romano bean puree.  The beans were pressure canned in 2009 and were gently reheated in a small bit of chicken stock.  They were then pureed with a tiny bit of stock and salt.  Parsley was added for color and our home-canned tomatoes were stirred in later.
• Winter Salad: hearty sprouts were sautéed with carrots, leeks and topped with lemon-doused parsley.

It was a simple, lovely meal – one that gently lingers around hours after eating.

Total time to prepare was about 15 minutes and total cost was under $3.75 a person.

The only downside?  We’re coming close to running out of all of our preserved beans…something that we’ll have to correct in the near future.