Salmon en Papillote with Zucchini and Tomatoes

I suffer from side dish apathy.

I have such a hard time thinking up side dishes to serve or including them properly in a meal! The result is that I hardly ever make side dishes unless I am going to a potluck. My cooking style tends more toward making all-inclusive, veggie-heavy, one-dish dinners.

So this month for the Secret Recipe Club challenge, I was actually a bit stumped. Michaela, of An Affair from the Heart, and I are about as different in the kitchen as night and day: she loves cooking meaty dishes and serving fruity desserts, and I avoid both of those things like the plague (my picky eating strikes again)! She readily shares tons of beautiful side dishes, and I can barely figure out where to put a side dish on the plate. (But lest you think I didn’t admire the beautiful centerpieces she makes when she entertains, you’d better guess again.)

When I came across a delicious side dish featuring summer’s best flavors—and a Bonefish copycat, how exciting!—I immediately plotted a way to turn the simple side into a whole meal.

Baking fish (or even chicken) in parchment together with a huge pile of vegetables is fast becoming one of my favorite ways to put a meal on the table. I love that the meal is contained in a neat little parcel, how all the flavors mingle together as the fish cooks, and most of all, that there is so little effort and so few dirty dishes involved!