Sometimes life is easy and you succeed on all fronts. This is one of those times. This meal took 20 minutes to make and cost about $6 for the two of us and represents all the lovely major food groups. Booyah.

Encrusted Pesto Tilapia

Price breakdown

0.65lbs (3 small fillets) for $3.24 Fresh Tilapia from Ralph’s (on sale this week)

1 cup dry couscous, $1 or cheaper (we get ours from the bulk section of Wholefoods)

1 lemon, $0.50

5 Tablespoons Coscto Pesto, approximately $0.75 (it was $4ish dollars and has made us maybe 6 meals so far and is half full)

2 Tablespoons Italian Breadcrumbs, approximately $.10

2 cobbs of corn, $0.50 (4 for $1 at Ralph’s on sale this week)

$6.09 dinner for two

How to Make it Happen

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Spray baking dish with baking spray Place fish into a baking dish with sides Cover each piece of fish with approx. 1 1/2 generous Tablespoons of Costco Pesto or any pesto you might fancy Sprinkle breadcrumbs over Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then broil for 5 minutes to get a bit of a crunch Eat. Nom.

Lemon Couscous

1 cup dry couscous

1 1/4c water

bit of salt

1 lemon worth of juice

This is some tangy lemon couscous and works best when accompanying something that can be on the milder side, like tilapia. It balances with the pesto in a really pleasant way.

Boil water, lemon juice and salt. Turn off heat. Put in couscous and stir, replacing the lid as quickly as possible after stirring the couscous in. Ignore for 5 minutes. Fluff, eat. Huzzah.

Corn on the Cobb

I don’t need to list ingredients for this … do I?

You boil water, put corn in, wait 5-9 depending on how firm/squishy you want your corn (I like minute 7 personally), take corn out of boiling water, wait for slightly shorter than you should and burn your fingers on cobb, eat.

Too much butter and salt optional but obviously welcome.