Blackened Catfish and Fiddleheads

Some friends of ours gave us some catfish, so I decided to try a blackened catfish recipe.  I pretty much left this recipe alone, except for cutting the cayenne pepper in half.  I served it with rice, but it was still a little too spicy for my kids.  Jake and I liked it, but I ended up scraping off most of the seasoning so that they would eat it.  Oh well. 

It is asparagus and fiddlehead season around here.  Yea!  I have a ton of ostrich ferns growing in my yard, and I always knew that you could eat the tightly rolled fern heads (fiddleheads), but I hadn't tried it until last year.  I always meant to, and then I would forget about it until the ferns were too big.  Last year, I forgot, but then I just snapped off the ferns, and new fiddleheads formed.  I tried boiling them like asparagus, but they absorb a lot of water and kind of taste mushy.  Ick.  This year, I tried roasting them with olive oil and some coarse salt.  Yummy!  Isabela loves them and Maya thinks they are OK.  It is kind of funny because Maya loves roasted asparagus and Isabela think it is OK.  It works out well because this time of year I am usually roasting both together.

To roast asparagus or fiddleheads:  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Place fiddleheads and/or asparagus in a single layer on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil  and sprinkle with some coarse sea salt.  Roast for about 8-10 minutes, until tender but still with some firmness.  Sprinkle with some Parmesan when they come out of the oven.