I loved going fishing when I was a kid. In the summers, my dad would take us kids with him when he went to check the cows and we fished in the little ponds in the pastures. But we never caught fish big enough to eat. One weekend every summer we went camping at a bigger pond a few counties away with some family friends. A bigger pond meant bigger fish, and we did eat some of those "keepers". But I was always too busy swimming to be involved in the cooking of those fish. Ah, simpler times!
I hadn't been fishing in years until recently when a neighbor took my husband and me fishing. To my surprise, we actually caught some pretty good bass. (I should note that by "we" I mean my husband and my neighbor. I caught baby fish!) Our neighbor was nice enough to clean a few fish for us so I got to try my hand at baking fresh-caught fish. From what I recall about the fish preparation of our camping days, it involved dredging cleaned fillets in a cracker mixture and deep fat frying. That wasn't going to happen in my kitchen! So I did a quick internet search and came up with a bunch of non-fried bass recipes. I chose a simple recipe that included olive oil, lemon juice, Italian seasoning, minced garlic and an oven. It sounded like a winning combination to me!
