Janesville woman’s white fish is a winner

Publication:Janesville Gazette;

Date:Dec 11, 2008;

Section:Local;

Page Number:A2

Dietician’s creation takes recipe contest

By Shelly Birkelo sbirkelo@gazettextra.com

JANESVILLE

    Now that Linda Simon has won her first recipe contest, she plans to enter more.

    “It was a lot of fun. I would encourage anyone to enter,” said the 54-year-old Janesville registered dietitian.

    “If you go online, Google recipe contests, it’s amazing all the different ones going on. Pick one and give it a shot,” Simon said.

    That’s what she did this spring when 75 members of the American Dietetic Association’s Food and Culinary Professional practice group participated in the 2008 “Fast, Fresh & Flavorful,” recipe contest sponsored by CanolaInfo.

    Nutrition requirements were strict, and few of Simon’s recipes met the criteria that it use least 2 tablespoons of canola oil; include 12 or fewer ingredients, and be low in calories, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol.

    So she fine-tuned her recipe, which she titled “Mushroom Crumb Tilapia with Tomatoes.” She said they must have changed the name to “White Fish with Herbed Duxelle” to make it sound more gourmet.

    For Simon’s recipe to meet criteria, she boosted her recipe size to serve six instead of four.

    “I chose the recipe because it would meet nutritional requirements and it was a recipe I like. It’s wonderful. I love it,” she said.

    It didn’t take Simon long to perfect her recipe.

    “I’ve been a (certified) personal chef for nine years. I have this whole bunch of recipes pretty much ready to go. So it wasn’t like I looked at criteria and started working. I went to my recipe files and tried to find what would work,” she said.

    She won the grand prize: an all-expenses-paid trip to the American Dietetic Association’s annual meeting at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago in October plus $1,000.

    She knew in June that she’d won but couldn’t tell anyone.

    “I was excited, thrilled,’’ she said.

    Simon’s recipe is published in the 2009 CanolaInfo calendar and is online at www.canolainfo.org.

    But that isn’t all.

    Because of her win, Simon was selected as the dietitian for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and will write a monthly column for the organization.

    “All of the details are not determined,” she said.

    Meanwhile, she’s going to be whipping up recipes to enter in a chocolate and King Arthur flour contest.

Bill Olmsted /bolmsted@gazettextra.com Janesville’s Linda Simon, a registered dietitian, prepares ingredients for a simple fish recipe that, although east and fast, won the grand prize in the 2008 ‘Fast, Fresh & Flavorful’ recipe contest sponsored by CanolaInfo. Simon’s creation, ‘White Fish with Herbed Duxelle,’ won her an all-expenses-paid trip to the American Dietetic Association’s annual meeting at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago in October plus $1,000.