Recipe of the Week: Tilapia Tacos

This week's recipe was doubly inspired: I had gone to one of my favorite not-so-local, but the always mucho cool restaurant The House where I had one of my favorite of their dishes (insert singing angels) the green curry but where two of my four eating companions had the fish tacos.  I experienced major plate envy. 
When I returned home from my slightly long distance weekend adventure, I decided to treat my roommates to dinner... and Lent is apparently still in session.  Fish was going to have to be a requirement.

A quick Google search brought up this recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com (I heart the ability to calculate servings on that site!) which I've modified / added to/ tweaked below.

 

Ingredients

• 6 Soft Taco Size Flour Tortillas
• 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (sounds weird, tastes amazing)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Half a"bunch" fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 pound tilapia fillets
• 1 lime, freshly juiced
• 2 cups mixed greens (i.e. whatever bag of salad tickles your fancy in the vegetable aisle
  
  Chipotle Cream Sauce

• 1 canned chipotle chiles / adobo sauce (peppers taken away, only use sauce and onions)
• 8 oz container sour cream

1. Mix the Chipotle Cream Sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside/ in the 'fridge. (My roommate's phrase for this: "Let it meld," which kind of sounds like a science experiment.)
2. In a skillet set at medium-high heat, add the seven ingredients from the olive oil through the cilantro. Saute those ingredients for 5 minutes. (Word to the wise: Don't try to be like me and measure / prepare all this stuff as your oil is getting hot.  Get it all ready before hand and you're less likely to have a potential fire hazard on your hands)
3. After the 5 minutes, add the tilapia and cover and cook for 3 minutes or until fish is fully cooked. (Apparently, I chose the "husky" flirts.  I swear when they got out of the package they were 2 inches thick!!  This caused the cooking time to be much longer, and my cilantro to be almost non-existent... I just cooked until it was opaque-ish.) Then add in lime juice and let cook for 1 additional minute.
4. Heat the tortillas according to the package instructions. Lay each of the warmed tortillas on a cutting board and place one-quarter of both the field greens and fish on the center of each tortilla. Then top each with equal amounts of the Chipotle Cream Sauce. (This is where I went a little crazy: The day before I had made salsa out of some roma tomatoes, red onions, and a jalapeno combined with this dry salsa seasoning stuff that I was introduced to by some guys who lived off the stuff in college.  I added this, the greens, and the cream sauce, and some fresh smashed avocado onto the taco.)
5. Fold the tortillas over to form tacos and serve.

This is what I came up with:

Before the toppings are added.



Pretty aren't they?



The finished product.



Here's the deal: These probably aren't for everyone.  If you have an aversion to spicy food, you may want to just use regular sour cream or regulate the salsa to the least warm you can find. I grew up in a household where the only fish ever served was rolled in cornmeal and dropped in grease.  If that's what fish craving you have these will probably not satisfy you either. 

With that being said, I thought these were amazing and no one else who lives in this house went hungry this night either.  The savory flavors of the cinnamon and cumin really jump out when they're mixed in with the spicy / tangy-ness of the salsa and lime.  Like I mentioned, definitely not the fish flavor (or texture) I'm accustomed to but amazing regardless.  They are substantial enough that two filled us up* but light enough that you can eat it at 8pm (like we did) and not go to sleep feeling miserable.

Do any of you have experience with making/eating tacos that don't involve greasy ground beef and a half ton of cheddar cheese?  I'd love to hear about other options to try next time.

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*Turns out we had leftovers the night after.  I warmed up the tortilla and put everything else on the taco cold.  Brilliant on-the-go dinner.  So good. Even better that second day, perhaps?

Friday = Photo Love {04152011}

So my thought for this post is that it will be a revolving door of images that I have been fortunate enough to capture throughout the week. These people/ places/ things /events make me smile.  Enjoy.





Perhaps when I become a better / more efficient blogger I'll have time to tell you the stories that go along with these pictures.  Until then, feel free to make up your own.

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Thursday's Thought: One bloom at a time

This morning I was looking out the window, drinking my tea, and starting to stress about work:

“This project needs to be done today.”
and
“I need can’t forget to go to my ten o’clock appointment,”
and
“I have to make sure that I have enough people for this event,”
and
“How am I going to make this fit?”

And then something made me focus in on what I was gazing at the whole time. 

Right outside the kitchen window is a honeysuckle vine.  All these delicate, intricate blossoms lined up in all their glory, virtually bursting with their sweet nectar. 

And buzzing around is a lone bumble bee*.  And he told me, “One at a time.”

He didn’t sit on the window sill thinking about his plan of attack or worrying that this was too much. He had an enormous task ahead of him (mission: total honeysuckle pollination/domination) and all he had to do at that moment was go to one little flower at a time. 
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*The bumble bee who prefers to go by the moniker Buzz E. could not be reached for a photo at the time of this publication.