South of the Border

Helllloooooo, Yankee Belle Cafe!  The Fresh Pioneer is back with a little recipe for those days when you need some extra spice in your life.
   Your food life, that is. The other parts are up to you. :) But I'm sure you've got that all under control, so back to the FOOD.



My husband hails from closer to the equator than I do and therefore enjoys some interesting food. (Please refer to my post Weird Food. But go there later. It's kind of gross. And we're making tasty food today!) Anyway, he swears he's NOT PICKY but that's a lie. Most of the good dishes we all grew up with like lasagne and spaghetti and ravioli and meatballs (hey, I sense a theme) aren't really tasty to him. So we end up making food that is more 
                                           
                                                THIS

 

                                                                       

THAN THIS.

 

                                                                                                                                                        

 Which I really don't get because they use all the same stuff: meat, tomatoes, grains, herbs. Just in a slightly different order. And amount. And maybe some peppers and tortillas. Okay, I still say Italian food is DA BOMB but that's another day.

  Let's see what's on the menu for the (NOT PICKY!) eater tonight, shall we? Working with what we have fresh and on hand, and on a budget...

  Hm. Let's grate some cabbage, lettuce, and carrots. And chop some tomatoes and avocados. That sounds tasty. Can't go wrong with that, right?

 (Yeah, I know this is sideways. Weird. And there's a shadow.

As if someone was LOOMING OVER ME in a hungry way.)

 Now, I'm all over a nice veggie salad but we're talking about picky eater so, let's pull some fish (on sale, love it!) from the freezer. Plop in a pan with a few cups of water, lemon, salt, pepper. Cover on medium high heat. (If we didn't care about calories, we could fry it up, with a crispy panco crust... *sigh* But we do. So, we'll be good.)

 These Anaheim peppers are pretty mild and I have a few left over from when I roasted them and baked with cream cheese inside. YUM. But that was for me. This is for... you-know-who. And some sprouts because they were on sale. (What was I thinking? I have no idea. Anyway.)

Gotta have some salsa. Mine's on the left. Mild, with corn and black beans. Hubby says that's not real salsa. It said 'SALSA' on the jar! On the right is homemade tomatillo salsa. HOT. Do not eat. For crazy folks only.

We checked on the fish and it's smelling GOOD but still a bit underdone. We have some tiny 'pepinos' so we slice those up. Mmm, garden fresh cukes. Lime and salt. Crunch, crunch. (Go away, looming, hungry shadow!)

So, another peek at the fish and it's almost ready. We need to start heating our tortillas. These come in a bag like this.

They make them in pretty much every area of the US. Find them in your local grocery store. And I know there are flour tortillas in the picture. Ignore them!  Corn is wonderful for you, lots of fiber, denser and makes you feel full longer. The trick is to heat them slowly, in a pan, no oil, for longer than you think you need to. This brings out the flavor.

When they're nice and soft they should look like this. NO BREAKING, NO CRUMBLING! That means undercooked and well, YUCK. And you can fry them, but we don't want the grease, do we? Unless you're frying them until they're hard and crispy, like tostadas, which are really delicious and look like this.

And they're about impossible to eat with one hand. And I never have two hands free, so I avoid this sort of thing. Unless I want to eat my dinner off my lap.

 

I forgot to take a picture of the fish when it was in the pan, so this is from Google. It looks exactly like mine! As if Mr. Google Images had been in my house!

Yay! We're ready to assemble the tacos! Just lay your savory fish piecesin first, then whatever you want for toppings (what, no sprouts?) and lay them side by side and you're ready to go.

Huh, there's that shadow again. Someone's HUNGRY!