Blackened Fish Taco Towers

A favorite around our home?? Mahi Mahi fish tacos.
A meal we like to play around with and make unique every time. Changing up salsas, adding a sour cream sauce, or switching up the marinade... it's a perfect dish to experiment with.
This one ended up being our "taco tower".
The night before we made some delicious Naan flat bread and so I incorporated the leftovers (there surely weren't many...) with our fish. Had some ripe mangoes and.. Ta-da! Blackened mahi mahi with a mango salsa on some yummy Naan.


*makes two tacos


For the salsa:
Ingredients:
1-2 mangoes, preferably not quite ripe, cubed
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 chopped small red onion
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon lime juice
dash of salt, optional


Directions: Toss all ingredients together and refrigerate for an hour to let flavors mingle.


For the fish:
Ingredients:
4-8 oz cut of mahi mahi, thawed
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
0.5 tablespoon Mccormick Smokehouse seasoning
0.5 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
dash of ground oregano
0.5 tablespoon lime juice


1-2 tablespoons olive oil


Directions: Place thawed mahi mahi in a bag and incorporate the next six ingredients in a bowl, mix. Combine the marinade atop the mahi mahi and thoroughly smother the fish in the red mixture. Marinate in fridge for at least 2 hours.
About 10 minutes before you serve, heat olive oil in a skillet until it smokes. Carefully tong the fish into the oil and cook, flipping fish when half of the pink on the fish turns white. When just cooked through, a fish is white, remove from pan and break up into chunks. 


For tacos:
Ingredients:
Black beans, heated
Queso Fresco, crumbled
Green Leaf Lettuce, chopped


On tortilla or Naan, lay down a bed of chopped up green leaf lettuce, then black beans. Cover with your mango salsa, queso fresco crumbles, and blackened mahi mahi. Serve.

Greek Pasta Salad

Coming home from the beach, I was fishing through our fridge for something to whip up for dinner and decided I had enough to do something Greek. Since I recently bought some whole wheat pasta... Pasta salad it was! By the time it was cold and ready to eat, I snapped one picture before my husband snapped the bowl out of my hands and into his mouth. Smiling, he sauntered off with it...


Ingredients:
1 cucumber diced
1 tomato diced
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 cups cooked and cooled whole wheat penne pasta


Dressing:
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
dash of nutmeg


Directions:
Cook and cool penne pasta to package directions.
Combine cucumber, tomato, and sun dried tomatoes with the cooled pasta. Add all of the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk them until smooth. Toss it over the pasta, adding the feta in. Place in fridge for about an hour before serving.

Homemade Puppy Treats

Yesterday I was so extremely happy when Boston ran out the door, ran straight for the grass, and went potty. I praised him "good boy" enthusiastically and gave him a treat. He was pleased but he's so young that the treat is difficult for him to eat so, today, I made him some. They're extremely basic and easy which is wonderful because half of my attention is always on watching him! Another plus? It's so much cheaper.

Here's how the four ingredient puppy treats go:

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix peanut butter and milk together in a bowl. Once combined, add flour and baking powder. Knead and roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4" thick. Cut into 1/4" squares and bake for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool before handing them to pup!

Cinnamon and Cocoa Coated Pecans

I really really like pecans. So does my husband. Almonds and cashews are okay, but pecans are just so much better. It's the only nut we use except maybe when we can get out hands on some macadamia nuts.

Anyway, I went to Maine two years ago to visit my aunt and she shops at a Whole Foods store that carried cocoa covered almonds. They were so good! She and I would sit there eating handful after handful while watching movies at night for dessert. I developed a sweet and tasteful addiction to those things and when I went home I couldn't find them anywhere. I still search for them in any store that carries ingredients in bulk but have yet to come across them. Sure there's chocolate coated ones but that's so far from the same. 

Finally I attempted to recreate them with pecans and this is what I did... (go ahead and use almonds or walnuts if you'd like)

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup pecans

1/2 cup chocolate chips

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 Tablespoon Hershey's unsweetened Cocoa powder

Directions:
Toast pecans in a 350 degree oven for about ten minutes on a baking sheet. You can usually tell when they're done when the kitchen has a nutty aroma in the air. Melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter on low in a small saucepan, stir when the chips start to look glossy and remove from heat. Don't overcook. Gently mix the toasted pecans into the chocolate mixture just until the nuts are coated. On a wax paper lined sheet, spread the pecans out evenly and set in freezer until the chocolate is hardened, about 15 minutes. Put cinnamon and cocoa powder into the bag, followed by the hardened, chocolate-covered pecans and seal the bag. Shake and enjoy!

Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories, I really do love their site.