Fish Tacos

The fish man at the grocery store convinced me to get a couple of Mahi fillets and said they were GREAT for fish tacos! I'd never cooked Mahi before but because it was Fish Friday (buy one get one free) I decided to go for it!!! And boy o boy I am glad I did. These are probably the best fish tacos I've ever had. The type of fish really makes a difference and Mahi is an excellent choice! I used a marinade recipe from a brochure at the seafood counter and made my own "slaw" topping and special sauce. You've gotta try this one!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup cilantro
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• Mahi fillets
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• Roasted red peppers - about 1 tablespoon chopped (from a jar)
• lime zest
• Iceberg lettuce
• Alfalfa sprouts
• Carrots
• Raddishes
• Avocado
• Raw red bell pepper
• corn tortillas

FISH: In a small bowl, combine oil, lime juice, cilantro, 1 tsp cumin, and chili powder. Place fish in shallow dish and pour marinade over fish. Let stand 30 minutes.

Remove fish from marinade and place fish on broiler pan sprayed iwth non-stick cooking spray. Broil 4 inches from heat until fish flakes easily. (Tip! While broiling, open oven to first notch (so it stays open by itself. This helps prevent fish from burning and smoking up the entire house but does not effect cooking.)

SAUCE:

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, more lime juice, more cilantro, remaining cumin, roasted red peppers, and lime zest and salt and pepper to taste.

SLAW:

I chopped up iceberg lettuce very finely and added alfafa sprouts, finely chopped carrots, radish, avocado, red bell pepper. Squeeze some lime over the top and add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. Mix up gently as to not squash the avo and ta da!

Break up fish and divide among tortillas. Top with sauce and slaw and DEVOUR!

A Cookie Inside a Cookie!

Once again, I found a delightful recipe from my favorite food blog, Buns in my Oven, and put it to the test! The original recipe calls for regular chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Double Stuf Oreos, but I thought that might be a bit much, so I used the chocolate chip recipe sans chocolate chips and Single Stufd Oreos :) Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. These cookies were sooo freaking good. Especially warmed up. The next time you're in the mood for a whopper of a cookie, try these because they're easy to make and sure to satisfy your craving!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
recipe from Picky Palate

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 package Oreo cookies – I used Double Stuf

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars. Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add to the wet mixture and combine thoroughly. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough for 15 minutes to make it easier to work with and to keep the dough from spreading when baking.

Using a cookie scoop place one scoop of dough on top of an Oreo cookie. Place another single scoop on the bottom of the Oreo to create a cookie sandwich. Seal the edges together to completely close in the Oreo.

Place the balls of cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 9-13 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Pork Lettuce Wraps

I was going through my freezer trying to plan the week's dinners and found a butt-load of porkchops that I needed to use. I wanted to cook them all and then eat various pork dinners over the course of the week. So, I cooked the chops in a crock pot with an asian marinade and the first night we had pork chops, rice and applesauce. The next night I decided to get creative and use the asian marinade as inspiration to make pork lettuce wraps. I used P.F. Chang's chicken lettuce wraps as a guide (I mostly ignored the procedure but used the ingredients).

Crockpot Pork Chops (from Food.com recipe)

• 6 pork chops (1/2 inch-3/4 inch thick)
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 Tbls minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp ginger (I didn't use this)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (I don't really like soy sauce so I only used 1/4 cup)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• black pepper
• I also added a couple of Tablespoons of honey and a splash of sesame oil

Mix all ingredients, put chops in slow cooker and pour mixture over chops. Put on the low setting and cook for 7 hours.

Lettuce Wraps:

• water chestnuts
• mushrooms (i used brown baby bellas)
• yellow onion
• minced garlic
• iceberg lettuce
• leftover pork  (After the pork was cooked in the crock pot, I shredded the leftover pork and let it sit in the leftover sauce in the fridge overnight

Lettuce Wrap Sauce:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 Tbls soy sauce
• 2 Tbls rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tbls ketchup
• 1 Tbls lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp sesame oil 
• 1 Tbls hot mustard (I just used a cheap dijon)

In a saute pan, heat up 1 Tbsp vegetable oil and then add minced water chestnuts, mushrooms, garlic and onions and saute. Add rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil (I used less soy sauce and more sesame oil), sugar, water, lemon juice, ketchup, and hot mustard to the pan and saute into the vegetables. 

Add the pork into the mixture and let absorb the flavors. 

I washed and set out the iceberg lettuce and shredded some carrots as a topping. Put the pork on a dish and serve family style!