Tilapia Tacos

We must be on a roll over here, cooking at home and making fun and fresh meals to boot.

Tonight, we made a new (to us) version of fish tacos. We cut up some tomatoes, onion, and cilantro, and added a splash of lime for some pico de gallo, and I blended up some more cilantro, with a good bit of garlic, salt, and some olive oil to make a sauce.

 We also sliced some fresh avocado and limes for additional layers of topping and depth of flavor.

The tilapia I seasoned with salt, pepper, and chili powder and browned in my cast iron pan (just a very little bit of olive oil in the pan), cooking for about 6 minutes total.

 The Fresh Market had some nice looking taco-sized tortillas in both yellow and white corn varieties, so I got some of both.

 The tacos came together well, and while a little messy to eat, I would definitely serve this meal to friends and family.  Between bites we discussed how some jalapenos or other spicy addition might be welcome for some.

I really like cooking at home when it works out this well.

Caprese and calamari

Tonight's fare may win the approval of our food friend Jeni Lee, or at least half of the dishes. 

I got some nice heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil for a nice caprese salad (finished with a little olive oil and pepper).

 To make this a meal, I also hand breaded and fried some calamari, dredged in some flour with paprika, chili powder, and garlic powder. Out of the oil, I added a little sea salt and ground pepper.

This was a great dinner, and fresh.

gas grill paella

A few years ago my sister and  traveled to Spain for the wedding of a friend.  She was married in a royal palace outside of Madrid, and it was beautiful as all weddings must be.  But for me, the real joy of the trip was seeing Madrid in the hands of a native.

We ate tapas at the best bars, and we dined with both our host family at their home and out at the most examplar restaurants they knew.  For one such dinner, we went out to a place famous for paella, and we dined in an inner courtyard under the open sky on paella and wine and friendly joy, and it was awesome.

Since that dinner I have thought of paella often and with strong feeling.  For the Christmas dinner we hosted this year, paella-style rice was one of our complementary courses.  Emboldened by that relative success, we thought this evening of doing a full-on paella for dinner, unburdened by guests and their tastes.

We elected to use the gas grill on the back deck, and we started with heating some olive oil in a paella pan.  When sufficiently hot, we added some raw (fresh, tail and shell on) shrimp and spanish-style chorizo.  Chorizo is awesome, and vegetarian should acknowledge it. 

After the shrimp were all pink and happy, we removed them to a bowl grill-side, and tossed in some chopped onions to simmer in the olive oil.  This took some time, which allowed for a refill on the homemade margaritas.  If you do not know how to make homemade margaritas, I weep for you.

Somewhere in the midst of cooking down the onions I added some salt, pepper, and paprika.  The hard core recipes call for Spanish style pimenton - you don't have that in your pantry, so use paprika.

This is the shrimp and chorizo, all cooked/warmed up, hanging out in a bowl by the grill waiting to be reintroduced to the juicy rice.

And speaking of, after the onions have softened a bit and begun to color, I added the rice, a can of diced tomatoes, and enough chicken stock to cover the rice.  At this point, the heat should be high enough to make the oil/rice/tomato mix bubble.

After 20 minutes or so, the liquid should have mostly bubbled away.  The secret of authentic paella is that rice should actually burn a little bit on the bottom - the crusty rice, soaked in shrimp juice, onion flavor, and chicken stock is super tasty.  Oh, and I forgot, we added some peas to the pan with the shrimp, etc.

We served the paella on the table in the pan, along with some sliced crusty bread.

It was awesome.