Grilled Chipotle Lime Fish Tacos With Napa Slaw

 

Last March, Christy and I traveled to California to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Our goal on this trip was to live in the moment and experience the West Coast in a organic, free flowing way.  For those of you that really know me, you know that I am a planner, and yes, going into this trip, I had a definite itinerary but I intentionally left wiggle room in case we got lost, or we found ourselves somewhere not on the map.  Thank God, we did and we had a wonderful time.  One of the hidden gems we found was a little Taqueria that was next to a BBQ place that was featured on Diners Drive-Inns and Dives (one of my favorite shows).  This place was directly on the Pacific Coast Highway about 2 miles away from a trail we were going to hike.  We were looking forward to some BBQ but the line was out of the door so we settled for the taqueria.  It turns out that we made a great choice as we enjoyed some of the best fish tacos we had ever had!  My inspiration for this dish was that Taqueria and the chipotle fish tacos they served up!

 Ingredients:
Chipotle Sauce
1 small can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 thick slice of onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of oregano
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 tbs Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Old Bay

Take the slice of onion and place it in a non-stick pan over medium heat with one tsp of Olive oil.  Let the onion cook until well browned on one side.  Flip the onion over.  Once the onion is well browned and almost cooked through, remove it from the heat and place it in a blender or food processor.  Add 5 chipotle peppers and all of the adobo sauce from the pepper can.  Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. 

Slaw
5 tbs Olive Oil
5 tbs Rice Wine Vinager
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tbs Honey
1 tsp salt
1 small head of napa cabbage, thinly shredded
1 cup of Julienned carrots
1/2 cup of shaved onions

Combine the first 5 ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl, wisk well and correct for salt.  The sauce should be sweet, spicy and just a little tart.  In a large bowl, mix the last 3 ingredients together.  Mix in the dressing and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Fish
4 Talipia fillets
1 Tbls Olive Oil
1 tsp Old Bay
8 soft flour taco shells

Preheat the grill to medium high.  Cut each fish fillet in half horizontally.  Coat the fish fillets with the olive oil and Old Bay.  Then coat the fish with the chipotle sauce made earlier (reserve the left over chipotle sauce for later).  Place the fish on the grill.  Cook for 4 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the reverse side or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. While the fish is cooking, you can warm up the taco shells on the grill, reserving them in aluminum foil.

To build the perfect fish taco, take some chipotle sauce and place it on the taco shell.  Then place a piece of fish on the taco shell.  Finally, finish it off by topping it with some of the Napa Slaw.  Then take huge bite and enjoy!  The fresh fish combined with the sweet/spicy/tartness of the slaw goes perfectly together!  If I close my eyes, I can almost smell the Pacific Ocean!

 

What's Andy Growing? - Garden update

I have always loved the allure of gardening.  In the house I grew up in, we had a pretty large garden and I remember helping to pick the veggies.  I have tried the pass that experience on to my kids.  My daughter absolutely loves gardening and will help out willingly in any task.   My son, not so much, but he likes eating the veggies. 

In the past, I have planted a traditional garden, in the soil, with tons of weeds.  For the past few years I have always wanted to build a raised garden to combat the weeds and the critters.  They look so nice and they are easier to maintain.  I've had a design in my head for a few years but was never able to find the time to build it.

This year, I finally decided to bite the bullet and build my raised garden!  I found a plan online for the construction of the containers that seemed easy and cheap.  I used a plan from ana-white.com that I modified.  She has the joints on the outside, I moved them to the inside so the boxes look more seamless.  The main idea of her concept is to use cedar fence posts.  Cedar is an untreated wood that is perfect for growing vegies.  The problem is that Cedar boards are very expensive.  Ana's solution is to use cedar fence posts, trimming off the dog-eared portion of the fence posts.  I was able to find the fence posts at Home Depot for around 2 dollars per board.  Much cheaper than buying cedar boards or even pine boards!  On average, it cost me 12 bucks per container.  It actually cost me more to fill the containers with dirt than to build them!

Any way, I had a great time making them and I spent some quality time with my daughter!  I will try to post updates whenever we finish a new section of the garden.  When it's finished, it will be enclosed on all sides with a pebble walk way that winds it's way though the garden.  So far I've got the main section built, tomatoes planted, and one corner built.  Hopefully I'll have some plants in those tomorrow.  In a few months, I should be posting some new recipes featuring the veggies from our garden.

Check out my tomatoes!

A plastic lizard I found that will guard my Tomatoes.

Grilled Salmon with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Feliz de Cinco de Mayo!  To celebrate Cinco de Mayo this year, I decided to forgo the cheese, beef and tortillas.  I wanted to capture the flavors of Mexico and combine them with fresh, light ingredients.  One of my favorite chefs is Rich Bayless and one of my favorite things in the world is grilled fish.  Bayless' roasted tomatillo salsa was the inspiration for this dish.  In my opinion, this salsa is the perfect topping for grilled salmon.  The spiciness of the salsa pairs perfectly with with richness of the fish.  To plate the dish, I sliced a fresh avocado, placed the salmon on the avocado and then topped the salmon with tomatillo salsa and some fresh cilantro.  The entire family loved the dish (I left the salsa off for the kids)!

Fresh Tomatillos!

Ingredients:
4 Medium fresh tomatillos, husked and cut in half
2 large garlic cloves
2 Serrano chillis or 1 jalapeno stemmed and coarsly chopped - if you want the salsa less spicy, seed the chillis. I usually seed one chilli
1 thick slice of white onion
1/3 cup of coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 lime
Salt
Pepper
4 Salmon fillets (thick cut with skin on)
1 ripe avacado

Directions:

Preheat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat.  Place the tomatillos and the garlic cut side down in the pan.  Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, turn and cook the other side for another 3 minutes or until the tomatillos are soft and cooked through.  Remove the tomatillos and garlic from the pan and allow to cool.  Add the slice of onion to the pan and cook until well browned on both sides and almost cooked through.  When the tomatillos have cooled down, place them in a blender with the garlic, water, cilantro, chillis and the juice of half of a lime.  Blend until the salsa is smooth but still coarse.  Add the onion to the blender and pulse a few times until the salsa is well mixed.  Add salt to taste and pulse a few more times.  Pour the salsa into a bowl and break out the chips!  Yes you need the salsa for the salmon but I usually can't wait, plus it's a great way to taste the salsa to make sure it's seasoned correctly.

Preheat the grill to medium high.  Sprinkle the salmon with salt and pepper.  Place the Salmon fillets skin side down on the grill.  Top the salmon with some of the salsa.  Grill for about 4 to 5 minutes and then flip the salmon over.  Grill for an additional 3 minutes.  Remove the salmon from the grill.

Slice the avocado and place on a plate.  Carefully remove the skin from the salmon.  It should come off very easily.  Top the avocado with the salmon then spoon some of the salsa onto the salmon.  Top with some fresh cilantro and serve.  Mix up a pitcher of margaritas and enjoy!