Tacos Forever - Grilled Tilapia Tacos with Lemony Cabbage and Cilantro Pesto

Some days Van crawls into my spot in our bed and says, "Hi I'm Mama. I like The Band. I eat tacos and drink iced tea." He's pretty spot on. That's me in a nutshell. Classic rock + tacos.

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To make 8 of these delicious fish tacos, you'll need:

tacos:
3 tilapia filets
salt/pepper
smoked paprika
garlic powder
purple cabbage
lemon
8 corn tortillas
veg oil

cilantro pesto:
one bunch cilantro (about one cup packed real good)
3/4 cup sliced almonds
5+ garlic cloves
1 cup hard, peppery cheese (I use a dry, aged peppercorn jack but have used other cheeses in the past - I think many will work here, as long as they are hard)
olive oil
salt

Directions:
Heat your grill.

Finely, finely chop your cabbage. Add a good sprinkling of salt and a hearty squeeze of lemon. Let it hang out until it's time to assemble your tacos. The cabbage will get a bit softer and juicier and all around better.

For the pesto, throw everything except for the oil into your food processer. Make sure you help your processer out by grating or slicing your cheese before putting it in to blend. Pulse your ingredients while adding olive oil until you've reached a good pesto-y consistency. When your done, you should have about 10 ounces of pesto. Woop!

Sprinkle your tilapia with salt/pepper, garlic powder and smoked paprika on both sides. Cook on greased grill for a few minutes per side until done. You can also do this in a pan. Basically...you know...just cook your fish.

Brush your corn tortillas with oil and heat them on your grill for a couple minutes.

Fill warm tortillas with cabbage and tilapia, top with pesto. Go to town.

Sorry about these iPhone photos. I wish I had busted out my good camera. They're probably way better tasting than these pictures would lead you to believe.

Oh! And that pesto is literally good on anything. You'll have hella leftover. Freeze it in ice cube trays for later. Spread it on bread for sandwiches, top your tri tip with it, make little shrimp crostini with it, spoon it into your mouth from the jar....it's quite versatile.

A Delicious Thing I Make Sometimes: Chicken with Spanish Chorizo and Potatoes

This meal is so freaking good. The prep could not be simpler, it dirties few dishes and comes out pretty perfect every time.

I first saw this Nigella recipe on a web site somewhere. I pretty much do what the recipe calls for, but for some reason the version that is so posted and popular makes WAY more food than your typical family can eat at one sitting. It's more than my family of big eaters could eat over the course of a few dinners. It also makes things sound a little more involved than they really are. I don't like recipes that call for lots of measuring and instruction following. I use terms like "glug" when referring to olive oil amounts.

Here's how I make it:

What you'll need

• Little potatoes, or big ones cut into chunks so they're like little potatoes
• Chicken thighs WITH SKIN (for the love of God, make sure there is skin on there. If you're not into crispy chicken skin then just forget about this recipe. The crispy skin is the most glorious part of this whole meal.)
• Spanish Chorizo, sliced up into bite sized pieces. Make sure it's SPANISH chorizo.
• Red onion (cut it however you like it. I kinda slice mine - it's more in there for flavor, but they do soften and taste pretty good in the mix)
• Dried oregano
• Orange zest (from one orange)
• Olive oil
• S/P

Mix up your potatoes (how every many you want - I make sure I have a handful of little potatoes per person), onion and chorizo. Toss with a bit of olive oil and dump it all in an oven dish of sorts. Like one you'd use to make lasagna.

Place your chicken thighs (however many your family eats...4, 6, whatever) skin side up on top of the potato, chorizo and onion mixture. Maybe drizzle a bit of olive oil on the top of your chicken.

Grab a cheese grater and grate the zest of the orange all over the chicken, potatoes, chorizo and onion. Don't be stingy. And don't squeeze any of the orange on top. This is not the place for orange juice. Just the zest.

Sprinkle a bit of salt, pepper and dried oregano over everything (not too much salt - chorizo is salty) before placing it into a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for one hour.

Halfway through cooking I like to pull it out for a second, toss the potatoes around a bit and kinda baste everything with the orangey, oregano-ey grease that's collected on the bottom.

My sister makes this without the orange zest ( which I would never do - the subtle orange flavor is really, really good) and will sometimes sub kielbasa for chorizo or try other kinds of dried herbs in lieu of oregano. It's a really easily adaptable dish. I make it all the time. There's nothing not to like here. Pretty bomb.

Turkey Chorizo + Potato Tacos with Salsa Verde

one of my favorite things in life is chorizo. I like the delicious Mexican kind that you crumble up, and I like the more salami like kind that you chop and dice. I like it in my eggs, I like it with beans. I like it with chicken (i'll share that recipe someday) and I like it in a taco!

if you've ever made chorizo you know that stuff generates a crap ton of grease. as much as I love it, the sight of a cup of grease pooling in your skillet as you sauté your chorizo wigs me out a bit so I try not to eat it super often. turkey chorizo, on the other hand, is about 300% less greasy than regular chorizo and about 70% as good.  I use it most of the time, instead of the OG chorizo. it's very flavorful and quick to make. it definitely does the job.

the creaminess of the potatoes and the sweetness of the salsa verde compliment the spice of the turkey chorizo. here's how it's done:

For Tacos:
turkey chorizo
diced potato
corn tortillas (or small flour ones, if you prefer)
cheese (optional - i'll put cheese on anything)
avocado (optional - i'll put avocado on anything)

Salsa Verde:
8-12 tomatillos
one red onion
a few garlic cloves
one jalapeno (half if you're a weenie)
a handful of cilantro
salt

first make the salsa. remove the husks from your tomatillos and cut them through the middle. chop the red onion into wedges. roast the tomatillos (flat side down),  the onion pieces and garlic cloves at 400 for 10-15 minutes. once your kitchen is smelling spicy and your tomatillos are beginning to blister and brown, remove and set aside to cool. then combine your roasted stuff with a handful of cilantro and some salt and process to your desired salsa consistency using a food processor or blender.

next, Parboil the potatoes and set aside.

Cook chorizo in a stovetop skillet, breaking it up into pieces as it heats. add diced potatoes and mix together.

heat your corn tortillas over the flame until warm. spoon the chorizo/potato mixture into the tortilla. top with salsa verde, avocado and cheese.

Loaded Minestrone

i love minestrone soup. growing up my family would go to the same italian restaurant, owned by an old friend of the family, almost every friday for pizza and pitchers of budweiser. well, the kids drank coke. sometimes we got to use the bartender gun thing to squirt our own coke into our own glasses. yeah, be jealous. 

anyways, every so often i'd stray from the pizza tradition and get a lasagna. the lasagna would come in it's own personal little dish that it was baked in. the sauce had a really great slow cooked beefy texture, and i especially liked this particular lasagna because it came without ricotta. i've never been a fan of ricotta.

while the lasagna was always delicious, the best part about ordering it was that before it came to your table you'd get a warm, garlicy, buttery roll, the best green salad with the most perfectly tart italian dressing you've ever tasted and some bomb minestrone soup.

i don't quite know what kind of rolls our friend served. i can't figure out how to make a dressing so delicious and sour and peppery, but i make a goddamn excellent knock off of that ridiculously good minestrone.

i'll go ahead and call it "loaded minestrone" to denote that there's a little more going on in there than in the minestrone you might be used to. but it's super good, super easy and super quick to make. i can't stress the ease and tastiness of this enough. the only dishes you dirty are your knife, your cutting board and a pot, for crying out loud.i serve it at our christmas parties and people flip their freaking lids over it. i can't wait for it to cool down so i can start making this again. i think van will love it too.

wish i had a more delicious looking photo...

loaded minestrone soup

serves many. probably 8 big servings.

2 containers of chicken stock (or veggie. whatever)

1 large can of diced tomatoes with juice

1 can of kidney or lima beans ( i like lima)

1 zucchini diced

1-2 carrots diced

1 potato diced

handful of small pasta (little shells or little elbows)

1 small onion, diced up small

several cloves of garlic

olive oil

s/p

3 heaping tablespoons of dried oregano/italian herbs

heat some olive oil in your nice big soup pot. add your onions. after a couple minutes when onions are looking a little soft, add your garlic, carrots, potato and zucchini. sprinkle all contents of your pot with salt, pepper and italian seasoning. stir this mixture all up for a few minutes.

add your cans of stuff. don't throw out the juice. dump it all in there!

bring to a boil. when your carrots and potatoes seem almost soft enough to eat, toss in a handful of your small pasta.

once pasta is cooked and veggies are soft it's dinnertime. i like to serve mine with some good quality oven toasted bread and grated parm.