Fish Tacos with Cabbage and Fish Taco Sauce

I hope I don’t get spanked for not following directions for this entry into LifeAsMom’s weekly Ultimate Recipe Swap (Mexican food). In my neck of the woods (Texas) you won’t find fish tacos on the menu at a TexMex restaurant. Fish Tacos are Baja food fare. But fish tacos are my favorite when it comes to food that involves tortillas, so it should squeak by on that. Oddly enough, this is the first time I’ve made fish tacos at home, I usually stick to soft tacos using ground beef or turkey.

I cut the fish fillet into thin strips, dredged it in cornmeal, and pan fried it in a little oil. I’ll probably just sauté/grill it next time; frying is labor intensive and rather wasteful of oil in small batches at home. For taco toppings I served shredded purple cabbage (seeing purple on a plate makes me inexplicably giddy), diced avocado and tomato and a fish taco sauce. Sides were black beans and rice. From my weekly pot o beans mission, I had one more single meal container of black beans and one of rice in the freezer, making this meal easy to throw together. In Dave Grotto's words, this meal contains five powerhouse foods. You could make that six if you used yogurt instead of sour cream.
I just tossed the sauce together with what I had in the fridge and don’t have good measurements because I didn’t take the time to get out measuring cups. I’ve estimated the amounts for you in case you’re trying to recreate the sauce. Are you panicking?

Don’t. Worry. About. Recipes. When. Making. Sauce. You need a fat (oil, cream, sour cream/mayo, butter, etc.), something acidic (lemon juice, vinegar) and flavor (fresh herbs, onion, salt, pepper, other dry herbs and spices). Get mixing. How can something with a sour cream and mayo base not taste delish?

Fish Taco Sauce

1/5 a container (16 oz) of sour cream (I used light, and the amount is because that’s what I had left in the fridge)
A squirt of mayo (probably 1-2 tablespoons)
A splash of buttermilk (I only used it cause I had it, you could skip it) Maybe 2 TBS.
Juice and zest from half a lemon (skip the zest if you’re not using an organic lemon)
2 TBS of fresh cilantro, minced
½ a minced jalapeño pepper (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste

The fish taco sauce was good! I should have made a larger batch, because it tastes good as a salad dressing for the left over shredded cabbage.

We piled our corn tortillas with a bottom layer of fish, cabbage and Fish Taco Sauce topped with avocado and tomato. Little boo requested cheese (normally his favorite part of soft taco night), but I told him tonight wasn’t a cheese night. Little boo dug into his fish taco with relish. Big boo wasn’t quite as enthralled and focused more on his beans and rice. He ate about 1/3 of the taco, and picked out all the fish to gobble up. Fish Tacos were new to Grandpa, but he was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed them.

Kid Appeal Tip If you haven't managed to get your kids eating fish yet, try fish tacos. Most kids enjoy build it yourself meals, and mexican is a familiar enough theme that they are less likely to have aversions to the food introduction this way. Sometimes once you get a kid to taste something for the first time in a "fun" dish, they're willing to eat it presented other ways. If they go for it, make a fuss. Lift your glass and make a toast to your open minded fish eating kid. She'll see that trying something new is something to celebrate and will be more likely to follow suit with other foods.

Click here to see how I put together healthier soft tacos.

For more recipes and kid appeal tips on how to make real food relevant to your kids, click there to join the food with kid appeal facebook fan page, or there to become a subscriber via email or google reader. We share What's for Dinner (WFD) daily on Facebook, and I pose a "Question of the Day" (QOTD).

Man Meal “Yawp” and Veggie Buys on a Budget.

I got some great deals on veggies this week. You have to stick to what’s in season, but you can usually find some fruits and veggies to fit into your meal plan every week at your usual grocery store. I’m on co-op veggie hiatus (I love buying locally grown organic produce, but it’s more labor intensive requiring and extra errand each week to pick up, and its dirtier requiring more washing, and I found myself stressing about using up all the produce during this harried work period). Green beans, yellow and zucchini squash, tomatoes and broccoli crowns were all less than a dollar a pound. None of that was organic of course. Strawberries were $1.50 a pint and organic baby carrots were. $.99. That’s just $7 for 10 different fruit and veggie servings for 4. That is el cheapo for whole food!

Not sure what is nutrient dense? Here is a list of 50 nutritious foods to keep in mind when making your shopping list. If something on this list is in season or on sale, pick some up and work it into your meal plan.

Meal plan this week:

Sunday: Man Meal (ick-see below for details)

Monday: Pasta with chicken, green beans, olives, cherry tomatoes (so good, I ate entirely too much)

Tuesday: Roasted Broccoli/Onions, oven fries and broiled steak

Wednesday: Purple cabbage and pork stir fry over rice.

Thursday: Pan seared fish, squash sautéed with onions and tomato (starch-maybe cornbread?)

Friday: Hubby and I are going out and boys are dining with Nana.

I usually prefer to do my shopping sans hubby, so I have one less person influencing the shopping list, but this weekend we all went together. Sometimes we split up and have a race, seeing which team can get done with their list the fastest. As was the case this week, Little Boo and I had produce duty and as I was picking out some fresh veg on sale I could hear the product demo lady selling her deal to passers by.

It was one of those specials where you buy one costly item and receive several other products free. I almost never buy those deals because the products are usually some combination of processed meat and junk. Free junk has no value to me. I say no to high cholesterol, constipation, heart disease, over weight and rotten teeth. The demo lady’s spiel was “A microwave dinner for four only $6.99, a better deal than McDonalds." McDonalds was a fair comparison as far as nutrition goes since the offer was a container of precooked microwavable bar-b-cue meat plus free chips, soda, bag of cabbage (ok, at least there are some veggies in there), hamburger buns and a reusable shopping bag (a few bonus points for being green). Last time I checked, white buns and potato chips don't really count as a starchy side.

As I selected my veggies, I thought about how ridiculous it is that most specials at a grocery store are of low nutritional quality, and how hard the abundance and low cost of readily available convenience food is to resist. I admit, I was feeling pretty righteous about how many nutrient dense meals my family routinely eats and pretty thankful we have enough food budget that we don't have to resort to these deals to feed our family. According to a Time Magazine’s June 23 double issue “Our Super-Sized Kids,” the rise in the price of fruits and vegetables between 1989 and 2005 is 74.6%. During the same period the price of fats fell by 26.5%. With those figures it’s predictable what people on a budget will buy.

So guess what I saw in Hubby and Big Boo’s basket when we met up again in the store?

Apparently he changed his boy’s night dinner of something on the grill to the nearly nutritionally void chips, soda, slaw, meat in a bucket meal the sample lady was pushing. I restrained myself (a lot) by not scolding hubby on his dinner choice. After all, if I want the privilege to have dinner with a girlfriend, I have to zip it when it comes the choice of man meal hubby prepares in my absence. I should mention though, he impressed me by making a home-made slaw dressing, complete with internet recipe and minced onions!

On the way home he and the boys were chanting, “Man meal, hoo wah! Man meal, hoo wah!” His enthusiasm is endearing.

What does your hubby make (or you if it's hubby who usually cooks) when you're out?

Meatless Meal-Pot o' Beans (Kidney)

I am looking forward to LifeAsMom’s Meatless Meals recipe swap today. Our family goes meatless several dinners a week for a few reasons:

• Organic meat is very expensive, and it’s cost prohibitive to eat very much of it very often.
• Animal protein is one nutrient that most people don’t lack in their diet, so reducing (not eliminating) meat intake allows for other nutrients to be included in the diet more often.
• As far as kitchen inventory goes, I often have excess grains, veggies and legumes that need to be the star players in order to get used up.
• Even though both the boys have a full set of teeth now, they haven’t always, and having more meals that include more non animal protein sources was one way to make sure the boys were getting enough protein when they weren’t chewing meat well.

I need to make a disclaimer. This recipe is not vegetarian, it’s meatless. You could easily make it vegetarian by using vegetable stock or water to cook the beans instead of pork loin stock. Although I think you'd be missing a lot of flavor if you use water. A box or two of chicken stock would do fine. (No, the pork loin was not organic; I can’t afford to feed a crowd using organic meat!!)

Pot o' Beans (Red Kidney)
Six cups of water/stock
1 lb bag of kidney beans
2 ribs of celery sliced thin
One onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced or minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of dried oregano (any dried spice you like is fine).

Rinse and beans, remove discolored ones and put in a stock pot with cooking liquid. Bring to a boil then turn down to med low. Add onions, celery, garlic, SP, oregano and cover. Cook for 2-3 hours or until beans are tender. (I never soak beans, if you prefer to presoak, go for it!) I usually cook beans in the slow cooker, but since I made the stock this morning, I just took half the stock out of my le creuset (5 ½ QT), added the beans to the other half, and cooked on the stove top. You could easily toss all ingredients into the slow cooker in the morning and have a great pot o beans by supper time.

If hubby isn't a fan of meatless meals (like mine), serve with shredded cheese (although that defeats the purpose of saving money on meat, IMO) and hot sauce.

Pork Loin Stock
I usually make stock/broth if I’ve slow roasted something in a pan and it gets bits of yum left all over the pan. I just leave a bit of the meat drippings, fill up the vessel with water and bring back to a boil. I add veggie scraps that I have saved in the fridge or freezer (this time it was the green tops of leeks) and some herbs (fresh rosemary). I use my tongs loaded with veggie scraps to wipe the sides of le creuset clean. I cook meat broth on simmer for a couple hours, veggie stock for 45 minutes. It goes into the freezer for the next pot of beans or soup.

I make a pot of beans every week. Sometimes its chili, sometimes black beans, sometimes white bean soup. This week it was kidney beans. Beans are nutrient dense, and affordable. I like to freeze left-overs in small containers and pull them out for soups, and pasta dishes. Beans are easy to make and home-made taste better and contain far less sodium than canned products. According to Dave Grotto in 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life,

• beans make up 4 of the top 20 antioxidant-containing foods.
  
• Black beans are as rich in anthocyanins as grapes and cranberries.
  

I usually serve beans with rice, but I have buttermilk left over from little boo’s carrot cake, so I made cornbread from Froberg Farm’s locally ground cornmeal. I snagged that at their market the day we picked fresh strawberries.
Kid Appeal Tip If you have kids who don't like beans at first, don't get discouraged. Keep serving them, offer different varieties and in different dishes. There's a big difference between a bowl of beans and rinsed beans with pasta or in a salad. Bean dips are good too, as most kids like to dip. Hummus is great with pita bread and you can puree black or pinto beans on mexican food night and use it for burritos or nacho topping. Make it fun, do a taste test. Before tossing beans in for chili or bean soup, take a spoonful out of each can and let kiddos taste them all. If they don't want to eat them, let the sort by size, color, etc. Sometimes interacting with food when the objective isn't eating helps really averse kids try new things. For a serious bean protester, let them top a little of what ever accompanies the beans (rice, cornbread, salad, pasta) with a tiny serving of beans.

The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that people consume three cups of beans per week. Do you eat three cups of beans per week? If not, I challenge you to increase the bean consumption of your family! You’ll even save money in the process. I hope to find some more bean recipes my family will enjoy on today’s URS over at LifeAsMom.

Whole Grain Birthday Carrot Cake

This didn’t start out as a whole grain cake, but after I started baking with white wheat and no one detected a difference in other recipes, I thought I’d try it in big boo’s birthday cake. I’ve been making carrot cake for Hubby and boys birthdays for years and must have tried half a dozen or more recipes. This is the one that got the most rave reviews, and so it’s the one I’ve kept making for the past 2 years. Here are some other links to white wheat baking I've done lately, where you see whole wheat or AP flour sub for white wheat: Strawberry shortcake, waffles, pancakes.

Before baking day, I asked Little Boo if he wanted chocolate cake or carrot cake for his birthday, and he surprised me by asking for carrot cake. I didn’t argue though because it’s such a hit with the rest of the family. Of course after I’d done the shopping for ingredients and he was helping me make it he said “I don’t like carrot cake, I want chocolate cake.” He was quite displeased when I told him I didn’t have the ingredients for chocolate cake and I’d have to make it another time. He got over it and was all smiles when the big white cream cheese frosted cake with blue writing came out and he got to blow out his candles.

The reason I like this cake recipe is because it’s got a lot of nutrients in it. It’s not health food cake though, there’s still plenty of sugar and oil. It's not all empty calories though with fiber, vitamins and minerals from pineapple, carrots, and raisins, protein and omega 3s from walnuts, not to mention the fiber from whole white wheat flour. This cake is so dense and moist that I can put ¼ cup of ground flax seed in the batter and you can’t taste it.

The major difference between this cake and others I’ve made is the carrots are cooked and mashed before adding to the batter versus grated and stirred in raw. The carrot cooking does remove some carrot nutrients that would be retained with grated raw carrots, but it adds so much moisture to the cake.

If you try it, let me know how it works out. I’d like to try making these as muffins and putting a glaze on them instead of the rich cream cheese frosting. I got ambitious and made a double batch so I could take one cake over to some friends who just had their first baby.

Mom’s Carrot Cake

Based on v monte’s recipe on allrecipes.com

6 carrots, quartered (don’t peel them leave all the skin nutrients on)

2 cups white wheat flour (or 1 3/4 flour and 1/4 cup ground flax seed)

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

3 eggs

2 tsp ground cinnamon

¾ cup grapeseed oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup buttermilk

8 oz crushed pineapple with juice

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 cup organic raisins (or 3.5 oz flaked coconut)

Frosting

4oz softened cream cheese

¼ cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar

Cook the carrots in a small saucepan covered with water. Bring water to boil and cook until tender, approximately 15 minutes. Fork mash them and let cool. Meanwhile beat eggs, add oil, buttermilk, sugar, and vanilla. Add flour, soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix in pineapple, mashed carrots-(I like bigish chunks so you can see a nice orange color in the final product), nuts and raisins or coconut. Pour into 2 round 9” cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cake tests done (insert toothpick in center, it should come out clean). For 13x9 pan bake for 55 minutes. Place cake on plate and allow to cool before frosting.

Frosting: Combine cream cheese, melted butter, vanilla and powdered sugar. Spread on cooled cake. Cake tastes better after overnight refrigeration. I make a double batch of icing to ice the rounds, you need more to ice the middle layer and sides.

What's your favorite thing to bake up for special occasions? Got a recipe, leave a link in the comments, or post a recipe on the forum.

PS-Fishmama if you're reading, the camping trip was a success! Camping is misleading though, we had a cabin with beds, a kitchen, table and toilet. We've done nature trips before when the boys were younger and this one had the highest fun to work ratio of them all. Little boo is our youngest and he's 3, he walked (almost) everywhere! Hubby is eager to get us in a tent, but I'm opposed to tent sleeping with little ones!

Getting Nutrition on the Road

Traveling makes my nutrition bones weary. My digestive system can only handle so much processed meat, bread and cheese products, which seem to be so prevalent when dining away from home. We’re headed to a Texas State Park cabin in the big thicket for a couple nights. Here’s how I plan to get in some fruits, veggies and whole grains in our diet while we travel. Of course there will be hot dogs, smores and potato chips on the menu, but that’s not all I’m planning on feeding my family.

Lunch Day One
Chicken salad sandwiches on whole wheat bread with bagged spring mix salad (for lettuce). Grape tomatoes and sugar snap peas to dip in ranch dressing and potato chips.

Dinner Day One
Grilled sausages/hot-dogs (I’ll buy the best-for-you sausages Hubby will allow, he rarely gets a say in our raw ingredients, and I can’t short him that prerogative on a cabin in the woods trip) and grilled asparagus. Hopefully it’s still in season and on sale. If not, I might buy some fresh green beans and grill them on top of some heavy foil. Smores for dessert.

Breakfast Day Two
Campfire breakfast-(canned potatoes, one onion, pack of bacon and a dozen eggs, all cooked together and served like a hash-Hubby’s family recipe). Fresh fruit.

Lunch Day Two
Ditto lunch day one, maybe baby carrots in the mix.

Dinner Day Three
Steaks on the grill. The rest of the bagged spring mix salad, carrots, tomatoes, sugar snap peas and ranch dressing as a salad. Grilled whole wheat baguette brushed with olive oil.

Breakfast Day Three
Croissant sandwiches-scrambled egg, ham and cheese. Fresh fruit.

Lunch Day Three
We’ll probably grab a bite on the way home.

Dinner Day Three
We'll be home for dinner. Having been away for a few days, with not much in the fridge and little time to prepare dinner, I'll probably make oatmeal. I like to give our digestive systems a good cleanse after travel diet.

Snacks
Grapes, Apples, Tangerines. Pre-assembled trail mix made from plain wheat/rice puffs, dried fruit, almonds, and left over easter M&Ms. Bumps on a log (celery stalks with peanut butter topped with raisins.

We are looking forward to a few days away from the hustle and bustle of life. This will be Little Boo’s first state park experience where he’s old enough to do most of the walking himself. My mom arms are starting to lose their tone since I don’t have to carry him as often. I still carry him quite frequently, more so than I did when Big Boo was this age. Partly because I resist his growing up, and still baby him, partly because I like the work out for my arms. I do not look forward to having to return to push-ups and weight training to maintain muscle tone!

Kid Appeal Tip If you have a hard time getting your kids to eat healthy, try bringing only nutritious snacks along on an afternoon walk/hike. They'll be hungry from all the activity, and removed from other less healthy food sources like potato chips or pretzels. That wholesome trail mix or crisp apple will be a welcome response to their hunger pangs.

Apologies (again) for my absence. Work got really insane, been working most evenings and those I didn’t I lacked the energy to blog in the evenings. Sadly, I may only get to one post a week for a while.

How was your Easter? We spent ours over-indulging in candy and food with family. Sounds like a perfect holiday to me.