Fish Tacos and Red Quinoa Salad

After the heavy meals of the last two days it was time for something lighter. I'd been thinking about fish tacos for awhile and finally happened to have cabbage and avocados at the same time so fish tacos it was. This was a first for me, I've only ever eaten fish tacos at restaurants but they're so good I had to try at home. I decided to base mine on this recipe. I chose one that didn't require frying the fish because: 1. it's a lot more work, and 2. I wanted something a little healthier.

I used Tilapia as my fish, substituted paprika for the ancho chile powder, left out the jalapeno and put a squeeze of lime into the marinade. I also cut the fish into smaller pieces so that I could cook the thinner pieces of the Tilapia fillets separately from the thicker ones. I did decide to make the onions because the better fish tacos I've had usually have some sort of slaw as a topping and I thought the onions might give the same effect but for a lot less work. I chose Savoy cabbage and an Avocado cream as the other accompaniments.  I made the avocado cream by mashing one avocado with a pinch of kosher salt and the juice of half a lime and mixing that with 4 oz. of greek yogurt. Most recipes call for sour cream but I liked the tanginess of the greek yogurt and it's healthier.

The marinade for the fish was really good. I think next time I'll use a heartier fish like cod as it might stand up better to the crunch of the cabbage.  The onions were good but a little overpowering, a little bit went a looong way to flavor the taco.  We also had super tiny tacos because I really wanted taco size tortillas and we only had burrito size ones.  So I used a 4" round biscuit cutter to cut out smaller circles and then saved the scraps for dessert.  What's that you say?  I'm a little crazy?  Well, yes, yes I probably am.  But they were super cute!  And I then used the scraps to make dessert.  The meal couldn't be too healthy you see, so I deep fried the scraps and sprinkled them with confectioner's sugar.  Such an easy dessert and yet so amazingly delicious.

To go with the tacos I made a red quinoa and black bean salad. I'd had the red quinoa in my pantry for awhile and hadn't been struck with any inspiration for it. Then I saw this salad featured on the Tasty Kitchen blog and thought it looked yummy.  This was also the first time I'd made red quinoa and was surprised to find it was somewhat crunchy when cooked, certainly more so than the regular quinoa I've made before. Otherwise the salad was pretty good, not amazing, but pretty good.  The dressing was very acidic, I'd definitely use less lime juice next time and probably up the amount of garlic and cumin.  I used Trader Joe's grilled corn because I love the smokiness that they've achieved with it and it added a nice layer to the flavor profile.  I really like making my food cute too, hence the nice molded shape of the salad.  I should probably find something a little more productive to do with my time, but I just can't resist.

I had the salad for lunch today topped with the leftover fish and some of the avocado cream and I have to say it tasted even better than it did last night.