Fish Tacos

I have made fish tacos several times at home and have never really been happy with anything that I tried until last night.  This turned out pretty good and I thought I would share this until I come up with something better.

I buy cod loins at Sam's. They are wild, not farmed raised, they are individually packaged and they are not fishy tasting.  Gary and I love them.  This is how I prepared the fish.  I salt and peppered to taste.  Rolled it in a mixture of two parts flour to one part cornmeal.  Fried each side in coconut oil for a about a minute on each side (this forms a crispy crust) then put it into a greased baking dish and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. 

1/2 head of cabbage, sliced thinly
1 onion, sliced thin
1/3 cup of cilantro, diced
Put these ingredients into a bowl and toss together after they have been sliced and diced.

Adobe Sauce

1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 lime
1 tablespoon honey
1 small jar of chipolata peppers with adobe sauce and from the jar use
3 chipolata peppers, diced finely
2 tablespoons of adobe sauce

In a medium bowl add all the above ingredients for adobe sauce and mix well.  Three peppers were pretty hot.  If you don't like things pretty spicy you might want to cut back to 2 peppers maybe 1 depending on how you like your food.  You can add one pepper and taste and go from there.

Cut fish into chunks and you can put the fish into a taco shell or a warmed corn tortilla.  Put the cabbage mixture on this and then top with a large dollop of adobe sauce.  If you use taco shells, I add the fish and then I put the taco into a 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes to warm up the taco shell and then I add the cabbage mixture and adobe sauce.

This was very tasty and Gary and I really liked it but I think cooking the fish with some different seasonings would enhance the flavor even more.  If I improve the recipe I'll let you know.  :)

Kale-Potato Soup

Potato soup is a classic, a favorite, a stand-by and how many winter nights does this seem to be the only possible choice. We always have potatoes, celery and onions on hand, right! Growing up, there were many winter nights my mom fixed potato soup; a favorite of my dad.   But, last night I did something different and added kale to the potato soup.  It was really good.  It's the first time for me to use kale in potato soup so I'll tell you what I did and what I will do differently next time.

6 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
2 carrots, sliced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
4-5 kale leaves, removed from stem
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

Put potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and garlic into soup pot and cover vegetables with water.  Cook vegetables at medium boil until tender.  While vegetables are cooking remove kale from stem and put into steamer and cook about 10 minutes. The kale has too strong of a flavor to cook it with the other vegetables.  When vegetables are tender put half of the vegetables into a blender and puree and add back to remaining vegetables in pot.  Stir well add butter and salt and pepper to taste as well as kale.  Heat until hot. If soup is to thick you can thin with a little milk or vegetable broth.

I didn't puree half of the veggie mixture and when I ate the soup I would have liked the broth a little thicker. The flavor is great either way.  If you like a watery broth then you wouldn't need to puree the vegetables.

With the kale, this is an old fashion world class soup!

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

This is an old favorite of our family.  I haven't made them in quite some time and yesterday I had some blueberries that had become a little too ripe and so I decided to make these muffins.  I had forgotten how wonderful they are.  The streusel topping really sets them apart from an ordinary blueberry muffin. 

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/3 cups flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

streusel topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened

Cream butter and gradually add sugar and beat until fluffy.  Add egg and beat well. 
Combine flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, stirring well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla extract and fold in berries.
Spoon batter into greased muffin pans.  Filling two thirds full. 

Streusel Topping
Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles crumbs.  Sprinkle on top of muffin batter.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes
Makes 1 1/2 dozen

If using frozen berries; thaw, rinse, drain and pat dry with paper towels before adding to batter.

Eggs

I love Saturday morning television and I don't mean Saturday morning cartoons. LOL  :)  I'm switching from one channel to another watching gardening shows and cooking shows.  It's one of my favorite days for television.

The Pioneer Woman made a wonderful low carb breakfast and I tried it yesterday and I loved it.  She took one yellow squash and one zucchini and cut them in chunks.  She sautéed one half of an onion then added the squash and zucchini and cooked until crisp tender.  Piled the squash mixture on a plate and then made two poached eggs and put it on top of the squash.  It's very delicious, very satisfying and very healthy.

I didn't have any zucchini on hand so I just used yellow squash.....it was wonderful.

You'll have to give it a try!

Best Friends

Friends are truly a gift.  All of my friends are best friends and I am thankful for each one.  Each friend is unique and has special gifts and abilities and I admire and appreciate the diversity of each one.  I'm so glad that we are all not alike.  When we bring who we really are to the table we can all learn from each other. 

For years, I was not who I really am.  I wanted to have this person's figure, that friend's hair, this person's personality.  I thought if I was like someone else I would be more accepted or I would fit into certain groups.   Even if I lived in a certain area or had a certain type of house I would be considered  "cool."   WHATEVER!!!! 

Be gentle with your children and let them be who they are and not what you want them to be.  Remember, we all need to learn what unconditional love is. 

Boy, I want really jumped around in this post from friends to self image to children to unconditional love.  Let me simply say, that if you love yourself and others unconditionally everything else will fall into place!

It's beautiful outside today.......have a wonderful weekend!

A Few Tid Bits

I had my picture framed.  A few post ago, I showed how I took a card, had it blown up to this size to have it framed.  I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Another tid bit, don't forget when you steam vegetables to let the water cool and water your house plants with the water. I have been doing that over the winter and my house plants are really looking good.

A Way to Display Orchids

In January last year, I had a blog post on displaying orchids.  So this is not an original idea, I took the idea from a magazine.  I'm  really not an orchid person but one of my daughters really likes them.  They had a great assortment at WalMart along with a good price so I was looking at one for her and I came across this variety which I really liked.  So, I bought one for myself.  Always having in mind, the pictures I had seen in this magazine. 

I took down my winter decorations about two weeks ago and our home looks bare.  I have not been in the mood to clean house so I just have this sitting on the mantel in the kitchen until I decided where I'm going to put it. 

The other display was a glass cake stand with smaller rocks on the plate and an orchid sitting on top of the rocks.  The picture of this orchid and one on a cake plate was a grouping.  Looked really sharp.

Happy Valentine's Day

Several posts prior to this, I was talking about the "first" in my life and since today is Valentine's Day I wanted to share my first kiss with you.  It's quite comical and it will give you a little chuckle for the day.

I was between 5 and 8 years old. There were several of us neighborhood kids that always played together but on this particular day it was the one boy in our group and me.  We were playing in his backyard and I told him I wanted him to kiss me.  He said, "no, that someone would see us."  I told him, "no they won't" and I took off my sweater and put it over our heads and said, "ok, now kiss me like they do in the movies."  He gave me a little peck on the lips and I said, "that's not the way they do it" and he said, "I don't want to do this anymore, let's go ride bikes." So much for romance and first kisses! :)

This is a beautiful quote I found recently in a book I was reading.  I had to share it.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness....the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Wishing you a memorable day with your Valentine!

Always love~

Judgment and Forgiveness

These are words that have such a profound effect upon our emotions and our health.  Over the years, I have slowly gained knowledge and understanding of both; while still admitting that I have not fully arrived at mastery.

It's been my experience that forgiveness is really not a one time event but as hurtful memories surface from time to time choosing to forgive each time loosens the hold of the emotion until finally there remains no offence.

I found this quote regarding judgment in a book I was reading and as I have pondered the quote, I have found it to be very enlightening for me and I wanted to share it.  "All judgment of others is cloaked self judgment.  If you did not have the trait you judge, you would either be unable to recognize it in another or you would not judge it if you did see it." That puts a new light on things doesn't it.   

Mosaic Pot

I have started working on this pot again.  It has sat for over a year but I wanted to fill in with yellow tile and I finally found some.  I still need to make several more flowers and some greenery and then it will just be filling in with the yellow tile and grouting it.  I want to get this finished.  I have the perfect spot in my flower bed for it.

If you are interested in doing this you can start collecting old dishes at garage sales and sometimes you can find bits and pieces of tile at garage sales too.

Improved Garden Area

These are some pictures of the garden area and what I have accomplished so far.  I took a picture of a shingle for the roof.  I got this idea from a gardener about ten years ago and this shingle is that old.  We have moles pretty bad and they will make tunnels along the edge of the raised bed and it raises the shingle up and I have to go back and rack the dirt level with the raised bed and then put the shingle back in place.  But what you do, is put the shingle next to the raised bed, I make a walking pace two shingles wide and over lap them a little and then cover it with straw.  Over the years the straw with break down and make great mulch.  I scoop it up and put it in the raised bed and then put more straw back down.  You hardly have any weeds at all doing this. 

We are going to replace the boards on the other two raised beds.  The have deteriorated beyond repair.  When nice weather returns, I still have a lot of work to do before planting time arrives.

Isn't the snow beautiful.  We got about 6 inches in Chickasha.