Oh em gee. It has been totally too long since my last post! I have been so busy. I went to England for two weeks and then moved into a new place! Busy, busy, busy! So, unfortunately, I haven't been able to cook that much. FORTUNATELY, it is Summer and with Summer comes great opportunities to eat delicious and (usually) low-calorie meals. To celebrate the coming of the season, I whipped up a summer meal a couple days ago for my new roommate, my best friend, and her best friend. Cute, right!?
If you have been following my blog, you have probably realized that there is a lack of meat in my meals. My roommate has willingly cut out meat from her diet too and now we both only go as far as fish. It's pretty hard to entertain people when you don't eat meat or want to cook meat. Fortunately, all of my friends like fish. So I thought let's make something summery with fish..FISH TACOS! I found a great recipe for fish tacos in Cooking Light magazine. The recipe called for halibut, but I am pretty poor so I bought tilapia, which is a perfectly delicious (and much cheaper) alternative. Also, I'm clearly a fan of alliteration (see name of blog) and Tilapia Tacos sounds way better than Halibut Tacos to me.
Terrific Tilapia Tacos
1 cup dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried oregano
3/8 teaspoon Turkish cumin
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4 garlic cloves (crushed if you don't have a food processor, but minced if you don't)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 tilapia fillets
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
8 corn tortillas
If you have a food processor, toss the first 5 ingredients into that bad boy and mix them up. If not, then just mix everything in a bowl. While you're mixing, slowly incorporate the olive oil into the mixture. The mixture should look like this:
Rub the marinade all over the fillets of fish. Cover the fish and let them chill in the fridge for 2 hours. They should look like this:
Heat about a tablespoon of oil in frying pan on medium-high heat. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the fish and fry them. Each side should be cooked for about 4-5 minutes. You can tell when tilapia is done when it is white throughout and flaky. When the fish is done cooking, break apart the fish into rough, bite-sized pieces. It should look like this:
I served the tacos with vegetarian baked beans and salad to keep everything low-fat and healthy!
This meal was so delicious! To stay with the summery (and I guess Mexican) theme I wanted to make a dessert that is refreshing and light. The last thing I want to eat on a hot day is a cupcake...okay maybe not the last thing I want to eat. I love cupcakes, but I wanted to try something lighter. Summer desserts are really simple and usually low in calories and light. Granitas are the perfect summer dessert and I have never made them before and found a very simple recipe in Bon Appetit magazine, so I decided to do something new and make a watermelon granita.
Watermelon Granita
4 cups cubed seedless watermelon
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Blend all three ingredients until you get a really smooth mixture that should look something like this:
Pour the mixture into a deep metal baking tin. I used a glass container because I don't have a metal pan at the new apartment. If you only have glass, like I did then you will need to freeze the mixture for a lot longer than if you used a metal baking tin.
Freeze this mixture for about an hour. The mixture should be semi-frozen.
This step is SO IMPORTANT to make a good granita. At this point, you want to take a fork and scrape the dish. Every hour you should repeat this step until you get a very icy mixture. If you don't scrape as you go, then you will have a very large popsicle, which is cool and all, but it's definitely not a granita. Scoop some out and serve!
This dessert is so simple, but it takes a little bit of time and patience.
Overall, it was a really great and light meal. Hopefully, I'll be able to cook a little more often since I'm finally settled into things and I'll be able to keep you guys updated!
Stacey
