Monday's Meal

I admit, when I first heard of fish tacos, I almost gagged. It sounded totally disgusting. Last summer, Gus and I were at The Pub, and they had fish tacos on their summer menu. They were served with some type of Caribbean salsa, which caught my eye - so I thought I'd give them a try. Okay, I admit, a pint or two of Young's Double Chocolate Stout may have lowered my resistance a little, too.

But whatever it was that prompted me to try them, I'm glad - because I loved them! I've had them several times since then, but have never attempted to make them until now. (Mainly because I haven't been able to convince anyone else in my family to try them. Sigh.)

I decided that I was going to give the Cilantro Lime Rice recipe from Annie's Eats a try because I knew Gus would at least eat that, LOL. (Just click on the name of the recipe to go to Annie's Eats and see the original recipe.)

Doesn't this look yummy? Fresh cilantro, garlic, olive oil, fresh lime juice, and water!

Um, it's not looking so yummy now. It's bright. It's neon. Hmmmm.

It's perfect!! And very tasty!! So don't let the bright neon green scare you!

Then I found a recipe for Mango Papaya Salsa at allrecipes.com, and did just a little tweaking. You can see the original recipe by clicking on the name above - and my version is below:

Mango Papaya Salsa

1 mango - peeled, seeded, and diced

1 papaya - peeled, seeded, and diced

1 large sweet red pepper - seeded and diced*

1/2 Vidalia onion, peeled and diced

2 TBSP. chopped fresh cilantro

2 TBSP. balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes before serving. (I chilled mine for about 3 hours.)

(*I chopped the red pepper into larger pieces because while I like the flavor, I don't like to actually eat them. Making the pieces larger allowed me to remove them easily.)

(recipe modified from allrecipes.com)

The salsa was beautiful! And yummy!

Of course, I needed some type of sauce for the tacos, so I found a recipe for San Diego-style Fish Taco Sauce on Soup Addict's blog and modified it a little by leaving out the capers and hot pepper. You can see the original recipe by clicking on the recipe name above.

This is what my fish taco sauce looked like - it was really good and I think it would make a great dip, too!

And last, but not least - the fish. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com for grilled tilapia with mango salsa - and just used the part for the grilled tilapia. The original recipe can be found at the link above - and my adaptation is below:

Grilled Tilapia

1/3 c. olive oil

1 TBSP. lemon juice

1 TBSP. fresh minced parsley

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1/2 tsp. salt

2 (6 oz.) tilapia filets

Whisk together first 7 ingredients in bowl and then pour into a resealable bag. Add the tilapia filets, coat with the marinade, squeeze out excess air, and seal the bag. Marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour.*

To grill the tilapia: I made little foil pockets, sprayed them with Pam nonstick cooking spray, placed the fish inside, and sealed them. Then we placed those on the grill for about 10-15 minutes, opening the foil packets for the last 5 minutes.

(*I know that you're not supposed to marinate fish for a long time, but we prefer the flavor of fish that has marinated for 3-4 hours. So I marinated our tilapia for 3 hours.)

(recipe adapted from allrecipes.com)

After the fish was cooked, we assembled the tacos as you can see below (I used Mission White Corn Tortillas):

Gus gave one a try (Minus the salsa because he doesn't eat fruit. Ever.) and said it was "okay". Another sigh. He did like the tilapia and rice a lot - just not on a tortilla. I thought they were delicious!! But if you're not into fish tacos, I do recommend the grilled tilapia - it was very moist and had a ton of flavor. The cilantro lime rice is a great side dish for the fish, too.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think!