Yummy Fish Tacos

YEA! I got my cholesterol results back and I am finally under 200. My good cholesterol rose two points, and I dropped from 162 to 107 in bad cholesterol without prescription pills! Thank you yummy vegetarian meals.

If any of you are vegans, you are probably not going to appreciate my "vegetarian" fish tacos. But these little tacos have so much filling, you don't need the fish to enjoy. I also recently found a friend's "pure vegetarian" blog for those of you who are hard-core veggies.

Fish tacos was a foreign concept to me five years ago. And when I say "foreign" I mean Californian, where I had my first taste at seafood Mexican. Since then I have been very attracted to this dish. Cheesecake Factory (several locations), Black Cat Burrito (Boone) and Cafe Capistrano (Raleigh) are the best restaurant fish tacos I have had to date. But these tender tacos are easy enough to make at home.

I first made fish tacos from Martha's Stewart's recipe. I have since made a few adjustments based on the other taco experiences I have had.

Fish Tacos

1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/4 small red cabbage, thinly shredded
1 lb tilapia or other firm fish (I find tilapia on better sales than most other fish)

1 jalapeno, cut in half

2 tsp olive oil

1 can refried beans or homemade beans

1 box Spanish rice (optional)

6 inch corn or whole wheat toritillas

favorite salsa (tropical varieties taste best e.g. peach or pineapple)

Pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Mix sour cream, lime juice and spices together and let sit. Slowly add sour cream mix to cabbage until you have a consistency you like, but don't drown your food. Cut tilapia in half long ways. Heat refried beans in a small pot with 1/4 cup of water or make your own. Make boxed rice according to package instructions. Add oil to hot pan and add jap pepper. Push pepper around to get pan flavored with the spice. Add fish to pan and sear, turning once, until fish is done. Depending on the thickness of the fish, this will not take very long.

Steam tortillas in a damp hand towl for one minute. Layer tortilla with beans, fish, rice (if using) and slaw. Top with salsa and pepitas. You might learn now that 6 inch tortilla is not going to hold a lot of these fillers, so be sparing.

This taco recipe also goes well with cut pork chops and shredded chicken.