Tortilla Encrusted Tilapia $4.44

wow! Nine months into the blog! Can you believe it? Kim and I have planned out, shopped, cooked and bloged about roughly 270 dinners, and while we have both shared with eachother and prepared many different foods that have been our individual family traditions, we have also both expiremented with meals that niether of us had tried before. I have to say, we have had relative success in doing so, and at times very pleased pallets of our family/and sometimes friends. That was not the case however with this mexican inspired Tilapia dish I dared to prepare. I had seen a recipe somewhere for Tortilla Encrusted Tilapia, and I couldnt for the life of me remember where, so I went on line and found tons and tons of recipes and kind of incorporated a bunch of ideas in one, and came up with a fish dish that I will never make again. I used cilantro, lime and a small amount of jalepeno, and that was all good, I think, but the problem was the chips. In my quest sometimes to be health, fat and cholesteral concsious, I sacrifice too much. I selected a no fat, no salt, low cholesteral blue chip(not from Aldi) and the chips quite frankly were awful. They did nothing to help the flavor of the fish, infact they had a very strong stale tasting flavor. I barely ate a 1/3 of the fish before scraping off the crust and eating the fish alone. I am not done with the recipe concept and am going to try it again sooner then later, using a chip with some fat and salt. The irony is, I grind up the chips very fine, and I dont even use a lot of chips per fish filet.
True to our promise I will blog the recipe and picture, but I wouldnt reccomend this fish. Oh btw, not even the whipped avocado topping helped this fish.
Ingredients
4 Tilapia Filets(whitefish, orange roughy or red snapper will do) $ 2.64
1 cup crushed tortilla chips(about 40 medium chips)I used no fat blue chips, but non/non fat would be better:) .30
1/4 cup chopped cilantro .20
1/4 cup finely diced jalepeano ..20
1 cup unseasoned bread crumbs.40

1 tbsp cup paprika .10
salt and pepper to taste .10
1/4 cup flour .10
2 limes .40

pat fish with thin coat of flour on both sides. Combine 2nd thru 5th dry ingredient(mix well) coat fish in tortilla/bread crumb combo. Bake in oven at 400 for 10-12 minutes or until fish is flakey to the touch of a fork.
for Avacodo topping
1 medium ripe avocado
1/4 cup sour cream
salt and pepper
in food processor or blender place avacado, sour cream and salt and pepper, blend until smooth and creamy

top on fish

Portabella Mushroom Pizza (crustless) $4,22

No crust on your pizza you gluten intolerant person
No carbs in your pizza you low carb eater
Veggie lover
Food Adventurer

whatever the reason for trying this crustless, portabella mushroom based pizza, CONGRATULATIONS for breaking out of the norm!

Ingredients - SERVES ONE

1 lg. portabella mushroom cap $2.99

1/4 cup pasta sauce .20
1/4 cup part-skim mozzarella .25
1 cup cooked spinach(frozen or fresh) .60
1 clove garlic.08
1.tbsp dried basil .10
fat-free cooking spray

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Wipe the cap clean of any dirt. Trim mushroom stem flat with cap.
Place mushroom cap on foil and bake for 5-10 minutes before proceeding with toppings. Remove from oven.
Spray both sides of mushroom cap with cooking spray. Place on baking dish, gill side up (that's the fancy, official name for the black feathery side).
Cover generously with garlic and sauce, then top with spinach, cheese and basil. Place in oven and bake for 6-8 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. Broil for the last minute or two if you want your cheese browned on top.

Serve immediately.

I've listed this as an appetizer because it would be a fun party food cut into little wedges!

Here's a picture of another of those nights where my dish and Barbara's look EXACTLY the same.  we really do think alike on these projects so frequently!  YUMMY

Ginger Beef

Found this recipe on line while thinking about Chinese food. This sounds like a nice flavorful dish, particularly when served with frozen stir-fry veggies from Aldi. Rice will also be served in our house because then the world will be right - rice does that around here!
Ginger Beef
Ingredients:
1 lb flank steak
2 tbsp lite soy sauce .10
2 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar .15
1/2 cup water
2 tsp ginger, ground .20
1 tsp garlic powder .10
10 slices (1" dia) fresh ginger root .70
8 large sized scallions .40
2 tsp corn starch .10

Directions
Combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, water, ground ginger and ground garlic.
Defrost and slice meat into 1" strips.
Cut against the grain of the meat.
Put in refrigerator container and place in refrigerator at least 20 minutes.
Peel ginger root, slice into thin wafers.
Dice them up with kitchen knife.
Wash scallions and slice them into small wafers.
Heat iron skillet or wok to high temperature (400 degrees) and spray with cooking spray.
When vegetables are browned, add meat, liquid and all, to skillet or wok.
Stir, focusing on browning all of the redness from the meat. The browning and cooking of the meat takes about 10 minutes; be sure not to run out of liquid. ... If so, add 1 tbsp water at a time until no burning will occur.

Mix corn starch in small amount of water at very end of cooking. Pour slowly and stir quickly.

Number of Servings: 4

Linguine with Pea Pesto $2.41

We bring you yet another non traditional pesto dish. This time the pesto is green in color, but once again there is no basil in sight. This recipe is inspired by Martha Stewart herself. While I was surfing the web looking for recipes with peas, I stumbled upon this gem, and it looked good, and easy and definitely cheap, so we gave it a shot. The results were great! leaving half the peas whole was a great idea!
Heres what you need:
1 lb frozen peas $ 1.09
8 oz pasta(any kind) .50
1/4 cup almonds.40
2 tablespoons olive oil .20
2 garlic cloves .20
pepper .02

Boil noodles according to instruction
in food processor or blender pour 1/2 lb peas
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup almonds
dash of salt and pepper
blend
when noodles are done boiling, drain and pour 1/4 cup pasta water in food processor with pea pesto
blend again
remove and in a large skillet mix in pasta, pesto, remaining olive oil and peas
saute all together for a few minutes

serve

Cowboy Caviar weekly reorg...$5.64

Wholly cow- see, I told you I was having some organization issues
TONIGHT is the Packers vs. Bears game... uhm, tortilla encrusted whitefish isn't gonna cut it.
WE NEED POWER FOOD.
We're making chili
And our side dish will be...

COWBOY CAVIAR! (ehh, wait, I don't like the football Cowboys either)
can't wait!

Cowboy PACKER Caviar ... it does have both green (avocado) and gold (corn!).


INGREDIENTS
1 (15oz) cans black beans, rinsed .69
1 (17 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained .80
2 large tomatoes, chopped .90
2 large avocado, diced $1.58
1/2 red onion, chopped .20

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro .20
3-4 Tbsp lime juice .60
2 Tbsp olive oil .60
1 tsp salt .05
1/2 tsp pepper.02

First mix the cilantro, lime, oil, salt & pepper in a small bowl - then toss the rest of the items in a medium size bowl - cover with the "dressing", refrigerate then serve with chips, over chicken, with large shrimp, or just with a fork. This is so a "can't go wrong" dish.

Meat Sauce for pasta $4.76

When I was growing up in a small town in Wisconsin, where eveyone eats meat for every meal, and dinner is for family and fellowship - and we have funny things like spaghetti feeds and casseroles, i did not know, seriously, that people ate spaghetti without meat. REALLY, a marinara must be something that you pour over chicken on top of your pasta. We ate the following ... and we loved it. and sometimes we doubled up on the mushrooms, and sometimes we used ground venison instead of ground beef. that's total change. And trust me we NEVER used shiritake noodles instead of pasta!

1 1/2 to 2 lbs lean ground beef 2.29
1 medium onion .30
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes .69
1 8 oz can tomato sauce .49
1 can mushrooms .49
1/3 cup brown sugar .10
2 tbsp worchestershire sauce.20
1 tsp oregano .05
1 tsp basil .05
1 tsp minced garlic or 1/2 tsp garlic powder .10

in a large frying pan or dutch oven brown the ground beef (which is broken into small pieces) and onion. Drain if necessary. Add everything else and allow to simmer for as long as you can. 30 minutes is pretty much the minimum, 2 hours is ideal. If possible, make, simmer for 30 minutes, then refrigerate and reheat the next day for super flavor-filled meat sauce.

Serve approximately 1/2 cup serving over cooked spaghetti or vermicelli. A salad and garlic bread with this sauce would constitute a Wisconsin Spaghetti Feed...oh, and chocolate milk (really?).

Here it is "Kid style"