Leftover Wednesday - Skinnytaste.com's Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos

This is a pic of one of my tacos. Please go to skinny taste.com and look at Gina's  photo - her's are pretty!

I am pretty proud of us this week!  We had very little leftover today.  We've been eating leftovers before making new meals.  Yeah us!  My wonderful friend, Julia, who shared the Grilled Greek Chicken Kabobs and Kraft Foods recipe site with me years ago, shared another recipe site with me last week: Skinny Taste.  Julia also gave me the names of some recipes she's tried from the website.  One was Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos.  Tilapia happens to be a staple that I keep in my freezer but I don't have a ton of recipes, so I was excited to get a "thumbs up" from Jules on this one.

Going through the fridge this afternoon, I discovered that the only leftovers I had were baked potatoes and guacamole ingredients.  I had heard about baked potatoes in the crock pot from my friend Clair last year and I've seen them on Pinterest a lot, too.  So I made 4 of them on Monday.  Awesome!  When I wanted to avoid heating the house up with the oven for baked potatoes, I just did them in the microwave.  But the quality is not there from the microwave.  I'll never do them in the oven or microwave again.  I chose not to use the potatoes for dinner tonight because they always get used up in my breakfast hashes.

The hubs makes a fantastic guacamole.   He was going to make some this past weekend, but it didn't happen.  When I pulled the guac fixins out of the fridge, I immediately thought of the Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos.  So the unused avocado, tomato, cilantro, jalepeno, lime and onion, as well as the tilapia and corn tortillas I had on hand, all went into these tacos.

The hubs and I loved them; B did not.  The recipe calls for 1 pound of tilapia and says it makes 8 tacos.  I pulled 3 tilapia fillets from the freezer, weighing a little under 12 oz total, and cut the rest of the ingredients down to 3/4 of what the recipe called for.  And we still had plenty for 8 full tacos.  Next time, I'll cut the recipe in half because I don't want this leftover - not a fan of reheating fish.  However, I bet the leftovers would be great cold, all on their own, or tossed in a cold green or rice salad with a vinaigrette.

I tried one other recipe from this site over the past week - Chicken Rollatini with Spinach alla Parmigiana.  Did not turn out well.  I was the only one who would eat more than one bite and I just forced my portion down.  It was totally user error, though.  Next time, I will sauté or steam fresh spinach instead of using frozen (I end up with more leaf and less stem that way) and will not put so much stuffing in each breast.

I look forward to trying many more recipes from Skinny Taste!  If you try the tacos, or if you try any other recipes from Skinny Taste, please let me know how you liked them!

Recipe: Quick and Tasty Tilapia

I've been making this dish for years.  So easy to prep and so delicious, this is a great dish for people to get their feet wet with cooking fish.  Tilapia is so mild and versatile, you can put your favorite flavor or seasoning on it and that's what it will taste like.  Before posting this, I combed the internet to find the original recipe, because I know I did not come up with it.  Here it is, a Paula Deen recipe from Food Network.  See?  Not every recipe from Paula Deen is bad for you.  This one doesn't even have butter in it!  Y'all know I love me some Paula Deen, and I've already answered the haters regarding her diabetes.

This tilapia recipe is simple.  You marinate your fillets in oil (she uses olive oil but since I am allergic to that, I just use canola), orange zest, orange juice, grated fresh ginger, tabasco sauce, salt and pepper for an hour and then grill.  I buy the bags of frozen, individually-wrapped tilapia fillets form Wegmans or Costco and they are pretty thin.  So I only need to cook them 3 minutes a side.  Paula's directions are longer but she uses thicker filets.

Tonight, I used my indoor, electric panini press/grill/griddle.  I got this for Christmas 2010 and used it only once between then and April of this year.  But in the last 2 weeks I have used it 5 times and I love it!  Anywho, since I lowered the top onto the fish, cooking it like it was in a George Foreman grill, it was done in 3 minutes flat; no need to turn over.  I've cooked it on the gas grill before, but not directly on the grate; I line the grate with foil and cook it on that.  No grill marks, but it still absorbs the grill flavor.  I've never made the Mango Coconut Rise she serves it with; just plain rice and a veg.  But I will have to try her rice over the Summer.  Enjoy!