Simple Hobby Homesteading

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Tilapia with Mango Cucumber Salsa and Saffron Rice

So I am trying to juggle this whole blogging thing with keeping up with my home upkeep, family, hobby farm, Master’s degree program, cycling training and soap/lotion making… this morning the laundry won out and the tilapia recipe blog post got pushed to the back burner.

However, here it is! I love fish and with my mammal meat allergy it is a “safe food” for me (woohoo for fish not being a mammal!) so we eat quite a bit of it. My sons devour all fish but especially love lighter fish like tilapia and mahi mahi. We are all suckers for a great haddock or swordfish steak on the grill as well, yum!

Admittedly I will not be eating fish again for a little bit because I WAY overindulged eating way too much… I was stuffed to the gills!

**hehe I seriously just laughed at my own little joke right there.

This has got to be one of the easiest recipes I make. I usually make up a big batch of the mango cucumber salsa so I can snack for days with chips. It keeps remarkably well and much longer than tomato based salsas.

Tilapia with (or without) Mango Cucumber Salsa

What you will need:

Mango Cucumber Salsa: This is enough for 4 to 6 filets, feel free to double or triple for late night snacking with some tortilla chips!

2 ripe mangos : (gives a little when squeezed, reddish in color but you do not want mushy or big brown spots, peeled), sliced (there’s an oblong pit in the middle that runs almost the length of the mango, I just slice off the four sides, dice those up then slice off whatever other pieces I can away from the pit and try not to eat them all), and medium diced.

2 cucumbers: medium to small or 1 large. Peel, slice in half long ways and scoop out the seeds with a spoon (you should be able to just run the spoon down the middle and get them out easily). Medium dice the cucumber(s). You can also buy the seedless English cucumbers and just dice them.

1/4 to 1/2 of a red onion: diced small

2 jalapenoes: Diced small. Wear gloves if you will be handling little kids or babies afterwards.

Cilantro: YUM! I love cilantro so I add a lot. Normal people would proabbly add about 1/4 cup chopped cilantro.

Lime Juice: The juice of one lime or 1 tsp of lime juice from a bottle (or those cute little plastic lime things)

Salt and Pepper to taste: I use a tiny pinch of pepper and two tiny pinches of salt

Mix it all together and put it in the fridge.

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 On to the fish!

Get yourself some fish filets (tilapia, mahi mahi, any light fish is good for this). I always keep a couple pounds in the freezer because they thaw super fast and are a great last minute meal. We cook 2 pounds of fish at a time but once again, when my boys find a food they like they eat us out of house and home and they like fish.

Olive oil (optional… you can also use butter to cook the fish)

Old Bay Blackened Seasoning (or make your own using this recipe… Blackened Fish Seasoning)

Butter  (optional)…Oldest son loves to dip his pieces of fish in melted butter rather than eating the mango cucumber salsa. It is usually recommended to cook your fish in butter but we have switched over to olive oil because it’s a slightly healthier alternative (you get a better crust with butter) and youngest son doesn’t like his fish as crusty.

Directions: There’s two ways to make this fish… either in butter or in olive oil. Butter will create more of a crust on your fish which is super yummy but we do olive oil because the rest of my family does not bleed dairy. I’ll give you directions for both ways…

Butter Directions:

1. Melt enough butter in your pan (I love cooking fish in cast iron cookware as it helps get a nice crust) on medium heat so that it will cover the bottom (yes this may mean almost a stick of butter… skip down to olive oil if you are scared you may clog every artery in your body… I was born and raised in Wisconsin so we have butter flowing through our veins)

2. Melt a little more butter in a dish that you can drench the fish in (in other words both sides of each filet will be covered in butter as you will be bathing the fish in butter).

3. Drench (lay) each fish filet in the butter and sprinkle very liberally with Old Bay Blackened Seasoning or your homemade version (link here)

4. You will want some sort of splatter screen for your pan… Now turn up the heat to medium-high and cook on one side until blackened and somewhat crispy. Flip over and cook the other side. Add a little more butter whenever necessary. If family members (youngest son wannabes) do not like their fish as crispy just do not cook as long or use the olive oil method below.

Great Pampered Chef splatter screen that I can put in the dishwasher or handwash easily

5. Remove from pan, plate and add your salsa (if you want) or melt more butter to dip fish in (if you are an oldest son wannabe).

Olive Oil Directions:

1. Heat 4 Tablespoons of olive over medium heat.

2. Drench (lay) each fish filet in a dish or plate of olive oil and sprinkle very liberally with Old Bay Blackened Seasoning or your homemade version (link here)

3 filets with seasoning and two waiting to be seasoned. I ran out of our homemade seasoning so I went with the oldy but goody Old Bay Blackened!

4. You will want some sort of splatter screen for your pan… Now turn up the heat to medium-high and cook on one side until blackened and somewhat crispy. Flip over and cook the other side. Add a little more olive oil whenever necessary. If family members (youngest son wannabes) do not like their fish as crispy just do not cook as long.

5. Remove from pan, plate and add your salsa (if you want) or melt butter to dip fish in (if you are an oldest son wannabe).

So I totally forgot to take a picture with the fish in the pan to show you what they look like when you flip because my family was way hungry and fussing at me to stop taking pictures and just cook supper already! Imagine fish in this pan and you’ll get the picture…

Imagine fish in here…

The nice thing about this recipe is it lends itself well to the entire family and many different side dishes. We chose a spring mix salad and Jasmine Saffron rice (recipe here). Many nights we just cook up some jasmine or brown rice and have a great fish dinner. The boys like their’s without the mango salsa which is easy enough 🙂

Happy Eating,

    Jhenna

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This is a great do it yourself (DIY) recipe knockoff of the Old Bay Blackened Seasoning that we love so much on fish. I got the original recipe from All Recipes.com quite a while ago but made a few changes to fit our family’s tastes. I made notes of the changes I made so you can either stick with the standby or go the way of the Conways 😉

Blackened Seasoning for Fish or Chicken

• 2 teaspoons ground paprika
• 2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder (original recipe called for only 2 teaspoons of garlic powder)
• 4 teaspoons dried leaf thyme
• 2 teaspoons  onion powder
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper, or to your taste (original was just 1 teaspoon)
• 1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon)

However, Old Bay Blackened is a pretty inexpensive spice blend so if you don’t think you’ll use the above spices in other recipes/spice mixes it may be best to just buy the Old Bay Blackened Seasoning. We buy and grow spices in bulk because we mix up a ton of our own blends and give them as gifts as well so we always try to have this blend on hand (though yup, we do run out of certain spices often… can’t seem to keep enough thyme in this house… and I grab the Old Bay Blackened at the store sometimes).

Place all ingredients in a jar and store in a cool dark place. Shake jar well before each use.

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From time to time I will have contributors who add to the depth of my blog. Though I am a jack of all trades I consider myself a master at none. Some of these folks are truly masters in their fields or at least a TON more knowledgeable than I am.

This whole gluten free and nut free way of life is foreign to me and I honestly don’t think I could give up gluten unless it was seriously compromising my or my family’s health. For some folks, it is certainly compromising their health and the gluten free (or lower gluten) is certainly something that a ton of people are looking for right now!

Enter Michele… (one “l”, yup I know it’s weird… took me a long time to remember to spell it right!). I am thrilled to introduce you all to my family as I continue on this journey through simple hobby homesteading. This evening I’d like for you to meet my sister-in-law Michele… younger sister to my husband and seriously one of the most amazing women I will ever be blessed to know! Now I even get to be related to her!

I’ll save the whole wonderful “how we met” story for after her article because I know there are a great many of you who seriously want to know how you can use chickpea flour on the path to a healthier you…

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Author:

Michele Magloire

Chickpea Flour

Looking for Gluten free, high protein, and or grain substitute… try chickpea flour. Chickpea flour can be found in most grocery stores. Other names for chickpea flour include gram flour, cici flour and garbanzo bean flour.

If you cannot find it, it’s super easy to make. Get some dried chickpeas and run them through a coffee grinder, food processor or blender. I personally grind my own because I’ve learned that some products sold outside the US are not required to list allergy warnings. My husband has a peanut allergy, so to make sure he is safe I grind my own flour.

Health benefits of chickpeas aka garbanzo beans

Chickpeas are rich in fiber, high in protein, good source of vitamins (including iron, B-6, magnesium, and potassium), low glycemic index, and they can lower cholesterol. “Participants in a recent study reported more satisfaction with their diet when garbanzo beans were included, and they consumed fewer processed food snacks during test weeks in the study when garbanzo beans were consumed.” (http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=58)

There are tons of recipes that call for some type of wheat-based flour, whether whole-wheat, all-purpose or cake flour, but you can replace wheat flour with chickpea flour. It adds a nutty taste, and a boost of protein and iron; it works well in any dish, from baked goods to soups and sauces. You can substitute 7/8 cup of chickpea flour for every 1 cup of wheat flour. For yeast breads, add xanthan or guar gum to replace the gluten.

15 chickpea flour recipes

http://www.mynaturalfamily.com/recipes/garbanzo-beans/15-best-chickpea-flour-recipes/

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Soooo… how I met Michele. It’s a funny story really 🙂

I was in air force basic training 2 weeks after I graduated high school. Miss Michele Conway, I think 2 maybe 3 years older than me, was in my basic training flight along with maybe 30 other women. Force all these women to spend 6.5 weeks together day in and day out and you’re gonna see every side of them. To say that we all got to know each other well is the understatement of the century. I think we all had a love hate relationship with each other (though some the scales definitley tipped more to one side)

Michele was (and still is) strong, steady, independent and bound and determined to break her government issued glasses (they were called birth control glasses because they were so ugly no guy would even look at a woman wearing them). She came into basic with two other women that she knew from home (Massachusetts) and they were constantly coming up with ways to destroy their glasses so they could talk the TI (training instructor) into letting them wear their contacts or regular glasses. Every time they tried to destroy their glasses (underneath the floor buffer was especially creative) SSgt Grant seemed to find out and yell at me for it. You see, I was the “Dorm Chief” and got in trouble for everything that everyone else did wrong on top of my own screw ups! I had enough of my own screw ups so I wasn’t a fan of Michele and the others causing more tongue lashings directed my way. They seemed to love it or maybe I was just jaded… I got an extra 2 hours of door guard duty from 2-4am for the floor buffer fiasco.

I remember one day we (the whole flight but Michele and I were often about the same speed so we woudl run together) were running (I had just gotten done with a wrestling season back home so I was in the best shape of my life) and chatting back and forth… Michele always was a great runner. We were far ahead of most of our flight but the TI came up behind us and started screaming at us about how if we could chat we weren’t running fast enough. This guy was a machine… he said he better not beat us to the end or we’d be sorry… the man was like a Kenyan Olympic runner so neither Michele nor I took him seriously when he took off… there was no way we could ever beat him (bad choice on our part for not even trying… baaaaaad choice). He took off and we went back to chatting as there were no other TIs around. He must have circled around without us seeing because next thing I know there was someone coming up fast behind us breathing hard and all of a sudden I heard, “You two had better not be talking…” and he proceded to scream at us full steam (with so much profanity it would make a sailor blush) while never breaking stride… he had some sort of crazy lung capacity… and a lazy eye but that’s a whole different funny story.

Anyways, I have no clue how that run ended… I think we had to run extra but I can’t remember… do you remember Michele? Anyways… I think that kinda started a bond with us though we never quite got back onto that friendly of terms until after Kevin (her brother) and I were married as we had many run ins with difference of opinion for months after that awesome run.

Basic training was done, we were all heading off to our separate tech schools. I was heading to Keesler AFB with Michele’s best friend and Michele told her that Kevin was at Keesler AFB (he had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and joined the Air Force Reserve) so she should look him up and say hi (Michele’s friend had known Kevin for quite a few years). I was going to the same school as Michele’s friend at Keesler AFB (in Mississippi)so I kinda tagged along a few weeks later as she went to Kevin’s dorm to say hi and wish him warm greetings from his sister.

Maybe I should mention I was engaged to my high school sweetheart at this point and he was all I talked about throughout basic training and the beginning of tech school. Well, things fell apart with that “relationship” just about the time I met Kevin. We got to know each other and 3 months later we were married.

I do believe Michele’s words were along the lines of “I told ya to look him up and say “Hi”, not marry him.” She was certainly looking after her older brother and didn’t want him to be my “rebound guy.” I didn’t understand that then (I was all of 18) but I certainly understand and respect it now. That was 16 years ago and the Lord has given Kevin and I a marriage that we have worked hard for (and continue to work for) but full of the most amazing renewing spirit and blessings.

Michele and I still have our differences (actually not many that I can think of anymore!)but I truly respect and love this woman as a dear sister. She was recently married (my boys love that they have an Uncle Serge as he just sounds “tough”… he is actually pretty darn tough!) and now lives off in Cyprus so we certainly do not see her as often as we would like.

The boys love that their Aunt Michele seems to be way “cooler” than their mom because she’s into crossfit, ceramics (they are still amazed at how good she is), UFC/MMA, video games and computers, anything zombie or shark related, and standup paddle boarding. She just sounds like a cool aunt doesn’t she! However I love her amazing knowledge and passion in cooking, gardening, traveling and the fact that this lady is well read! Her and her brother have an insatiable appetite for books and knowledge, it’s so neat! She always says she loved her time in the Air Force (I assume she is especially talking about the time she spent with me in basic…. ummmmmm probably not lol) and working as a software engineer. She is certainly embarking on a new path in life as a wife and I wish her so many blessings in this marriage! When she speaks, I listen as it’s gona be good stuff. Love you Michele and thanks for writing!

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