Lone Star FISH Tacos

I can just bet that most of my Midwestern friends are covering their eyes and sticking their fingers in their ears screaming, CRIPES SAKE, why would you put fish in a taco?! EH DERE, what's wrong with hamburger and Lawry's taco seasoning?

When I first moved to Utah, someone mentioned that the best fish tacos were served at a crazy looking joint on Fort Union, called Lone Star. I gasped. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to put fish in a taco. It was the most foreign concept I'd heard. Well Frog Eye Salad probably tops fish tacos but I'll leave that recipe for another day. A very distant day. Shudder. Sorry Utah.

But I continued to hear about fish tacos everywhere they served Mexican food, so I asked around. How did Utahns come to put fish in their tacos? The answer is simple really. Being on the left coast of the country, the Mexicans who migrated up North were mostly from the coastline of Mexico, not from the central area that fed immigrants into the Midwest. And being on the coast, naturally they used a lot of fish in their dishes.

So I made my first trip to Lone Star and fell in love with the limey, smokey tacos covered with coleslaw and a touch of lime dressing, served in a white corn tortilla. Light and refreshing. And their 'taco stand' is very cool including a broken down station wagon and old cowboy boots nailed to the fence posts.

The fish tacos were not difficult to recreate. I came up with a very simple version of their dressing, added a bit of jalapeno jack cheese, some tomatoes from my garden and hey, muy bueno, mi amigos. I think I could even talk some Wisconsites into trying one.

Chipotle Lime Dressing

• 1/4 cup Green Goddess Dressing
• 1 Tbsp fresh Lime Juice
• A couple dashes of Spice House Chipotle Pepper (or ground red pepper
• 1/8 Tsp Spice House Sweet Ancho Chile (your store brand of chile powder
  

Taco Ingredients

• Salmon (or other grilled fish) -marinated for 15 min in 2 Tbs veg oil and 2 Tbs lime juice and rubbed with Spice House Sweet Ancho Chile powder
• White Corn Tortillas
• Diced Tomatoes
• Jack or Jalepeno cheese, shredded
• Shredded cabbage (I bought a bag of cole slaw cabbage, already shredded)

To put together the tacos, you can brush a small about of oil on the tortillas and quickly heat them in a hot skillet, or microwave them for 15 seconds which will warm them nicely without the oil.

Load them with just a small handful of cabbage, then add a few small pieces of fish, tomatoes, cheese and drizzle with the Chipotle Lime Dressing. When it comes to tacos its always better to load less ingredients than to have everything fall out on the first bite.

Tuna with Grilled Watermelon

The lazy days of summer are here. I can't get motivated to do much more than the minimal cooking - rather, we've been grabbing bagged salads and adding tomatoes from my garden and sometimes resorting to cold cereal for dinner.

In fact this meal was from two weekends ago when I still had some gas in my motor. That's how little I've cooked lately.

Yawn. Stretch. Sigh. Is it Autumn yet?

So, a simple meal: Buy a couple tuna steaks, marinade them for 10 minutes in a mixture of 2 tablespoons soy sauce and 3 tablespoons olive oil (never marinate seafood longer than 20 minutes or the vinegar part of your marinade will precook it). Then sear them on a very hot grill for 3 minutes on each side (more if you don't like raw, less if you do).

Cut some thick slices of watermelon, spray or brush with olive oil, then grill for 2 min on each side and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. That vinegar is a beautiful accent to the sweetness of the watermelon.

Make a small salad with your favorite vinegarette and enjoy a warm summer evening before they are a memory.

A Fish Story

Lauren and I had our 2nd Annual Mother/Daughter Lunch in the mountains above Deer Valley Ski Resort. It's our new tradition and a real treat. The area is beautiful and the 10 minute lift ride up to the restaurant is relaxing with great views of Park City and the surrounding mountains. Relaxing if you don't think about the fact that you're hanging from a wire 100 feet off the ground.

The Royal Street Cafe has a beautiful, shady porch and award winning cuisine with items such as Sauteed Prawns with Basil Pappardelle and Shrimp and Lobster Margarita. The temperature there is usually 10 to 15 degrees cooler than in the valley where we live. On this day it was 80, while the valley was roaring up to 95 degrees. We were certainly glad to escape the heat.

We asked for a table on the porch which gave us great views of the mountains as well as the mountain bikers descending after riding the lift even higher with their bikes in tow.

As we were waiting for our table, I saw a plate pass by that looked wonderful. It appeared to have avocado and maybe something pink, like shrimp or crab with sauces drizzled on the side. So I stopped a waiter to inquire. He told me it was the Yellowfin Tuna Tartare. Hmm. Well, tartare usually implies the tuna would be raw. But I didn't see anything that looked very raw on that plate. Maybe, like sushi, the raw part was small and not that noticeable amongst all the other ingredients.

So we sat and ordered refreshments. Fresh Cherry Lemonade for me and Arnold Palmer fruit tea for Lauren.

Our waiter came around and I ordered the Tuna Tartare and Lauren ordered a salad with her favorite side dish, Parmesan Fries. A must-have when you are dining at an award winning restaurant on the top of a mountain.

Our plates arrived and my waiter said "Here's your tuna."

Huh?

I said, "Noooo, no, no that's not the Tuna Tartar." My waiter said, "Yes Ma'am, that's the tuna." Hmmm. "Well what's that pretty dish over there with all the avocado and tomato? That's what I thought I was ordering."

"Oh, well, that's the Dungeness Crab Tower."

Uh oh.

I'm a pretty adventurous eater but I have to tell you that all that wiggling, jiggling, raw fish flesh about did me in. It was mixed with small amounts of chopped egg, beets, cucumber, onion and lemon. It was served with herbed toasts points drizzled with lime-caper aioli. But that didn't help. It was still a large wiggly mass of raw fish.

I wasn't sure what to do. My waiter offered to take it back and replace it with the Crab Tower but I felt really wasteful doing that. And besides, Demi Moore eats fish raw.

So I got brave. I would take one bite and if it was awful, I'd send it back. After all, I've eaten sushi. I surely could force myself to choke down at least one mouthful. So I held my breath and took a bite.

OH MY GOODNESS. What a surprise. It was awesome. My brain was completely confused. My eyes were sending one message while my taste buds were sending another. It was so lemony and limey and just plain good. Even the French Fry Lady tried some and liked it. VERY, VERY, good.

So look for a really great recipe with RAW TUNA coming to this blog soon. Yep.

We finished our meal with the dessert special of the day. Green Tea and Cherry Ice Cream on Shortbread. Ah, something safe! It was wonderful.

I ate every bite, even the Orchid flower. Next year it will be a very hard choice between the tuna and crab. Maybe I should just go with something safe like the Eel Tacos.

The Spice House

Remember that little box that arrived on my front porch a few days ago? Remember I told you it held some tastes of Chicago? Remember my chicken obsession? It may be over. For now.

(Not really)

I was looking for a recipe to jazz up some salmon and halibut and happened upon a site called The Spice House that sort of flipped my switch. The more I read the more I wanted. I was all settled on just buying a few jars to replace some very old spice jars in my cabinet. But then it turned out shipping started at $12. It made no sense whatsoever to buy $12 worth of spices and then pay $12 for shipping. So I said to myself, well hey, I might as well get everything I was planning to buy over the next year in one fell swoop. So TA DA! Wow! And they are beautiful, sleek and so Chicago-esque. And, hey, those of you in Chicago and Milwaukee can actually drive to one of their four stores. How cool is that?

So let's take a tour. I love the name of this one and the color. I'll be using Lake Shore Drive to make Halibut or Lake Shore Drive Grilled Potatoes.

I am really excited about this one. Gateway To The North Maple Sugar Seasoning. Isn't that an awesome name? This is great for salmon or homemade bbq sauce. The Spice House has a recipe for Northern Nuts. That would make a great neighbor gift. It could be a great seasoning for fish or pork as well.

Salmon Seasoning stands up to the stronger taste of Salmon. Ingredients are salt, sesame seeds, dill seed, black, white, and green pepper, garlic, lemon peel, mustard seed, onion, caraway, rosemary, dill weed, and cayenne.

Smoked Spanish Paprika can be used as a marinade for grilled salmon. I can use this for Paprikash too.

And this, this is true cinnamon. Ceylon cinnamon is lighter, more delicate than the cinnamon we know called Cassia. I am so excited to try this in rice pudding, and blended in whipped cream as a topping for pie.

I bought two kinds of cocoa. One is dutched and one is natural. The natural is used in baking, is stronger flavored. The dutched is processed and takes some of the bitterness out and is used for dusting on whipped cream and to make hot cocoa. Coming soon, a lucious chocolate cake recipe. There is also The Spice House's Freedom From Tranquility Hot Cocoa recipe.

This Chicago Old Town Spiced Sugar is also used for sprinkling on toast or in coffee and tea. It would make a great topping for sugar cookies.

Pure Madagascar Vanilla Extract, Anise and Almond Extracts. I will use these in my Italian Pizzelle and Swedish cookie recipes. I've got to make this Almond Milk recipe.

Thanks for taking the tour!