Fish Tostadas with Lime Black Bean Sauce

Hello, everybody! Mary Jane here and I have a delicious recipe for fish tostadas. (Actually, this could be set on rice or salad, too, but I like some crunch with my veggies.)

Ingredients:

One package of breaded fish fillets, or bread and fry up your preferred fish

two cups corn

two cups black beans

four avocados

3 small tomatoes, chopped

4 tsp chopped onion

Veggie sauce:

2 tsp olive oil

3 tsp honey

4 tsp lime juice

dash of cumin

dash of cayenne pepper

Cream sauce:

2 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp fresh cilantro fresh cilantro

4 tsp lime juice

1 cup mayo

1/4 tsp cayenne

4 oz canned green chiles, mild

salt to taste

4 or 5 corn tortillas

salt to taste

Oil for frying

So, chop the avocados, tomatoes, onion and add to the corn in a medium bowl. 

 Mix the lime juice, cayenne pepper, honey, salt, and garlic together and add to the veggies above.

 Random pictures of chopped tomatoes. *sigh* These were from a store. How I miss fresh tomatoes right now!

 Prep the cilantro so it's ready to add as a garnish. I'm NOT a cilantro fan. Even the smell of it makes me queasy. But my husband loves it, so here we are... lots of cilantro. Because love.

 I love fresh limes. :)

Heat about 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil in a small pan until hot enough to crisp corn tortillas. 

I also made some corn chips for those who preferred mostly veggies and just some chips for a garnish.

                                                    
As soon as the tostada is out of the oil and cooled, pile on the veggies and beans. This is a bit of a deceptive photo since the reality was almost all the ingredients were separate because I have picky eaters, so people were adding what they wanted, with or without sauce.

 Now, add the mayonnaise, garlic, lime juice, cayenne pepper and cilantro to a blender and blend completely. Add salt to taste.

 The fish should be cooked or near cooked by now. I picked up the wrong fillets so these weren't as crunchy as I wanted, but they were still good.

 Add the cilantro cream sauce and garnish with fresh cilantro.

A shot of the tortillas. If I wasn't so scared of hot oil, I'd make fresh tortilla chips every day!

Enjoy! I hope everyone is surviving the dark days of February. :) We haven't been felled by sickness yet  (knock on wood) and I have a dream of escaping the winter without any terrible colds or stomach flu!
Until next week!

Key Lime rolls

Hello, everybody! Mary Jane here and I have a great recipe for spring! Warm, sweet, and a little bit sour-- perfect!

First, isn't this the most beautiful rainbow? We saw it when we were working the Cub Scout fundraiser. The goal was to sell 20 bags of coffee or raise $125. We'd never sold anything before, so we Googled. Apparently, the first rule of marketing is to prove to your customers that your product has value. 

Hmmmm. How did we do that? We rented a coffee dispenser, brewed five gallons of coffee, and stood outside Walmart giving out free samples. (And cookies. Everyone loves cookies.) You know, a lot of people can't drink or don't want to drink coffee. But they would donate. 

Also, I paid my older kids to entertain us with some lively sea shanties, hymns, and folk songs. Probably half the money we made was from their playing but since busking is illegal in our town, I made sure to let people know they were supporting the Boy Scouts. Total raised? Over $2,000! So proud of all my kids pulling together and getting the job done. :)

 Now, for our spring recipe! We've made this lime "marmalade" before when Key limes are in season and love it as a glaze on cookies and cakes. This time, we made some sweet rolls with 2 tsp of lime zest, and added the glaze. PERFECT. Not too sweet. Not too sour.
                                      

So, the glaze needs 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of water, 4 TBS of lime zest, and 1/2 cup lime juice, fresh squeezed. Boil everything together, then turn the heat down to a simmer and let it cook, stirring constantly for 20 minutes. It should reduce to a nice glaze. Taste it to make sure it's not too sweet. Add more lime juice if necessary.

Looks bad. Tastes SO GOOD.

 I like to add butter to mine because real butter makes everything better!!

For a garnish, lightly heat half slices of lime in a little bit of the syrup. Don't let it boil or the pith will make everything bitter. Enjoy!