Fish Tacos

So the hubs and I decided to start a weight loss competition this past Monday between us and another married couple that we're friends with. In doing so, we've been trying new recipes to cut down on eating out. Needless to say, we've also been trying to make healthy recipes. Well last night I think we hit the jackpot of all recipes: fish tacos! It was literally one of the most delicious and satisfying healthy meals I have ever had. It's no pizza or macaroni, but I didn't feel like a disgusting cow after I ate it either. So, I decided to share with you. Because I think you'll love it too!

I mean, my mouth is watering just looking at this picture. I really wish we had had leftovers. 

Ingredients:

3/4 c fat-free plain Greek yogurt

1/4 c fresh cilantro, chopped

4 Tbsp low sodium taco seasoning

1 lb white fish fillets, cut into 2 inch pieces

2 tsp olive oil

Juice from 1 lemon or 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

Shredded cabbage

2 Roma tomatoes, diced

1 avocado, sliced or diced

1/2 red onion, diced

Package of small flour wheat tortillas

How to make:

Combine plain yogurt, cilantro, and 2 Tbsp taco seasoning mix into a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, and the rest of the taco seasoning into a small bowl. 

Cut the fish.

Place the fish on a tinfoil covered baking sheet and brush the olive oil mixture onto the pieces. 

Broil on high for 5-10 minutes or until fish is flaky. While the fish is cooking, chop your veggies. (And if you're new to cooking, make sure you wash your cutting board free of fish juice). We don't need anybody getting sick.

Warm up your tortillas in the microwave. You could also use corn tortillas to make it even healthier, but I absolutely detest the texture of corn tortillas. So we went with wheat flour tortillas. 

Spread some of your Greek yogurt mixture onto your tortillas. 

Add your fish and top with tomatoes, avocado, onion, and shredded cabbage. And if you're a sauce person like me, I added more of the yogurt mixture on top!

And there you have it. Some healthy fish tacos. Bon appétit! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Strawberry Cupcakes

Now that the VDay hype is over and I've bored you to death with all of those projects, I can tell you my recipe for my cream cheese icing I use on my strawberry cupcakes. 

One of these days I'll learn how to make strawberry cupcakes from scratch (because that would be delicious) but for time's sake, the ones from the box will do. This is probably my favorite boxed cake mix.

They aren't kidding about the moist part, either. I also discovered that if you cook them for the lowest amount of time it recommends, they are typically more moist. Nobody likes dried out cake.

Now, for the part that really matters, the cream cheese icing. I don't think there is any icing that goes with strawberry cake better than this one. And did I mention it's super easy?

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)

8oz package of cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups of confectioners sugar

*3 cups is a rough estimate, I always just judge by stiffness (for piping)

Beat the butter and cream cheese in a bowl

Mix in the vanilla

Mix in the confectioners sugar a cup at a time

If you want to make them pretty, I typically pipe the icing with the large open star tip. Then I add some of the pretty sprinkles I got on sale after VDay one year. Lastly, I stuff my face (after I take pretty pictures of them).

Now, go make some cupcakes and eat 1 (or 2 or 3). :)

Creamy Tomato Cajun Chicken Pasta

This Valentine's, I was delegated the task of making VDay dinner. (Not sure how that happened)

I figured some kind of pasta would be appropriate for a VDay meal, but spaghetti is too easy and too...blah.  So I searched and searched for some kind of cajun chicken pasta recipe (because that's always my favorite at restaurants), but I could never find one I just absolutely thought sounded delicious. I wanted something with a creamy tomato sauce and none of the ones I came across were actually "creamy" ....they all had big chunks of tomato in them. Yuck. So, I kind of combined different recipes and kind of just winged it. And this is how it turned out:

Here's what you need:

1 box of farfalle (bowtie) pasta

5 skinless, boneless chicken breast tenders

2 tablespoons cajun seasoning

1 red bell pepper

For the sauce:

1-14oz can of tomato soup

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

2 cloves of garlic

Salt and Pepper to taste

Here's how to make it:

Cook the pasta according to box and drain

Cut the chicken tenders into strips

Toss the chicken in the cajun seasoning until fully coated

Julienne the bell pepper*

Saute the chicken for 5-7 minutes on med heat (no pink left)

Toss in the bell pepper strips and saute for another 4-5 minutes

*(For the non-cooking-savvy people like me, julienne = strips)

To make the sauce:

Add the tomato sauce to a saucepan and heat on med heat

Mince your garlic and add to pan

Once this comes to a boil, add the heavy cream

Stir continuously so it doesnt burn

Add salt and pepper to taste

Once heated thoroughly, remove from heat to let thicken

I didn't start my sauce soon enough to have it thicken before serving, so our sauce was a little runny. We also decided the sauce was a little bland and might be better with something such as a red pepper spice to give it a little more flavor.

Pour some sauce over your noodles, add the chicken and peppers, then sprinkle some grated parmesan on top, and voila. Dinner is served.  I also made garlic breadsticks (from the frozen section) and caesar salad (from a bag).

I also made dessert (which I mentioned in my last post but couldn't tell you what it was).

I made none other than the fiance's favorite:

German Chocolate Cake.

I wish I could say I made it from scratch. But all the recipes I found looked way too time consuming and stressful. So I stuck with the box. I cooked it according to instructions, but to keep my cake moist, I always cook it for the least amount of time the box says to.  After cooling, I iced it. I normally just use the German chocolate icing, but since it's not exactly my fave (and we were both eating it for dessert), I also used a tub of milk chocolate icing. I iced the bottom layer and the sides with the milk chocolate, then iced the top with the coconut icing. My type-A personality led me to piping 2 layers of chocolate icing around the outside. Just so it didn't look quite so pathetic.

And there you have it, my "homeade" VDay dinner. Beats going out to eat on such a busy night.

What did you do for Valentine's?

Cucumber Tomato Salad

In my attempts to be healthy and get in shape for the wedding, I've been eating out less and cooking more at home. I've also been trying to eat more vegetables. One of my favorite things is the cucumber tomato salad from Tazikis. So, I decided to take a shot at making it. I've tried to make it before, but used balsamic vinegar. It was good, but it wasn't the right flavor. So, this time I tried to find a recipe that used apple cider vinegar. But I couldn't find any recipe I really liked or had all the stuff for. So I decided to wing it. I NEVER wing recipes, but I did it anyways and it turned out to be amazing (surprisingly). So I wanted to share my spin on the recipe.

Ingredients

3 cucumbers

3 Roma tomatoes

1/2 Purple onion

1/4 cup olive oil

4 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp garlic salt

Feta cheese

Preparation

Dice the cucumbers and tomatoes and place into a large bowl

Slice the onion into rings and place in bowl

Add the oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic salt

Stir all the ingredients until everything is coated

Sprinkle Feta cheese on top to your liking

Marinate in the fridge for 1-2 hours

Enjoy!

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

On Halloween, I made cupcakes for my study group/friends and my ICM group.

(ICM is our Intro to Clinical Medicine course where we learn how to take patient histories, communicate effectively, etc.)

Anyways, those cupcakes turned out to be a big hit, even though they were just boxed funfetti cupcakes with store-bought icing. So, for this week's meeting, I decided to make some homeade cupcakes to show them some real skills.
Okay, not really. I had just been eyeing a recipe I found online for these carrot cupcakes (mainly because the pictures of them are so pretty), and I finally decided I wanted to try them. 

Oh, and classmates make the perfect guinea pigs for taste-testing.  Well, they are more like vultures really.

You can probably imagine the amount of people that want to be my friend for a day when I bring cupcakes, especially since I have ~180 classmates and only 24 cupcakes - you do the math.

I just followed the recipe (linked above) and this is how they turned out

You'd be amazed at the number of med students who get impressed over "pretty" cupcakes and tell you that you should have opened a bakery instead of going to medical school.

Honestly guys, it's not that impressive. It's just some measly sprinkles.

I will admit, however, that they tasted pretty good.

But, no carrot cake will ever be as good as my grandma's.

:)

Happy Tuesday!



French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes

So like I've said before, I LOVE cupcakes. And, seeing as cupcakes are becoming increasingly popular, there are all kinds of new cupcake recipes being shared in the blog world every day.  For example,
the french toast cupcake. 

I have been intrigued by this recipe for over a month now and last night I decided to be brave and attempt to pull it off.  And let me just say, I am so glad I did. They are fantastic.

I used the recipe from the website above

But I decided to use this icing 

Notice the maple extract in the picture

I actually used regular pancake syrup instead

Words can't describe how amazing it tastes

Mom enjoyed them :)

Here's my final product

The bacon is a nice touch because it adds a little salty to go with the sweet

Now go make some and enjoy!