Fish Tacos with Pickled Peppers & Apples

Fish Tacos

The kitchen isn’t quite yet restored. The pot rack went up Sunday, finally, and while it looks mostly complete (sans the microwave sitting in the middle of the floor), there’s surprisingly a lot missing. Our tea balls have yet to be discovered. For the time being our evening tea *gasp* must be standard tea bags rather than loose. Most of the pots have been found, though the colander is still MIA. I bought some yogurt the other day, but the fantastic granola we brought home from Vermont is yet to be found. It’s a work in progress. I’m hoping Sunday I’ll have lots of time to organize. My husband will be away playing Dungeons and Dragons (yes, he’s 30-something and still plays; if you don’t know what it is, trust me, it’s better) so I will have the day to myself. Writing, decorating and still unpacking.

Our diet has gradually shifted from 100% to about 50% takeout. I can’t tell you how much I crave normalcy. And the meals we do cook have been simple, though still creative. Tonight was my first attempt at fish tacos. Something I’ve loved for years (I can’t get enough from Ho’Brah a few blocks south), but never attempted on my own. In my eyes, a good taco is simply a complementary blend of things, wrapped together in a corn tortilla. Protein, acid, crunch, sweet and salt. And a little bit of heat is a given.

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Tacos Fresco –Sans the Box

Tacos

Who doesn’t love tacos. If you tell me you don’t I already know you’re lying. And we don’t want to start this relationship based on lies do we? So, I’ll just move forward with the assumption that you’re as big a taco lover as I am.

For most of a life, my tacos came out of an Orega or El Paso box—there was a Taco Bell branded kit period, but I don’t think it lasted. Of course, the actual tacos didn’t come out of the box, but the magical sauces and powders to make them did. Brown the beef (or chicken), add some water, powder and cook it up. The first taco shack I went to in Philly was truly a college student’s dream. Cheap, with raw walls and tables made of old Pac-Man games (still playable for a quarter!). These tacos were magic. Sadly it closed a few months before I left Philly. I think it was in mourning that I was leaving. I’ve encountered many imposters and replicas ever since, some okay, some outstanding. But my boxed taco mix could never match any of these tacos and I never really thought about why that was.

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