Memory Lane + Fish Tacos

One of my favorite memories:

Going to Ensenada with a bunch of friends for my 30th birthday on a cruise.  Getting off the boat, bypassing all the touristy attractions, finding a local person and asking him what he would do if he had one day in his city.

Eat fish tacos, he said, at the fish market.

So that's what we did.  No other foreigners around, just us, in an upstairs room filled with glass Coca-Cola and Fanta bottles, a rickety fan swirling overhead.  The only music was the Mariachi band wandering through the street below and the sounds of families chattering away in Spanish over their lunches in the many open-air restaurants that lined the street.

And those fish tacos, at $2 a person? Delicious, absolutely delicious.

It was a perfect moment.

I can't recreate that moment.  From the food to the company, I could put them all together in the same place, but that moment will probably never happen just like that again.  There is the feeling, you know, that can only happen once.  But I can replicate a part of that memory... they may not be the exact same, but I do make some great fish tacos.

I am pretty sure that whenever I have fish tacos, whether at home or out and about, I will always think back to that day, surrounded by friends and family in a place where simplicity and laughter went hand in hand.

FISH TACOS

Adapted from Everyday Food, January/February 2005

SERVES 4  •  PREP TIME: 35 MINUTES  •  TOTAL TIME: 35 MINUTES

ingredients

• ¼ cup Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice
• coarse salt and pepper
• 1 small red cabbage, thinly shredded
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound snapper, cut into about 12 strips
• 8 flour tortillas, soft-taco size**
• fresh cilantro leaves, to top

directions

1. In a large bowl, combine sour cream and lime juice; season with salt and pepper. Transfer half the mixture to another container; set aside for serving. Toss cabbage and half the scallions with remaining sour-cream mixture. Season again with salt and pepper.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil and remaining scallions half over medium-high heat; swirl to coat bottom of pan. Season fish on both sides with salt and pepper. In two batches (starting with larger pieces), cook fish until golden brown on all sides, 5 to 6 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, warm tortillas according to package instructions.
4. To make tacos, fill tortillas with slaw, fish, and fresh cilantro leaves. Drizzle with reserved sour-cream mixture. Serve immediately.

 ** Did you know Trader Joe's has these AMAZING, hand-made tortillas, totally fresh and delicious, for a great price?  They really have quite the tortilla selection, all made at local bakeries.  Go check them out!

COST: $14.24      COST PER SERVING (4): $3.56

Tacos, ATV's, and Some Pina Coladas (Ensenada Birthday Weekend)

Remember when I said I was happy with my little shindig at my house for my birthday?

Well, I lied.

Not totally and completely.  I was happy with that totally chill and relaxed party.  But I also knew that I had a bigger thing coming.

You only turn 30 once!

For me, turning 30 meant making up for all those years of January-suck-birthdays.  And what a better way to do it than hop on a big boat bound for Mexico with your favorite people???

Note to the world: we don't do vacations the way many Americans do.  No tour busses for us, no itinerary mapped out.  Nope nope nope.  Instead, we find a local person and say, "If you had one day in this city, what would YOU do?"

And in this case, it led us to fab fish tacos (3 for $2) off the beaten path, some five-dolla bling, and ATVing our way through Ensenada and the local country side.  All in all, $33 per person.  For a day of fun in the sun.  And food to boot.

That's how we do vacations in this family.

And then we hopped back on the cruise ship, lived/laughed/partied it up, and generally had an all around PERFECT time.

One of the best weekends of my life.  Hands down.

If this is any indicator of how the thirties are going to be, I am predicting a great decade.  Cheers!

Practice Spanish, Save Some Money...

Way back when at the start of this blogging journey (Ok, it was like eight months ago, not eons ago, but still...) I made a proclamation that I like to spend as little as possible on groceries so I could spend my money on other things.  Completely true, so I said it.  And then I never really said much more about it after that.

Today as I unpacked my bags of produce for the week and looked down at my receipt I started wondering how much money I actually do save.  I mean, I know that I don't spend a lot, but I started to really ponder how much I actually do not spend that I would have spent had I shopped elsewhere.

See, I went shopping at Mi Pueblo.  Actually, between Trader Joe's (which has excellent prices on all non-produce items) and Mi Pueblo (my go-to for the veggies) I do a pretty good job.  Here is the thing about Mi Pueblo though: you have to be willing to practice that long forgotten high school Spanish.  Because chances are you might be the only English speaker around.  I took a friend their once and she said she felt like she crossed the border.  It is true, you walk in and feel like you are in Mexico.

Great!  I love Mexico.  Beaches, pina coladas, tacos... and fresh produce.  So why say no to it here?

Did you see that picture up there?  Two full bags of produce.  FULL.

As you might be able to tell, we try to eat a rainbow every week :)

Here is something you might not know about me: I am a number person.  I love seeing how much things cost/don't cost, the MPG I get every time I empty a tank, so on and so forth.  So of course I had to figure out how much this food would have cost me if I had shopped at Safeway AKA the "normal" grocery store.  See what I found:

DO YOU SEE THAT?  I saved $9.19 by just going to a place that speaks a different language.  And let me be the first to tell you, the produce there is FRESH.  And BEAUTIFUL.  And TASTY!

"So what?" you may think.  "$9.19?  That's not that much."  Well, if I save that much per week (give or take), that comes out to $36.76 per month.  What can $36.76 per month get you?  Another tank of gas?  A nice top?  Dinner out?

How about per year?  It comes out somewhere between $441.12 if you are counting by months (4 weeks/month) or $477.88 if you are counting straight weeks (52/year).  I don't know about you, but I could do a lot with $400+ .  That's a whole lot of eating out/ clothes/ bills to pay/money to put in savings.  Shoot, I could buy a ticket down to Mexico to practice some more of that Spanish! 

Ok, so maybe I look too far down the road, but hey -- I work hard for my money, don't you?  Why would I want to throw it away?  I don't, and more importantly, I won't.

Speaking of Mexico, I just went and dug out some pictures from our trip to Mexico two years ago.  It isn't only the produce that is beautiful...

My husband in the midst of playing soccer in the street with some local kids.  If you had any doubt of his nationality, this should clear it up for you.