charredandbitter

So it’s been a minute. Recipes that I’m posting are from November. Shh…you can’t tell.

I could kick myself in the ass for passing the Vallarta Markets along my commute. You’ll see why down below.

In any case, the idea of cactus salad had been dancing around the back of my head ever since our neighbor brought some to us with her homemade carnitas :faint:

Surprisingly, the cactus salad was light and tasty. None of the slime that i’ve heard about before when cooking nopales.

My game plan was to make an oven baked tilapia fillet and serve it topped with the cactus salad on a bed of organic quinoa cooked in organic veggie broth.

Recipe follows visuals.

I sooo cheated with buying the diced and de-thorned nopales pads (in the bag)

Look at how fresh the produce is here!!! It was stacked up high (taller than thou)

“It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”. Bahahaha- I couldn’t resist. But look, fresh meat! Literally!

All this for under $20.00 – what you don’t see is the 6 large and cleaned tilapia fillets and 1/4lb of prepared taco carne asada meat. What you do see are the caramel cajeta discs that I bought to share with coworkers.

Nopales boiling for 20 minutes. You’ll want to add that 1/2 onion that was sliced and whole garlic clove(s) in this boil.

My fancy lunch on my not so fancy paper plate at work. It was damn good…really good.

Oven baked tilapia, nopales salad and quinoa.

Enselada de nopalitos/ Cactus Salas
2lbs chopped prickly cactus paddles
1 onion – 1/2 sliced, other 1/2 chopped, set both aside separately
1 garlic clove
3 tsp Kosher salt
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3-5 limes – juice then ahead of time if you like
3 Roma tomatoes chopped
1 bunch (1 cup) chopped Cilantro
1 Serrano chili chopped

Directions:
1. Boil cactus for 20 minutes, be sure to add the garlic clove(s) and 1/2 onion sliced to the boil.

2. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl while the cactus is boiling. Refrigerate until cactus is ready.

3. Pour cactus into a colander and rinse under cold water. Be sure to stir around so any leftover slime can be rinsed off. Be sure to drain water from the cactus.

4. Add to the pico de gallo mixture. Stir in and refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer before serving.

Oven Roasted Tilapia
Tilapia fillets – already cleaned
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Ground black pepper
Hot Hungarian Paprika

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (used my small baking oven/toaster)

2. Prep a baking dish by using parchment paper to cover the bottom

3. Lay fillets in, using an olive oil mister…mist a light coating of olive oil on the fillets and season with spices listed above.

4. Bake fillets for 15-20 minutes. (I used 15 minutes)

Serve topped with the nopales salad.

Quinoa
This round I cooked stovetop and actually achieved the rice like fluffiness my coworker mentioned.

1 cup – quinoa (rinsed 3xs)
2 2/3 cups – organic veggie broth

1. Bring to a boil in a saucepan and then lower to simmer for 15-30 minutes.

2. You’ll have to eyeball and stir every now and then until you reach the consistency you prefer.

So many entries to post! I guess we can call this a week in review

Hope life has been treating y’all well.

Cheers,
C&B