blackened fish tacos with homemade guacamole and pico de gallo

Man oh man....I LOVE fish tacos.  Once or twice a month my family will have "Fish Taco Friday", and it is the best.  These tacos are seriously one of my favourite meals in the world, and I would happily eat them every single Friday for the rest of my life.  Ha!

We're not too fussy about what kind of fish we use, and have tried out many different seasonings as well.  Sometimes we'll even swap out the fish for shrimp, which is equally delicious!  And I love the colours of everything that goes into these tacos, from the purple cabbage, to the green guacamole...so fun!

Now, I will say that these take a bit of time and effort to do, but it is so worth it.  You can always use store salsa instead of making your own pico, if you want to save some time (I won't judge you I promise).  I think it's a fun meal to make with a bunch of people, as there are lots of jobs to do!

---

Fish Tacos

recipe: Kelsey Siemens
yields: ~3-4 servings (depending on how hungry you are)

Directions:

In a small bowl, toss together all of the spices.  Pat onto both sides of the fish.

Cook fish on medium-high for 3 minutes a side.

Assemble Tacos:

Load up tacos with fish and desired toppings.  Serve with chips (and daiquiris), and enjoy!

Ingredients:

~1 lb of firm white fish (we use tilapia or basa usually)

2 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp salt

guacamole*

pico de gallo*

purple cabbage, chopped

soft tortilla shells

*recipes below

---

Guacamole

recipe: Jordyn Siemens

Directions:

Peel, cut and mash your avocados.  Stir in tomato, spices, and lime juice.

Serve!  

*Guacamole is best enjoyed on the first day, but will last a couple of days in the fridge.

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados 

1/2 medium Roma tomato

1/4 cup diced onion

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp cumin

1/8 tsp salt

juice from 1 lime

---

Pico de gallo

recipe: Jordyn Siemens

Directions:

Mix together all ingredients and serve.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 medium Roma tomatoes

3/4 cup diced onion

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

1/2 tsp garlic powder

pinch of cumin

juice from 1 lime

---

P.S.  Here's the recipe for the delicious lime daiquiri that you see lurking in some of these photos.  It pairs so perfectly with the fish tacos!

I hope you enjoyed this!  And now you know what you're going to make next Friday.....you're welcome!

-Kels

pizza // spicy thai

More pizza!  This time with a Thai twist.

It's no secret around here that Jordyn and I love Thai food.  We're in love with peanut sauce, honey, garlic, curries, and the spiciness that often comes along with classic Thai dishes.  This pizza was born after Clara took me (Kelsey) to Famoso Neopolitan Pizza for my birthday this winter, and I tried their Spicy Thai pizza.  It was divine.  I came home and told Jordyn that we needed to try and replicate it.

So we did!

There's so much goodness going on in this pizza.  We started with a peanut sauce base, added in some chicken, a ton of veggies, some cheese, and topped it with chopped peanuts, cilantro and lime wedges!

Oh yum.

And don't be scared of the peanut sauce!  Take a step out of your comfort zone, and your taste buds will be super happy.

---

Thai Pizza

Directions:

1)  For the pizza crust you can make your own (you can find our recipe here!), or just use a pre-made one!  Bake it, and then set aside as you get your sauce and toppings ready.

2)  In a small frying pan, gently sautee your garlic in the olive oil.  Stir and cook for several minutes, and then set aside.

3)  In a small saucepan, stir together peanut butter, honey, and soy sauce until everything is melted and combined.  

4)  Stir in your garlic, chili pepper flakes, ginger, sesame oil and water.

5)  Gently simmer, stirring constantly, until sauce has thickened slightly.

6)  Spread sauce over pizza crust.  Add toppings to your heart's desire, and cover with cheese.  

7)  Pop your pizza back into the oven on broil, and wait until the cheese is nice and melty.   **We left off the carrots and bean sprouts until after the cheese was melted!
*For the toppings, we found that adding (way) more than you think is the way to go.  It'll be a bit messy, but oh so good!

8)  Now cut your pizza, serve, and enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 cooked pizza crust (recipe here!)

Thai Peanut Sauce:

1 tsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic, minced

6 tablespoons peanut butter 

3 tablespoons honey 

3 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium) 

1/2 teaspoons chili pepper flakes (or more) 

½ tsp ginger 

2 tsp sesame oil 

1/4 cup water

Toppings:

1 green onion, chopped

1-2 cups of cooked chicken, chopped

1/4 cup peanuts, chopped

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1-2 cups shredded mozzarella

1 cup bean sprouts

1 large carrot, sliced finely

---

Please go make this asap!  Your stomach/family/friends will thank you!

-kelsey & jordyn

p.p.s. here's our classic pizza recipe in case you want something a bit more tame.

pizza // the classic

This simple and tasty pizza was inspired by a very good friend of our family, Thabang.  Thabang lives in Lesotho, (a small country surrounded by South Africa) and we had the pleasure of working with him for a year while he was in Canada learning about farming through a volunteer exchange program.  Thabang became part of our family, and would often come over for family dinners.  Whenever we would ask what he wanted to eat, he would almost always request "Homemade Chicken and Mushroom Pizza".

As we continued making pizzas, we started experimenting with more ingredients, adding more veggies, and some feta cheese for an extra kick!  This pizza has something for everyone in our family, caramelized onion and peppers, sauteed chicken and mushrooms, and my personal favourite, spinach!! 

Every time I make homemade pizza I think of Thabang.  I sincerely wish that he could come over to share this pizza with us, and have another family pizza night. 

Feel free to add more or less of any ingredients, leave out the mushrooms, add olives, pile on the spinach.  Make it your own!  And try not to eat the entire thing by yourself, you have to make sure you have leftovers so you can have cold pizza for breakfast the next day!

Classic Pizza

Ingredients:

1 cooked pizza crust (

recipe here!

)

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup sweet onion

1 red pepper

5 large mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1-2 cups of chopped cooked chicken

1-2 cups of spinach

Cheddar Cheese (approx 4 cups grated)

Feta Cheese (half a cup crumbled)

Pizza sauce

Directions:

1)  Preheat oven to 350 F (or just leave it on if you are making a homemade pizza!)

2)  Heat olive oil on medium/high heat in a large frying pan.

3)  Once hot, add sliced onions, peppers and mushrooms.

4)  After the veggies have been cooking for 5-6 minutes add minced garlic and turn the heat down to medium.  Continue cooking veggies until the onions start to caramelize, this may take about 5-7 more minutes.  

5)  Add chicken to this mixture and stir until chicken is hot.

6)  Turn the burner off, and stir in roughly chopped spinach (this will wilt the spinach, but hopefully not cook it too much.  You don't want to obliterate your spinach, just warm it up).

7)  Spread pizza sauce on your cooked pizza crust, follow with your delicious veggie and chicken mixture, and top it all off with grated cheddar cheese and a bit of crumbled feta.

8)  *Bake in 350 F oven for 8 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and starts bubbling (we like to broil our pizza so the cheese starts browns a bit/gets crunchy!)

*This is our method for baking pizza, it assumes that you just took the hot homemade crust out of the oven, and that your top ingredients (ex. chicken, sauteed veggies) are already hot for the most part.  If you are using a crust that has not just been baked, you may have to adjust the baking time.

This pizza always hits the spot!  Loaded with veggies, chicken, and tons of cheese, there is never a complaint in our house about this pizza.  It is perfect on our homemade pizza crust, but also is really tasty on pita bread if you are in a hurry, or with cauliflower pizza crust for a gluten free alternative!

p.s. 

♥

 jordyn & kelsey

back to basics: pizza dough

Who doesn't love pizza?  With a crunchy crust, gooey cheese, and all the toppings you want, who could resist?  

It's like the Leonardo DiCaprio of food.  And like Leo, it will likely never win an Oscar, but it still gets invited to the party.

One of the best things about pizza is that it is so incredibly versatile! You can make practically any kind of pizza you can dream of.  Our go-to pizza is topped with caramelized onions, sauteed red peppers, mushrooms, garlic, spinach and chicken, finished off with feta, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese.  But we also love greek, pepperoni, and we just tried making thai for the first time.  It was the bomb!

This is our tasty recipe for homemade pizza crust.  It takes a bit of time and work, but it is definitely worth it!  The extra spices in the crust add a nice punch of flavour.

Homemade Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

1/2 cup

 hot

 water (not boiling, hot tap water is fine)

2 (.25 ounce) packages

active dry yeast

1/2 tablespoon sugar

6 cups

all-purpose flour

1 tbsp

salt

1 1/2 tablespoons

white sugar

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp thyme

1/4 cup

vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups warm water

Directions:

1) In a medium size bowl dissolve sugar in the hot water, and then mix in yeast.  Let this rise for 15 minutes.

2) In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.

3) Stir in the risen yeast, the warm water and the oil into the dry ingredients.

4) Mix well.

5) Turn out mixture onto a floured surface and knead until dough has a smooth texture.  About 10 minutes.

6) Place in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in a warm area for 1 hour.

7) Split dough in half, each will make a large pizza.

8) With a rolling pin, roll out pizza a bit larger than the pan you are using.  I use

d a large round pizza pan (ours is 14 inches across), and a 10 x 15 square pan.

9) Once the dough has been rolled out, place over well greased pan (I used olive oil) and tuck in the edges to make a crust, poke holes in the crust with a knife or fork (this prevents crust bubbles).

10) Bake pizza at 350 for 20 minutes.

11) Add pizza sauce and desired ingredients.

12) Bake for another 8 minutes, or until the cheese has melted (sometimes we like to broil it).

This is a little sneak peek of what our thai pizza looks like!

Once your crust is cooked smother that baby with pizza sauce (or thai sauce!) and load up with yummy toppings.  By cooking the crust ahead of time, you can keep an eye on how it is doing.  You don't have to worry about a soggy crust under all your ingredients.

Then just pop it back in to heat up the toppings and melt your cheese.  We like to broil it so it gets all bubbly and delicious!

p.s. 

♥

 jordyn & kelsey

chicken vegetable soup (aka: clean out the fridge soup)

My family loves soup.  In addition to our "What's new Wednesday" - the day we try out a brand new recipe, "Fish Taco Friday" - the day we have fish tacos (

recipe here!

), we also have "Soup Saturday".

Yeah we really like alliterations.  And food.

If you haven't figure it out yet, "Soup Saturday" is the day we have soup. It is also bun day, (hmmm do we need an alliteration for that? Wheat Weekend?)  so we often have soup to complement my mother's delicious home made buns.  

We made this recipe when my parents were vacationing in Arizona (with our Grandparents, no fair!), so we didn't have any fresh homemade buns to enjoy.  So, on her way home from work, Kelsey stopped by a local farmer's market and picked up a fresh baked baguette!  It was delicious, and we even added some cheese and broiled it to make some cheesy bread.  It was the best.

Chicken Vegetable Soup

by: Jordyn Siemens

Ingredients:

2 tbsp oil

1 sweet onion

3 cloves of garlic

4 carrots

4 celery stalks

3 red potatoes

1/2 zucchini

1/2 large yam

1 can of black beans

1 cup of corn

1 tsp thyme

2 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste

6 cups chicken broth (more or less)

2 chicken breasts (chopped and sauteed)

Directions:

1) Chop everything into bite size pieces (finely chop your garlic)

2) In a large pot on medium heat, heat one tablespoon of oil.  Add onions and saute until translucent, then add garlic and stir to incorporate.

3) Add chopped carrots, celery, potatoes, and zucchini and saute until they start to get soft, then add the chopped yam.

4) Once everything is tender, add black beans and corn.

5) Stir in spices, and add chicken broth.  Bring soup to a boil, and let simmer to fully cook the vegetables.

6) While soup is simmering, heat one tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan, and saute the chopped chicken breast until cooked all the way through.

7) Once the vegetables are fully cooked, add the cooked chicken.

8) Serve!

This soup recipe is super easy, and you can add/subtract any of the ingredients quite easily.  Add any random veggies you have in your fridge - broccoli, cauliflower, chopped brussels sprouts, or add chickpeas instead of black beans. Whatever suits your fancy!

p.s.

 ♥ jordyn &

 kelsey

skinny fettuccine alfredo

Not all food is photogenic.  That is the lesson of this week. Ha.

#foodphotographerproblems.

Did I just hashtag in a blog post?  Yep.  I do what I want.

Honestly, I'm quite enjoying this new venture into photographing actual meals instead of just sweets, and I can't believe it's taken me so long to get around to it.  Although I must say that this dish was an interesting challenge since I had no idea how to make a pile of noodles look mouthwatering.

Cupcakes or ice cream?  The camera loves them.  Pasta?  Yikes.

Now, Jordyn is the master chef (yet again), and this recipe is her baby.  Our family loves pasta, but we also love trying to make things a bit healthier.  This "skinny" version of uses greek yogurt in place of butter and cream, and it's oh so creamy and delicious!  And it's packed full of protein, so you can easily leave out the chicken if you wish.

Skinny Chicken Alfredo

serves: ~4

recipe by: jordyn

Ingredients:

2 cups broccoli

4 large carrots

1 cup brussel sprouts, halved

assorted spices (salt/seasoning salt, pepper, garlic powder)

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces and sauteed

8 ounces fettuccine

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced 

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup chicken broth

1/3 cup plain greek yogurt

black pepper to taste

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is the best, but whatever you have works!)

Directions: 

1. Chop all the vegetables into bite size pieces and spread out on one or two greased cookie sheets (we like lots of vegetables so we did it on two)

2. Sprinkle with your choice of spices.  We did salt, pepper and garlic powder.

3. Roast at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until a desired roasty-ness is reached.  Set aside.

4. In a medium sized saucepan, heat olive oil at medium heat.  Add minced garlic and saute, stirring often, until golden brown.  This should only take a couple of minutes, be careful not to burn the garlic!

5. Turn the garlic down to low, and measure out 2 tablespoons of flower into a bowl/measuring device.  Slowly incorporate 1 cup of chicken broth into the flour (start off with about a tablespoon of broth, or else you might get lumps! and then slowly add more).

6. Add the chicken broth mixture to the saucepan.

7. Add 1/3 cup of greek yogurt to the saucepan, bring to a boil, stir constantly.

8. Lower the heat and let it simmer for about 3 minutes, it should begin to thicken.

9. Incorporate 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese.

10. Cook fettuccine.

11. Heat 1 table spoon of olive oil in a large frying pan/wok over medium-high heat.

12. Chop chicken breasts into bite sized pieces, add them to the frying pan and saute until fully cooked (about 5-7 minutes). 

13. Once everything is ready to go, combine it in a large frying pan/wok and heat through.

14. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh parmesan!

Also, can we talk about how awesome daylight savings is?  I know it sucks "losing" an hour of sleep, but man do I think it's worth it.  I went out to feed our chickens and collect eggs at 7:30 and it was still light out!  Sweet.

p.s.

 ♥ kelsey & jordyn