Garlic Lemon Butter Tilapia with Shrimp

Seafood has amazing recipes. I usually don’t enjoy baked fish, as I feel baking tends to make the fish dry but this recipe for baked fish is just outstanding. This recipe doesn’t require any mayonnaise, or cheese, or any kind of flour or bread crumbs. All you need is butter, lemon, garlic, a few spices, and salt. This Fish by itself is also Keto friendly. I paired the fish with baby potatoes, asparagus, and mushrooms. I also cooked the Fish and shrimp with bell pepper and jalapenos. But the choice of vegetables is always a personal choice. You can always substitute the vegetables you like. This dish is super simple, low carb, gluten-free, and amazingly delicious.

What kind of Tilapia is good?

If you have a store that sells fresh and clan fish, there can be nothing better. That kind of seafood is the best in quality. But mostly, the fish that I buy, especially Tilapia is frozen which is good too. There is always a possibility that any fish you buy has been frozen at some point in order to keep it fresh for transport.

Frozen fish sometimes are better than the Fish that appear fresh but you don’t see them live. Frozen fish is said to be freezer right after the catch, therefore feel absolutely sure to use the fish that is frozen since it is just as good to use as a live fish, and in most cases better than fish from the counter.

Tilapia is generally best and healthy if it’s wild-caught which is the case with most seafood. Farm-raised fish is also considered very healthy. Tilapia is a great source of protein. Though if you are buying farm-raised fish, make sure you check the reputation of the farm and the kind of feed they use for their fish.

I used Shrimp for some extra flavor which I feel goes fabulously with Tilapia. Baked or grilled veggies are a great source of fiber and fill you up too. This dish is great for kids too. The dish is filling, healthy, and low in carbs. Enjoy!!!

Shrimp Hero Baguette Sandwich

This recipe is a true inspiration from one of our favorite restaurants near our old home. This restaurant is pretty old, owned by a lovely Italian family and has been serving New York style pizza for almost 80 years if not more. A very small restaurant that can barely seat 12 people, but most people order their take outs. We were their regular customers and along with the Pizza, they also served variety of other Italian fast food cuisines. What I loved the most was the Garlic knots and the Shrimp Hero Sandwich. The sandwich was super huge and loaded with wonderful sauce and lots of cheese. The ingredients always tasted so fresh and awesome.

I kind of always love going to these small eateries because one can vouch that they cook fresh because they do run out of things and say “no” too which never happens with big chains. Although, big chains always maintain quality but use large amount of preservatives that keep the food looking good and taste great. Anyways, getting back to my favorite Shrimp sandwich. We moved and its just not possible to go back and forth to that restaurant. So, once I started making my own bread, I also started making baguettes and that led to making these wonderful sandwiches.

My boys love eating bread. Specially if the bread is served straight out of the oven. Baguette, the long delicious French Bread seems to be a family favorite. Every restaurant that served a good bread had us visiting them more often. Every time we bought French Baguette from our favorite baker, I would reheat it in the oven to make it taste fresh, which was great but not the same. And, that’s when I thought I should try making my own baguette at home. Honestly, looking at so many different recipes, I felt that Baguette wasn’t all that fancily difficult and I decided it was time I just make it. I mean, how could anything be better than a freshly baked loaf of bread? That crackly crust, the tender, airy crumb inside, steamy and yeasty and just begging to be torn into.

You can look into my baguette recipe and follow it. It’s a detailed recipe and the instructions are pretty easy to follow and execute. Once your baguette are cool enough to handle, cut them to sandwich size and slit from the middle. To prepare the shrimp, just devein and take the tail off, wash them well too. Fry some garlic in the oil and add marinara sauce. Once it comes to a boil, add shrimps to it. Cook for 2-3 minutes, add Red chili flakes, dry parsley and garlic powder. Cook for a minute and add Onion powder. Cover and cook for 2 minutes. Your marinara sauce should be thick by now and shrimp should also be cooked. Slit the baguette and add the shrimp with sauce. I like mine spicy, so I added Jalapenos as well, but you don’t have to. Place them in the oven at 350F for 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle some dry parmesan cheese and serve.

Tandoori Chicken Pizza

Who doesn’t love Pizza? We all have a heart that has a special place for Pizza, no matter the changes it brings to the scale…LOLzzz. Though I have always enjoyed making Pizza at home and since we cannot consume chicken pizza outside, making it at home is kind of the only option left. But, more than anything during this lockdown I realized how much fun it is to cook with my boys. My older one almost mastered the skill of making a perfect pizza and it left me very proud that my son was becoming independent. I prefer thin crust Pizza it to the regular pizza, usually a little extra sauce which to me is always a little better and a little low on cheese. But then, my son argued that it makes the pizza more of the flat bread and not a Pizza. Flat breads usually also have a little sprinkled dry Parmesan cheese on it and it makes it look different from pizza and if you are not a very big cheese fan like me, you will definitely like the taste of dry cheese powder. Sprinkling a little dry oregano or chili flakes also enhances the flavor. Now coming back to this experiment, we love tandoori chicken and I always try to make my pizza with an Indian touch. There is always so many real flavors of pizza and flat breads available at restaurant and I think if you try and make the same thing at home, it beats the purpose of us going out to eat. So, when trying something at home, I always try to make it different from what we get outside. It could be a little different or more different depending on what you are making, but if its made at home try to add your flavor to make it unique. So, to make this recipe, you will need around 2 cups of tandoori chicken. I made mine fresh, but leftovers from dinner should also be fine. You can always feel free to make tandoori chicken any style you like or can follow my Chicken Tandoori recipe. This Pizza can have Paneer or Tofu as well, if you want to have it as a vegetarian option. You can always marinate them with tandoori flavors and make it the same way.

Chicken Tacos

Mexican food is a big hit in USA. Quesadillas, tacos and Burritos are so popular and make it to the list of fast food. The delicious tacos are easy to make and no one ever seems to get bored of it. The chicken is spiced up with taco seasoning [homemade or store bought], Olive oil and lemon juice. I usually make my taco seasoning at home and you can always follow the recipe which is pretty neat to follow and make.

But you know how they say that if you ever visit Italy, you might not love the Pizza. The reason is simple, its authentic and outside the original place, food acquires the flavors of the places its cooked. So, there are restaurants that serve authentic Mexican food, but otherwise its Americanized Mexican food and that’s exactly what I tried out.

These chicken tacos are warm corn flour tortillas filled with diced marinated chicken, lettuce, chopped onions, jalapenos, white garlic sauce, hot sauce, chopped tomatoes and cheese.

My reason behind trying these tacos was simple. We can only consume Halal Food which makes Chicken from restaurants unconsumable for us, therefore, anything that requires chicken or meat is something that I cook at home. The flavor of the chicken is mainly from the Taco seasoning which can also be used for Fish or Shrimp tacos.

The Tortilla is homemade simply by making a dough of corn flour and water and with the help of Tortilla maker, which was a gift by Mr. Parveez years ago and never used. So, finally I decided to put it use. There is another funny story to this. My mom loves ordering things from Teleshopping. So, years back around end of 90’s she ordered a Roti maker and this tortilla maker reminded me of that, except tortillas are easier and nicer. I believe the wheat flour ends up being very chewy and therefore a regular Indian chapati was a misfit, on the other hand Corn flour comes out great. So, I would suggest you buy one for homemade perfect Tortilla. Nevertheless, if you are always on a run, you can use store bought.

This recipe is great for a nutritious, easy and fast meal, good option for schools, trips, after game meals and endless times when we moms look for a healthy and fast option and something that our kids consume without a fuss. Enjoy!!!