Ode to Fish Tacos

We've made these tacos twice this last week and I'm already thinking about when I can get away with making them again. So, in the interest of sharing good recipes with people I like, here's the "Cook This, Not That" version of fish tacos...

Grilled Fish Tacos

Ingredients:
1 mango, pitted, peeled and cubed
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and cubed
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
Juice of one lime, plus wedges for garnish
chopped, fresh cilantro
Salt and Black pepper
Canola oil
2 large mahi mahi (we used tilapia)
1 tbsp blackening spice (more on that later)
8 corn tortillas
2 cups of finely shredded red cabbage

-Mix the mango, avocado, onion and juice of one lime in a bowl. Season with cilantro, salt and pepper.

-Heat a grill or stovetop grill pan until hot. Drizzle a light coating of oil over the fish and rub on the blackening spice. Cook the fish, undisturbed, for 4 minutes. Carefully flip with a spatula and cook for another 4 minutes. Remove.

-Warm the tortillas on the grill for 1 to 2 minutes or wrap in damp paper towels and microwave for 1 minute until warm and pliable.

-Break the fish into chunks and divide among the warm tortillas. Top with the cabbage and the mango salsa. Serve with the lime wedges.

*Rub for Fish:
1 tsp each: cumin, paprika, cayenne, oregano, black pepper, and salt. If you're sensitive to spicy foods, you might want to cut down on the cayenne.

Makes 4 servings
380 calories per serving
11 g fat

Yum.

I Heart Sam

Today started with lots of tears. The big, hot kind that well up in the corner of Sam's big blue eyes and then roll furiously down his round cheeks, blotchy from crying. The culprit? Teething, or so I assume. Ear-pulling, fussiness, chewing on anything and everything, excessive drool: all apparent clues to the advent of The Tooth. I tried everything to make things better. Cold teethers, cold baby food, cold water, rubbing his gums with my finger, and then eventually I held him upside down to hopefully distract him. Oddly enough, that got a laugh or two and seemed to make things better. Whew. And then the tears were back again. Sigh.

Currently, Sam's snoozing in his little swing and I'm enjoying channel 840, also known as "Classical Masterpieces." Now that I have a quiet moment or two, accompanied by Mozart, I'm musing a bit. Specifically, I've been pondering lately how full my heart is these days as a mom. Despite the rough patches, which always pass, I am so in love with this little boy named Sam. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by this love and squeeze him a little hard for someone who weighs 17 pounds. My friend Lyndsay would laugh at this because she's always complaining that I hug too hard. Well, I hug to the measure that I love. Sam's uncomfortable grunt when I hugged him tight earlier today let me know that he'd had enough love for the moment. Seriously, this new reality of being a mom is powerful. I understand now what it means to "have your heart walking around outside of your body." Or crawling, as the case may be.

The follow-up thought to all this love I'm feeling these days is an acute sensitivity to the thought of a child not being loved. I've always been bothered by news stories about child abuse or children neglected or abandoned. But, now that Sam exists in the world, I feel this intense, instinctive desire to protect. I get a pit in my stomach whenever I see someone yelling at their child at the mall or when I see a new mom who's brought her screaming 2 week old baby to Wal-Mart. It takes everything I've got not to walk over and offer to adopt those people's children. Seriously.

All of this has made me keenly aware of a desire to literally adopt. I've always thought I wanted to, but now I can't stop thinking about it. I know that adopting one child (or two) obviously won't negate all the evil done in the world to children, but at least it's a start. I confessed to my husband recently that I'm praying for enough money to adopt a baby. I felt like he should probably be aware of this specific petition I was making. That way, if God lets us win the lotto, Matt will know where the money's supposed to go.

So, as I sit here and watch the rise and fall of Sam's little chest as he sleeps, I'm wondering what the future holds for him and for our family. Who else is going to be hanging out here with Sam and I listening to Mozart's Concerto No. 1? I love thinking about the possibilities and I'm aching a bit to hold additional little ones and love them as hard as I love Sam.