Faux Tuna Salad….Really!

Have you heard of Happy Herbivore? She writes fantastic vegan recipes and here's one I was skeptical about. I love tuna fish salad. In fact, it was the hardest thing for me to give up when I transitioned to a vegan diet recently. Years ago, when I was a vegetarian, tuna salad was the one thing I craved the most and it started me back to eating meat, fish and poultry. So to find a recipe that claimed to taste like the real thing was promising but come on….how could chick peas really taste like tuna?  And then I noticed something for the first time. When I opened the can of chick peas, it actually smelled reminiscent of canned tuna!

Check out HH's site. Here's the recipe: Happy Herbivore Mock Tuna Salad

I am truly amazed. If I hadn't known, the first bite would have fooled me for sure. It's very tuna salad-like but doesn't have the "fishy" taste that some people dislike about tuna. There is also no fishy smell so it's perfect to take to work when you share an office.

Note: original recipe used kelp, which I didn't have. I'll have to acquire some soon!

Baja-Style Fish Tacos

I got this recipe from The Best of Clean Eating, a cookbook. It describes Baja tacos as being beer battered and fried so they lightened it up.  This is a very fast meal to put together. Perfect for a hot day. For some reason I thought the recipe called for corn tortillas so that is what I bought. I found I didn't care for the corn tortillas so I would probably use whole grain tortillas instead next time.

Ingredients:

whole grain tortillas
1 lb. tilapia fillets (I had 2 fillets, which was plenty for 2 people.)
1/2 fresh lime
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 ground black pepper
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (I didn't have plain Greek yogurt so I used plain organic yogurt)
1 small jalapeno pepper, minced
1/4 tsp oregano (I was out so I used Italian blend which contained oregano, basil, etc)
1/4 tsp cumin (I couldn't even taste cumin so more was needed)
1 cup shredded cabbage (I bought the pre-shredded slaw mix to save time so it had a few carrots)
1 avocado, cut into slices

Preheat oven to 350. Wrap tortillas in foil. Place fish on baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with lime juice. Place fish and tortillas in oven. After about 4-5 minutes remove the tortillas. Let the fish cook through (took mine 10 minutes.)

While the fish is baking, make the sauce. Mix together the yogurt, jalapeno and spices. I added a dash of salt as well.

Remove fish and break apart with a fork. Assemble tacos: cabbage and fish, top with sauce and avocado.

This might make a better lunch than supper unless you are wanting something light. I ate 2 and I do feel full.  Little Miss wouldn't even try the fish or the avocado. Go figure. I would definitely make this again.

Word of warning: DON'T scratch your nose after cutting a jalapeno!  Even though I washed my hands with soap, it burned SO bad. I'll have to handle the pepper with gloves next time. Adventures in cooking, indeed.