Baked Fish Tacos--orange we glad we waited!

When is an orange not just any old orange? When it springs from an orange tree in your own back yard!

In the Western part of these United States, where we have a little “grandparent house” that shelters us when we visit some special little people, has grown an orange tree—planted quite a few years ago on the same week our first grandchild was born. Year after year we’ve wondered whether we’d ever see any of the luxurious citrus like that on our neighbors’ trees. This year was our lucky year! Gorgeous golden orbs finally emerged from those branches at our place. Just had to find a special recipe that would feature oranges aplenty.

About the same time, the Kroger grocery circular appeared in our mailbox. It featured a recipe for Baked Fish Tacos that had oranges as a main ingredient. Segments from our yield of oranges were quickly removed and readied for this healthy and yummy entree.

We’ve heard about farmers who are reluctant to butcher a cow they’ve cared for from birth. We had no such sentimental ties to the yield of an orange tree we once planted at knee-height. We enjoyed this orange-studded menu item to the fullest!

Baked Fish Tacos

1/2 cup plain panko breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander (I substituted parsley flakes)

1 teaspoon chili powder

4 tilapia fillets, cut in half lengthwise

salt (or salt substitute) and pepper

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 to 2 chipotle peppers, minced (or a pinch or two of cayenne pepper)

2 oranges

1 bunch cilantro

8 soft flour tortillas

1 lime quartered, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl combine the breadcrumbs, cumin, coriander, and chili powder. Place the fish on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet; season fish with salt and pepper. Top each fillet generously with the breadcrumb mixture. Bake the fish for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the fish is firm, opaque, and has reached a safe internal temperature of 145 degrees. Meanwhile, in a food processor, combine the yogurt and chipotle peppers. Transfer to a small bowl; keep refrigerated until you are ready to eat. Prep the rest of the ingredients: Peel the oranges, separate into segments, and remove any seeds. Clean the cilantro; remove the stems. To assemble tacos place 1/8 of the fish in the center of a tortilla. Smear some of the chipotle yogurt on the tortilla. To each add 2 orange segments and some fresh cilantro. Refrigerate any leftovers. Makes 8 tacos. (Source: Kroger grocery MyMagazine)

Festive Spiced Pears a divine idea for Thanksgiving side

Although today’s feature, Spiced Pears, resembles the recipe in Friday’s blog, it’s definitely not the same. This dish was so amazing and was such a great idea for a Thanksgiving side, I just had to include it even though it, at first glance, looks as though it might be a re-run of that marvelous Cranberry Orange Relish from last week.

Spiced Pears was included in my Taste of Home Thanksgiving recipe cards in which I’ve found all sorts of treasures. The description (by recipe contributor Ruby Williams) stated that this was a change of pace from the typical Thanksgiving sides and that it was easy to fix and looked festive on the table.

It consists of six pears, two oranges, and a can of whole berry cranberry sauce. I had a bag of fresh cranberries on hand, however, so I boiled them until they were soft and measured 14 ounces of them in a cup (same amount as in a can of cranberry sauce). So everything in my recipe was fresh.

The sliced, cooked pears taste absolutely wonderful aswirl in the cooked cranberries and oranges. Added spices give the mixture a nice perk-up. Hubby wouldn’t get near these Spiced Pears at first because he thought they contained strawberries, his nemesis, but when I assured him of the contents, he waded in for a bite . . . and then more and more. And our little grandmunchkin, while he was staying with us over the weekend, went nuts over this dish, so if you’re looking for a Thanksgiving dish that will appeal to the kiddos and all other ages as well at your table, look no further!

Spiced Pears

1 (14-ounce) can whole berry cranberry sauce (or fresh cranberries

cooked to measure 14 ounces)

1/3 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

6 medium pears, peeled and sliced

2 medium navel oranges, peeled and sectioned

In a large saucepan combine the cranberry sauce, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and ginger. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in pears and oranges; simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until pears are tender.

Simple, warm, healthy . . . this breakfast compote contains the "nearly perfect" fruit

Precious little will get Hubby to deviate from his weekday-morning breakfast fare. Without a doubt he always serves himself a bowl of warm oatmeal topped with fresh blueberries and a few scoops of nonfat plain yogurt. No problem with that selection—perfectly healthy on all accounts.

Yesterday when I tried to lure him away with a special concoction, I have to admit that at first, he seemed a little skeptical. He WANTED his oatmeal with berries and yogurt.

When I rounded the corner carrying the clear parfait glasses filled with the mouth-watering compote you see photographed here, however, he practically jumped for joy. All morning traditions were forgotten as he admired this breakfast offering.

Into the glasses had gone a wondrous mixture of chopped apples and oranges with cinnamon stirred in and warmed in the microwave. On top of that went a couple of tablespoons of yogurt crowned with a smattering of walnuts. (Ah, walnuts! They're the talk of the town. In Prevention magazine, health blogs, everywhere . . . walnuts are tub-thumped for their health properties.) Hubby was charmed.

The idea for this Quick Apple-Orange Fruit Compote sprang from the pages of our nightly reading—a book called Food Remedies. Late evenings find us in our living room noting to each other various nuggets of wisdom from this book, published by Prevention. (How's that for a pre-bedtime preoccupation?) One gem that caught my eye was a comment about citrus. The book stated that if one ate at least seven navel oranges a day, his or her cholesterol level would drop by at least 20 points! What a captivating idea, but what a lot of oranges!

The orange, however, is billed as nearly the perfect fruit. Not only is it high in vitamin C and fiber, it also is packed with antioxidants--help for the heart. The limonene found in oranges can help block certain cancers. Don't shy away from the pulp however, the health experts say. One dietitian writing for our Food Remedies book says she adds oranges wedges to salads, on top of stir-fry dishes, and just about everything.

Such is the health trivia that occupies the evenings of Hubby and me. A romantic duo, aren’t we? But if swapping health factoids and acting on them can add a few extra days to our lives, that's a few more days we may have to enjoy each other’s company on earth.

Quick Apple-Orange Compote

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and chopped

1 navel orange, peeled and chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup fat-free vanilla yogurt

2 tablespoons broken pecan or walnut pieces

In a medium microwave bowl, combine the apple, orange, and cinnamon. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 4 minutes or until the fruit is hot and soft. Divide among 2 bowls or parfait glasses; spoon and divide the yogurt evenly over each. Sprinkle with the nuts; serve warm. Makes 2 servings.

Leftover oranges spice up seafood recipe--company fare that takes only minutes to fix

Leave it to that great source of recipe ideas--Sam's Club--and a couple of leftover oranges from our son's citrus grove to provide an absolutely fabulous dinner of fish, that menu item we're supposed to eat in limitless supply.

Sam's Club doesn't always spring to the brain when I'm thinking of places to turn up good recipes, but a card that accompanied a recent Sam's mailing featured the how-to for Pistachio-Orange Tilapia. It called for two oranges, peeled and chopped.

Believe it or not, the produce bin of my refrigerator still had two oranges left over from an early spring visit to our son's house in Arizona. I've already blogged about how his back yard contains a citrus garden that, like many other locations in Phoenix, has abundant and gigantic oranges, lemons, and grapefruit.

Two oranges that I brought home with me were in their last stages of existence, but when I peeled them, they were still viable--just perfect for this recipe. My produce bin also contained an almost-unused bag of fresh spinach. Here I go, I thought, as I happily began to chop.

Adding a few pistachios contributed to the heart-healthiness of the dish. The Sam's recipe called for purchasing tilapia fillets that were pre-seasoned and packaged with the tilapia brand's own seasoning. Since the sodium content of pre-seasoned meat items sometimes can be high, however, I preferred to buy the tilapia unseasoned and add my own from salt-free Mrs. Dash (I used the lemon-pepper variety).

In the end my Pistachio-Orange Tilapia looked just like the one on the front of the Sam's recipe card, helped clean out my fridge (always a goal), and checked off another item my summer must-cook list. It was wonderful--and definitely no slouch if you need to serve it for company.

Pistachio-Orange Tilapia

4 tilapia fillets

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt-free seasoning

3 tablespoons pistachios, chopped

2 oranges, peeled and chopped

4 cups fresh baby spinach

2 ounces white cooking wine

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle salt-free seasoning onto tilapia on both sides of the fillet. Place fillets in skillet. Saute for 3 minutes on each side and place on serving plates. Add pistachios, oranges, and spinach to the skillet. Add white cooking wine. Stir well. Place cover on skillet and allow mixture to sit for 3 minutes. Spoon spinach mixture over fish fillets. Serves 4.

Salad a stunner on live TV as talk show focused on joys of gardening resurgence

Would my speckled blue spongeware bowl be too "busy" to allow the cameras to focus?

Would my romaine lettuce wilt under the spotlight?

Would I remember the list of ingredients when I had to regurgitate them for the talk-show host?

I'm sure veteran TV cooks Racheal Ray and Paula Deen never have such concerns.

But Friday when I had to prepare Tangy Orange-Pecan Salad (I even devised the acronym TOPS to help me remember the name of the dish in case I blanked on live TV) for the Arizona Midday talk show, a thousand concerns such as these ran through my mind before I stepped on the stage with host Destry Jetton.

When my first cookbook, Way Back in the Country, debuted in 2002, I became highly familiar with cooking on live TV. Stations in a numerous places asked me to be a guest and to prepare my "Golden Corn Bread" that was featured in that book's first chapter. I became so accustomed to my corn bread preparation, I could have gone through those motions in my sleep.

But Friday's appearance to help promote my new book, Way Back in the Country Garden, was a first on live TV for me to prepare Tangy Orange-Pecan Salad, which I had chosen specially for this Arizona audience because oranges and other citrus are so plenteous in Arizona citrus groves. TV stations ask you to bring a sample of the finished product as well as the recipe in various stages of preparation (cut up orange sections in a bowl, dressing in a clear-glass container, spices mixed and ready to add.) My brain cells were eight-years older than when I did this previously. Could I remember everything I was supposed to do and say during the brief three-minute time segment?

Thankfully my host, Destry, a seasoned TV personality on this NBC affiliate, made the process comfortable (beforehand we discovered she had been a Texan some years back and even worked in the same city at the same my son was employed there. Small world!) She interviewed me about why I believed home gardening is experiencing a resurgence. She was enthusiastic about my recipe and even asked me why this particular recipe, Tangy Orange-Pecan Salad, was special to me (in the cookbook I write that I first prepared it last January when we were in Phoenix for our grandson's birth at the height of Citrus Season.)

Despite my niggling concerns, my spongeware bowl looked fabulous on camera. I spieled off the recipe ingredients fast and accurately. The crunchy romaine held up great and looked delectable with the orange sections, pecans, parmesan cheese, and cilantro on top. And best of all, the camera focused on the cover of my new book again and again! Great publicity!

Doubt if I'll be edging out Rachael or Paula, but I'm pumped and ready to cook on camera again any time.

Tangy Orange-Pecan Salad

4 navel oranges

1 lemon

1 tablespoon sugar (we use sugar substitute)

1 tablespoon oil, such as olive oil or canola

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 (16-ounce bag) romaine, washed, dried and chopped

1/3 cup cilantro, chopped

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

1 cup broken (not chopped) pecan halves

Peel and section three oranges; remove white membrane; cut orange sections into bite-sized chunks. Set aside. Into small container squeeze the juice of the remaining orange. Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the container. Combine sugar, oil, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk into juice. Place chopped romaine into mixing bowl. Add dressing and toss. Onto serving bowl place lettuce that has been tossed with dressing. Sprinkle on orange segments, chopped cilantro, and parmesan cheese. In small nonstick skilled toast broken pecans for about five minutes until they become brown. Sprinkle on top of salad. Makes six servings.