Fish Tacos

I've already admitted to loving Mexican food and being obsessed about cilantro, so it really shouldn't be that big of a surprise that when I decided to do another fish-based blend, I couldn't stop thinking about fish tacos!  I've made fish tacos before, but never quite been happy with the sauce, so this time I found one on Pinterest with a delicious sounding cilantro & lime sauce.

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It's a simplified version of this recipe from Our Best Bites.  I don't really have the time or inclination to do my own deep frying, so I just bought fish nuggets.  Yes, that's right... I bought fish nuggets.  But they were pretty good - and I bought them from Trader Joes - that makes them more healthy, right?  Well, either way, it was a lot easier than battering and frying.

Similarly, I also don't deep fry my shells.  Definitely not for everyday dinners.  I like just plain flour tortillas that are a little bit warmed up.

I bought cole slaw mix and fresh salsa from the produce section to also simplify things.  And because I live in New England, where the Latino population is typically not Mexican, there is no Cotija or Queso Fresco at my grocery store.  Instead I just used crumbled goat cheese - pre-crumbled, of course.  I gotta make things a little easy on myself, you know?

The real key to this recipe is the super duper delicious sauce - Creamy Lime-Cilantro Dressing.  Yes, cilantro and lime is a match made in heaven, and this sauce does not disappoint.  And it was definitely easy to make - I actually used my Blendtec to blend this up.  I love, love, love it.  It definitely made the fish tacos delicious, and you better believe I'll be doing these fish tacos again - if only so I can taste the dressing another time.

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First, a note on blending: I've slightly altered my blending technique based on some comments I've read from other people that blend.  We've had some really foamy blends - which translates into extra air in my son's tummy, and he often has a tough time managing his burping anyway.  So I've started blending everything but the milk and kefir on #4 - that's the Blendtec button for "Whole Juice".  I do the whole juice cycle twice, and then add the milk and kefir and pulse it 3 or 4 times.  It has really helped make it a lot less foamy.  And in turn, my blends have come out a little more calorie dense - which is a good thing.

After making the dinner, this is a pretty quick blend.  It's basically 2 fully filled tacos plus a couple of extra tortilla shells.  Then I also added some fruit to the blend - today it was bananas and berries.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
tortillas - small flour	4
battered fish nuggets (TJ's)	4 pc (4 oz)
coleslaw mix	1 cup
salsa, fresh	2 T
cilantro-lime dressing	2 T
crumbled goat cheese	2T
banana	1/2 small
mixed frozen berries	3/4 cup
corn oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	34
Cal/oz	37.4
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	22%
% Carbohydrates	61%
% Protein	17%

Tangy Pork Chops

I like the ease of cooking with a slow cooker, so this week I went searching for new slow cooker recipes for  some pork chops I had on hand.  I looked on Pinterest and found this recipe from Taste of Home.  It's kind of a stewed vegetable sauce to go with the pork chops.  It was pretty good.

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The one thing I changed from the recipe was adding more peppers.  I cut up a green pepper, a red pepper, and a yellow pepper, instead of just one.  Just a little way to add some more veggies.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe pretty closely.

Morty even helped out a little bit and we mixed the sauce up together.  (Shortly after I took this picture, he tried to shove his right fist into the sauce, which was precariously perched on his lap, so this is the only picture I got)

The table version of this meal turned out great.  I love how you do all the work for a slow cooker meal ahead of time - I started this in the early afternoon - so that by the time dinner rolls by, everything is already done.

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To make the blenderized version of this meal, I used 2 oz of one of the pork chops and about a cup of the veggie sauce - i.e. the rest of the recipe ingredients.  I tried to make sure that I scooped up a bunch of the peppers and tomatoes in my measuring cup to put in the blender.

I planned to make this with 1 1/2 cups of brown rice, leftover from our meal, but unfortunately, we only had a little over a cup, and I wasn't going to cook more rice, so I ended up substituting a slice of bread in our mix.  Oh well.

Even though I list Trader Joe's Omega-3 Carrot Orange Juice, you could really use whatever juice you have on hand.  I just happened to have purchased this juice on a recent grocery shopping trip.  I think I thought I was just getting carrot juice when I put it in the cart, but noticed later that it contains sardines, anchovies, and tilapia!  Sound gross?  Yeah, maybe.  But I can't taste any of the fish.  And it does have the good Omega-3's that the nutritionist wants us to get.  She suggests fish 2 times a week - even for Morty's blends.  We don't quite get to that yet - but I'm trying to do more fish.

I also list applesauce, but we actually put a homemade low-sugar apple butter in our mix.  It came from a recent apple picking adventure that resulted in far too many apples than I knew what to do with.  I've been adding apple butter to a lot of his mixes lately.  I'm actually not even sure what the difference is between apple sauce and apple butter - maybe apple butter has more of the liquid cooked out of it?

Now, even though I didn't exactly follow it, here's my planned g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
TJ's Omega-3 Carrot Orange Juice	1/2 cup
brown rice	1 1/2 cup
applesauce	1 cup
Tangy Pork Chop Veggie Sauce	1 cup
pork chops	2 oz
Canola Oil	3 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	33.9
Cal/cc	1.1
% Fat	23%
% Carbohydrates	65%
% Protein	13%

Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup

The past week and a half have been rough for Morty.  He got a cold - not a particularly bad cold - but one that does make him cough quite a bit.  And the little guy has problems managing all the phlegm.   We had been going on several weeks of really good non-puk-i-ness.  But the coughing and the phlegm have made it too hard for him, and he just hasn't been able to hold his food down - especially at night.  To be honest, it's been a bit of a nightmare.  We did go to his pediatrician and have him checked out to make sure that his lungs were still clear (they were).  And from a couple of different doctors' advice, we've totally altered his feeding to try and make things a little bit easier.

• First, we are giving smaller feeds more often.  So he's now having 4 oz every 2 hours until he goes to bed
• Second, we started Morty's humidifier/air purifier up in his room
• Third, I stopped giving him his morning feed until he's pretty much cleared the junkies out of his system (for Morty, that's around 10 am)
• Fourth, I suction the mucus out of his belly in the morning.  I do this by flushing a couple ounces of water in through the tube, and pulling it back out with the syringe.  If he's got mucus, you'll see it and know.  It floats to the top of the water level in the syringe, and then you can push most of the water back into his belly, and dispose of the mucus.
• Fifth, I took the dairy out of his mix.  Only for a while.  It may not be quite the same as when someone orally drinks milk and gets really thick mucus, but it can't hurt to help thin things out.
• Sixth, as we learned quickly, if he pukes late at night in bed, don't bother trying to give him replacement food, as it will also come up soon after.

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In desperation and fatigue from late night coughs/pukes/cleanups, last night I decided to make a special soup for Morty.  It's a soup that comes from a woman in my mother's church.  The legend behind this soup is that while you are making the soup, you say a special prayer to help those who are sick who eat the soup, and they will feel better.  Totally worth a try.  Really, after a week and a half of 1 - 4 pukes a day, it's ALL worth a try.  The soup is named "Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup" and is slightly adapted from a recipe by Connie Reyes.  I don't have a link to this recipe online, as the copy I have is typed and photocopied!  Here it is:

Stock:
1 split chicken breast
3 large onions
Tops of a stalk of celery
4 qts water

Soup:
4 large carrots, finely diced
3 large celery stalks, finely diced
3 large potatoes, finely diced
16 oz diced tomatoes
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp cumin (I probably put in more than this)
1/4 tsp celery seed
chili pepper, to taste (I use lots)
1 hand full small thin noodles (I used 8 oz of angel hair)

1.  Boil the chicken breast in water with celery tops and onions for 40 minutes.  Remove celery and onions and discard.
2.  Remove the chicken and dice when cool enough to handle.
3.  Strain broth and cook remainder vegetables with the spices until vegetables are tender.
4.  Bring soup to a boil and add noodles and diced chicken.  Cover and turn off heat.  Noodles will cook in hot broth in about 15 minutes.
5.  While soup is cooking say a prayer asking to bless the soup that it will heal all the sick who partake of it.


If you were in a rush, you could make this recipe with store-bought broth and rotisserie chicken.  Although there is something nice on a crisp fall evening about having a boiling pot on the stove.  The steam from the boiling pot might also help clear things up a bit.

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The blenderized g-tube version of this recipe basically takes 3 cups of the soup and blends it with a few other things.  I used 1/2 cup orange juice for the vitamin C.  I also added some honey because it's supposed to be a natural expectorant.

The blenderized mix comes out fairly low calorie, even with the extra noodles, bread, and oil.  But most people don't eat a ton when they're feeling sick anyway.

I blended this up while the soup was still pretty warm, so it flowed pretty well.  I did notice the next morning, however, that the blend had gotten quite thick - not unexpected as the pasta probably soaked up a lot of the broth, and the potatoes have a lot of starch.  To give it the "comfort food" factor, I'd probably heat it up before putting it through the tube anyway!  (I have an adult friend with a g-tube who tells me that while she doesn't taste the food that goes in through her tube, she definitely can feel if the formula or food is hot or cold.)

If the thickness is unmanageable, you could alter the soup/juice ratio.  When I made the second day of this with the leftovers, I used 2 cups of soup and 1 1/2 cups of orange juice, and it was thinner.

Here's the blenderized recipe:

orange juice	1/2 cup
Heaven's Mexican Chicken Soup	3 cups
Arnold 12 Grain Bread	2 slices
Canola Oil	3 T
honey	1 T
banana	1/2 small
diced pears in light syrup	4 oz
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	24.4
Cal/cc	0.8
% Fat	24%
% Carbohydrates	65%
% Protein	11%