Fresh Tilapia from my basement?!

I keep reading about Aquaponic gardening.  This sounds so unbelievable I had to learn more, and a few weeks ago my buddy Rick and began building our own aquaponic gardening system and it's ready to go:

 

 

 In case you don't know, aquaponics is a system of gardening where you grow fish and plants in a symbiotic relationship.  The system is almost completely self sustainable.  The only thing you need to add is a little water and fish food.  The fish eat the food and their waste is used to fertilize the plants.  The tank water is pumped back into the plants which completely filter the water and return it to the fish tank.   "We can get off the grid!".   Anyway, dinner was amazing.  Everything came out of the garden in his basement.  Tilapia Tacos with a cucmber relish.  We grew the tilapia, which we ate within 30 minutes of taking it from the tank, talk about fresh.  We grew the coriander, cilantro and cucumbers right there above the fish.  And the most amazing thing was, we drank the pure water kindly filtered by those same cucumber plants.  Not a hint of fish poop left.

Tilapia Tacos With Cucumber Relish

 Ingredients

• 1  tablespoon  olive oil, plus more for the grill
• 4  6-ounce tilapia fillets
• 1  teaspoon  ground coriander
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 6  radishes, sliced
• 1  cucumber, halved and sliced
• 2  tablespoons  fresh lime juice, plus lime wedges for serving
• 8  corn tortillas, warmed
• 1  cup  fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/4  cup  sour cream

Directions

1. Heat grill to high; oil grill. Season the tilapia with the coriander, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and grill until cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Break into pieces.
2. In a medium bowl, toss the radishes and cucumber with the lime juice, oil, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Serve the tilapia in the tortillas with the cucumber relish, cilantro, sour cream, and lime wedges.

Jewish Food!

My friend Ari made THE most delicious dish for me and I had to post it.  I LOVED it, but we noticed something funny about this traditional Jewish dish while we were eating it - it looks horrible:

 This must come from the old country because it was made of cabbage, chicken, and potatoes. Some kind of jewish-y spices in there and...zap...we had ourselves a real old fashioned meal.  But it did make me think...why do Jews make such delicious food that looks so lame?  I love gefilte fish but it looks like a white bear turd.  I love potato pancakes but they look like smashed bear turds.  Another question - jewish moms tend to encourage their kids to eat the unhealthiest foods while telling them that they need to eat it to be healthy.  This is a contrast to my black friends, who might eat unhealthy food yet they fully acknowledge and embrace that the food is simply sinful and delicious (think friend chicken and waffles people).  But my jewish friends' mom push items on me like pasty, cold chopped liver with inexplicable pieces of hard boiled egg implanted in it; dense lokshon kugels, sweet noodle casseroles as unappetizing as a Christmas fruitcake, and they tell me it's good for me.

This made me think of a few things jews are good at and not good at:

Good at:  making food taste good, inventing stuff (circumcision, communism, and Scotchguard - yes Scotchguard!), singing along with musicals

Bad at:  being sick (they complain a lot), picking locales for their country (really - between Syria and Lebanon?), carpentry (aside from JC).

Great Vegan Recipe - pickled peanuts.

I had a weird dream about pickled peanuts last night and woke up with a craving.  Here is a no fail pickled peanut recipe:

PICKLED PEANUTS
INGREDIENTS:
2 Lbs green peanuts
8 Cups water
1/4 Cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1.2 Cups cola
0.8 Cup rice vinegar
1 allspice berry
dash star anise or a small fraction of one star anise
1 dried chile, medium heat
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Combine peanuts, water, and 1/4 cup salt and bring to a boil for 45 minutes. Peel peanuts and leave them as intact as possible.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Add peanuts and boil for 5 minutes. Cool and refrigerate for at least 48 hours before serving. Can be refrigerated up to 4 weeks.

Cashews are NOT good. Please read.

I wrote earlier about how much I love cashews, and a reader of this blog kindly pointed out a MAJOR issue with cashews.  You can bet I am switching to peanuts or pork rinds or something. Wow, this world is harsh.  See below!!!

I LOVE CASHEWS and why YOU should too!

Seriously, is there anything better?????  Holy cow.  Cashews provide EVERYTHING YOU NEED to be healthy (well almost everything), and did you know that there is a socially responsible aspect to cashews??    Just look at what Intersnack is doing: http://www.intersnack.com/responsibility/social-responsibility/.  Wow.  I will never eat this little moon shaped golden colored crunchy again without thinking about these people:

Cashew cultivation in West Africa

One-third of all cashew nuts come from Africa. Most African cashew farmers live in poverty due to the primitive agricultural system and processes. As a partner, Intersnack supports the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the GIZ (the German foreign aid organisation www.giz.de) in the endeavour to improve the livelihood of 150.000 cashew farmers in the West African countries of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Benin and in Mozambique. A key objective of the project is to enable the farmers to increase their annual salary by at least $100. Furthermore, the project will create 5.500 jobs in cashew processing.

Eating Rocks?? A REAL dinner challenge to serve REAL food - PICA??

Well, this is a first.  I am just a couple months into my journey to eat REAL, and guess who is coming to dinner? One hint, it's not Sidney Poitier (if you think it's a challenge to me to cook a meal for one of this country's finest actors, you're nuts!). No, it's a cousin of a friend of mine who has PICA -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder).  Bottle gourds and backyard raised chickens won't cut it with this guy.  So here I am, looking up every recipe in a PICA cookbook and they all sounds disgusting.  How do you serve someone REAL food who doesn't eat food??

I will NOT serve crushed rocks or animal feces to anyone at my house. That is NOT hygienic. But what about dirt?  I will probably need to get my soil tested for hazardous substances, but I am thinking something like a "mud-pie". Why not? I mean the one dairy queen serves probably has more chemicals in it than the soil in my backyard.  I know this sounds crazy, but I would rather be thoughtful and respectful for my dinner guest and help him eat something healthy within his rather odd dietary restrictions.   Kosher, gluten-free, or PICA...I think these people all deserve access to REAL eating.

I am NOT condoning PICA, and if you think you suffer from PICA, please get help (maybe here http://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/pica).  But if you just can't help yourself, than at least eat safely! Wish me luck this Sat night. Have absolutely no clue what to do for beverages.

A chicken breed to fit your need

Every person has a a designated chicken breed that best fits his or her personality, physicality, and bio-pharmacology.  Do you need a chicken guaranteed to thrive in your climate without overheating or getting frostbite? Or maybe you just want a friendly companion with gorgeous plumage?  Do you need a chicken that helps lower your stress, glycemic index, or riboflavin count? Or maybe one that just tastes great in a quesadilla?  Well, I am in the process of building the chicken coop, and I think it would be best to have at least 8-12 breeds available for a variety of food-life or "life-for-food" applications.  Eggs, meat, pets, and feathers.  I do not think it is right to have only one breed. Then, what…a friend comes over and wants to eat a Sussex, but I am saving my best Sussex from the knife so she can produce eggs for my rocky balboa morning drink.  Anyways, I am going to search for breeds and find  way to get them here.  Is this considered locovore if I import from neighboring states?  I need a bunch of breeds.  I am going to check craigslist first.  I just wish that site didn't support human trafficking.