Holy mackeral (er, halibut) this was delicious. This fish recipe comes from Healthy Latin Cooking. The book calls for snapper, but we opted for halibut instead. The sauce, which you cook while the fish marinates in lime juice, includes tomatoes, onions, garlic, capers, olives, and a bunch of good spices. Once the sauce thickens, you add the fish to the pan and cook until done, about 4 minutes on each side. We served rice pilaf as an accompaniment.

I found this variant of the Brazilian Fish Stew Moqueca on Elise’s site. Salmon is marinated in lime, garlic, and spices for a couple of hours, then cooked with onions, peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and coconut milk. The stew is then served over rice. The only modification I made to the recipe, other than cutting it in half, was using Light Coconut Milk.

Salmon Fish Stew, Brazilian Style Recipe

I found this recipe on RecipeZaar, but it’s originally from a book called “Stop and Smell the Rosemary“. We’ve made this one quite a few times, and have modified the original by cutting the oil in half, cutting back the cumin to a 1.5 tablespoons, and using fire roasted tomatoes. You’ll save a lot of time if you cook/shred the chicken (about 2 cups) while the soup simmers for 30 mintues; you add it just before serving.

It’s delicious topped with diced avocados or, as we did tonight, with cilantro and homemade tortilla strips.

From our most frequently used cookbook, Great Bowls of Fire, comes this Brazilian black bean and meat stew. The chipotle peppers and chorizo really complemented each other, although next time I’d use a spicier chorizo if I could find it.

Great Bowls of Fire is a fantastic cookbook — a lot of the recipes only require one pot, and even though it’s not marketed as a “healthy” cookbook, a majority of the recipes are low-fat and many are vegetarian. And as the name would imply, they’re all spicy. It’s been out of print for a while now, so if you can find a copy for cheap, grab it while you can.

Made this dish for our friend Carrie one evening. The sauce was fantastic — a combination of tomatillos, jalapeños, green onions, cilantro, pumpkin seeds… it goes on and on. Yum! We had never had hearts of palm before, they were close in taste to artichokes. Very good with this simple dressing of corn, tomatoes, and lime.

Both recipes were from one of our new favorite cookbooks, Healthy Latin Cooking by Steven Raichlen. We’ve made half a dozen recipes from this book already.