Tostadas and Ceviche

Since I'm doing very little cooking these days, this was a very easy throw together meal. I bought those pre-made tostadas (that are just tortillas fried up crisp), and then warmed up a can of refried beans, grated some cheese, and made ceviche. I should have had other toppings like lettuce/tomatoes/avocados/etc. but didn't have them on hand. When 7yo saw the tostadas he got really excited and said, "This is a Giovanni special!!!" Giovanni is his friend from school, who apparently makes his own special tostada to bring in his lunch. I think if I offered more toppings, that the kids might come up with their own specials, but this was good enough for tonight.

I have been thinking about ceviche lately for two reasons. First, I went to a birthday party that had a gargantuan bowl of ceviche that was really delicious. Second, a couple months back I bought 3 bags of shrimp because I had coupons. It isn't usually exactly a staple for me but I've had to find some recipes to use them. And now I want them to be a staple. I need more coupons.

I looked online to learn about ceviche and was a little bit horrified to find that traditionally the shrimp (or salmon or other seafood) is raw, but when soaked in lemon or lime juice its proteins are chemically changed to appear cooked. Made me a little squeamish, even though I know that raw seafood is a delicacy in many cultures. I kept looking around and finally found a website with cooked ceviche, they cited the reason for cooking was that the heat kills bacteria that the lemon juice method can't, and that a fairly recent cholera outbreak in South America motivated the change. (Thank you, cholera.) I usually buy the precooked shrimp anyway, but I did have one bag of raw and decided to use it for this. Otherwise, you can just save yourself that step.

1 lb. shrimp

cucumber, chopped

green onions, chopped (or red onion)

cilantro, chopped

lime juice, few tablespoons

hot pepper, chopped, to taste (different recipes specified different types, all I had was a dried red chile, it worked)

salt, to taste

Boil the shrimp for about 3 minutes, drain and remove whatever tails or shells they may have. Combine all the ingredients and refrigerate. This would have been even more awesome if I'd had an avocado to chop in there.