I am in love with ceviche. Everything about it is perfection. But being in Indianapolis means ceviche simply isn’t a reality. Tonight I had such a craving for it. I wanted to taste the coolness of fresh fish and lime followed by the crunch of a saltine, or better yet–a plantain. I’m seriously missing Costa Rica right now or Miami or anywhere close enough to an ocean where I can order up a tray of ceviche and sit happily on the beach while I enjoy it.

At any rate, my cravings are hard to live down so I decided to make a cooked version of one of my favorite dishes. I didn’t use any recipe as my base here. This was completely made up from scratch. I just played around with a few flavors in my crock pot, and the results were purely satisfying. The tilapia was so tender and bursting with flavor. I added sliced avocado because that’s one of the ways I saw ceviche served in Costa Rica.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs tilapia
• 1 cup mixed sweet peppers
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp seasoning salt
• 1 tbsp lemon pepper
• 2 tsp crushed red pepper
• Juice from two large limes
• 2 cups water
• Sliced avocado (optional)

Directions

• Chop your tilapia into small pieces
• Put all the ingredients in a crock pot
• Mix all of the ingredients together
• Cover and cook on low for 1 hour or 1 hour and 15 minutes*
• Serve warm over rice or chill in the fridge and serve with crackers.

* Crock pot temps vary. Check the fish at 1 hour and see if it’s done. If not cook for another half hour.