Tilapia and fried potatoes

A little over three and a half years ago when David and I started dating, he made it his goal to, 1. Make me his bride, and 2. Get me to like seafood. Well my friends. It has happened. I am David's wife. And I occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally) really love a piece of fish. 

Last night for dinner I actually made the meal that I have, for so many years, despised. Tilapia. And, if I do say so myself, it was quite tasty. 

Don't let this face fool you. He enjoyed it. He just doesn't enjoy getting his picture taken mid-bite :)

Ingredients:

1 large sweet onion

1 green pepper

3 potatoes (Yes. David and I, between the two of us ate three ENTIRE potatoes. Is that bad?)

3-4 tablespoons of garlic butter

A whole lot of olive oil

1 lb of tilapia fillets (if you are making it for two people)

Zatarans Seasoned Fish Fry Breading Mix

Directions:

1. Slice the onion, green pepper and potatoes. 

2. Melt garlic butter in a skillet. Add the onion and green pepper. Saute. 

3. Fill your frying pan with about a 1/4-1/2 inch of olive oil. Place the potatoes in the skillet and fry 'em up. Make sure to stir them from time to time so the ones on the bottom don't get scorched while the ones on the top are not cooked enough. 

4. Wet each fish fillet with some water and place it on a plate of the breading mix to coat the fillet on each side. 

5. After the potatoes are done frying, transfer them to a serving plate with a paper towel on the bottom to absorb the extra oil. Season with Nature's Seasoning (or salt and pepper). Keep the oil you used for the potatoes to fry the fish in. 

6. Once the onion and the pepper are nice and soft/slightly browned take them off the skillet and place in a serving bowl. 

7. Place fish in the potato frying pan and let it sizzle away. (I don't have a picture to show of the fish frying process because I was too busy yelling, "Oh no Oh no. Their burning, their BURNING!!!!") So make sure you keep an eye in those little babies. Because they burn QUICK!

8. Once they are just slightly crispy and the inside is no loner pink, remove from the oil and place on the dinner plate. Squirt some lemon juice on top (or lime juice if you are David). 

Serve up some potatoes and give a good portion of the onions and peppers on top. 

Enjoy!!!

Breakfast, God, and the internet

I love my mornings. I wake up. Sugar and I take a stroll around the lake while we hunt for lizards. Sugar gets her milkbone and breakfast and I get my coffee (equivalently as exciting to Sugar's milkbone) and breakfast and I spend some time in the word. Afterwards I play on the internet for a while. 

So relaxing. I love mornings! 

This morning I made a bagel sandwhich with eggs, spinach, sundried tomatoes, and cheddar cheese on an everything bagel. yuuuuuummmmm!!

Baby Cupcakes

Home for the Holidays is always the BEST. Our family is very close and we are not very often together since we live far apart, so getting together is always a guaranteed fun time. We weren't completely together since Mike and Nicola couldn't make it across the pond, but we are looking forward to their May visit!!

Moving on. We had a baby shower for Emily and her little bun in the oven. It was way fun with a heated game of baby pictionary, hunting for baby supplies all over the house, LOTS of pink clothes, and yummy food. I was mildly obsessed the with baby cupcakes we made for dessert. They were so adorable and made such a nice centerpiece for the food table.

Mom got the idea from a cupcake book that she got Emily for Christmas. I mean, just look at them. They were adorable. And it was only mildly disturbing to take off their heads and eat them : ).

Here's how we made them

Start off with the same amount of large and small cupcakes

Add food coloring to some icing. We used pink for the faces and green and yellow for the blankets.

Stir it up

Once the faces are iced, put the "eyes" on (chocolate jimmies). We found using tweezers was the best/easiest way to get jimmies on without messing up the icing.

Add some candy binkies and mini marshmellows that are cut in half around the top of the head (not pictured).

Stick a toothpick into the bottom of the face, have a good laugh about the fact that it looks like the baby is smoking, and then....

attach the head.

Set it up on party day

And receive the compliments : )

Pie in a Jar

Its exactly what it sounds like. Pie. In a jar. A quite delish too : ) Teri and I ventured into what we hope to make a monthly baking night. Frenchie and Flea featured a recipe for Pie in a Jar and well, we just couldn't help ourselves.

Please note: when baking with lots of flour....it is best to wear an apron

Pack it in there...

Cover it up (don't forget the butter)...

Sprinkle a little sweetness over the top...

Bake...

Eat...

ENJOY!!!

FLAN!

Remember how I said that work inspires me to make lists?? Well last week on my last night the inspiration juices were flowing...again; and I suddenly felt like I needed to tackle the art of making flan. David and I have gone to visit my sister and brother-in-law a few times and have been taken to a spanish restaurant after church. It was here that we decided that we LOVE flan.


SO. I googled "flan" and stumbled upon this recipe that didn't seem like it would be too hard. And indeed, it wasn't. I feel like maybe you should try making it. I think your life my be greatly enhanced once you have this little piece of heaven!

Here is what you'll need:

1 cup of white sugar
4 eggs
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1 12 oz can of evaporated milk
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
A 9 inch glass baking dish
And some sort of pan (vague right? I'll explain in a minute)

And here is what you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Take your random pan and fill it with water. Careful not to spill (I of course did ; )   ) and place it in the oven. Place your empty glass baking dish in the "water bath" and allow your dish to heat up while the oven is heating up.

2.  While all of that is happening, in a saucepan melt the cup of sugar over medium-low heat. This takes a little while. Make sure you don't stir the sugar...just tilt to saucepan back and forth, like so:

It will look nice and golden brown and yummy when its done

3. Once the sugar is melted, remove your baking dish, carefully, and pour the hot syrup into the dish. Turn the dish in order to coat the bottom and sides.

4. In a large bowl, beat the eggs. Beat in the condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into your baking dish.

5. Cover it with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 60 minutes. When its done baking immediately put it in the refrigerator to cool. Let it cool for a number of hours.

6. Wait to serve it until its completely cool. Carefully invert the baking dish onto the serving dish. And this is what it should look like right before you indulge (obviously without a slice cut out of it)  : )

 

Enjoy

Publix scavenger hunt paid off. Chicken Posole

I have really been enjoying cooking lately. I love to read different blogs or magazines and try out a new recipe every week. For example, last week I made some super yummy granola bars from Smitten Kitchen. This week I made Chicken Posole from Real Simple My problem is, though, a lot of times the recipe that I'm trying calls for some obscure item that I typically don't shop for. Last week it was cream of wheat. I scoured the Publix isles for at least 30 minutes along with the help of 3 different Publix workers, only to find that they didn't, in fact, have cream of wheat. This week, for my soup, it was Hominy. Who in the world has ever heard of Hominy?!?!


Luckily, Mama Malone always knows how to point me in the right direction. Look at her...isn't she a gem??

If I had a dollar for every time I've called that woman from Publix saying, "Have you heard of (enter obscure item here)?? Where do you find that in Publix??" I would be a very rich woman.

This week I called Mama asking about Hominy. I was flabbergasted that she knew what it was (made her even that much cooler in my book). She told me it was a kind of grits and to look for it in the corn section. Hominy = Corn, who knew?? So to the corn isle I marched and TA DA. There she was! This is what the can looks like so you have a little direction when surveying the 5 shelves of corn. I'm telling you, blink and you'll miss it!!

So like I said, tonight I made Chicken Posole. Its from Real Simple Magazine. You can find it in the October 2009 issue. It makes about 4 servings, was really tasty, really easy, and only took about 25 minutes to make. So without further ado I give you chicken Posole...

Here is what you'll need.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion (I used only half of a sweet onion and it worked fine).

Salt and Pepper

1 32-ounce container low-sodium chicken broth.

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (the recipe says to drain them, but I didn't and it was just fine)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken meat

1 15-ounce can hominy, rinsed

1 lime, cut into wedges

And here is what you do.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and 1/4 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and beginning to brown.

Add the broth, tomatoes, crushed red pepper and bring to a boil. Stir in the chicken and hominy and simmer until heated through. Squeeze some lime juice into each serving and toss the lime into the serving as well.

And this is what it looks like when its done

I tend to be a bit messy when I cook. Sugar loves this quality about me. Here she is anxiously anticipating a spill

Aaaaaand patience usually pays off in her mommy-dearest's kitchen