Here fishee, fishee...

Jeff and I probably eat fish for dinner maybe one night a week. For the past month, I've been using the frozen tilapia fillets at Aldi. Now, I've been known to really mess up fish so I try to make it a point to find an easy fish recipe that I know I will always have the ingredients for and that will taste great even if I lose track of the cooking time for a minute or two. (Note: the recipes that I am about to disclose are not miracles by any means. If you cook the fish way too long, there isn't much you can do to save the dish.)
Both recipes are very different from each other so it doesn't feel like you are being repetitive in your meals. We enjoy both of them and I've made them several times already. Let me know what you think if you try them or if you have a favorite and easy fish recipe.

Broiled Tilapia Parmesean (I love allrecipes.com because you can alter the number of servings which recalculates the amt of ingredients you will need.)

Herb Baked Tilapia (from the MomAdvice blog)

Birthday Bonanza!

So, between the two of us, Jeff and I have 9 or 10 family birthdays to cover this month. Well, when money is tight, you get the creative juices flowing. Thanks to my friend, Emily, the juices didn't have to flow too hard for one of the gift ideas. I spun off of her hair accessory holder and came up with this.

What do you do with a hideous (and kind of creepy painting of a girl)? Cover it up of course! :-)

I went to the thrift store in town yesterday and bought the only canvas painting that they had (slim pickings there yesterday). I then covered it in a layer of quilt batting and fabric cut to size, stapling on the backside of the canvas frame. Then I strung ribbon down the front and stapled the ends to the back. The frame already has a hanger on it but I think that I'm going to add a ribbon to use to hang from as well. Voila! A little girl's barrette holder.

Mmmmmmm....potatoes...

This past weekend, we had the best mashed potatoes that I've had in a long time. I have to admit that while I was intrigued by the name of the recipe, I was a little skeptical at what it was promising. But these were mighty tasty and I highly recommend trying them. I used red potatoes with the skins still on and whole green onions (sliced really thin). And either my crock pot is one fast cooker or I just sliced the potatoes thinner than the person who wrote the recipe because mine didn't take the entire 4 hours. It was maybe about 45 min - 1 hour quicker. You'll just have to monitor them, the first time.

CP Potatoes Euphoria

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
8 med. potatoes (2 lbs) scrubbed and sliced
8 oz. cream cheese (cut in 1 in. cubes)
4 scallions finely chopped

In one small bowl combine scallions and garlic. In another small bowl combine salt and pepper.
In greased crock, layer 1/4 potatoes.
Sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt and pepper and top with 1/3 cream cheese, then 1/3 scallion/garlic mix.
Make a second layer of 1/4 potatoes, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. salt and pepper. Top with 1/2 remaining cheese and scallion/garlic mix. Repeat with third layer of potatoes, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. salt and pepper, top with remaining cheese and scallion/garlic mix. Make final layer of potatoes and sprinkle with remaining salt and pepper.
Cover, cook on high for 3 hrs. Stir to distribute melted cheese, cover and cook for about an hour longer. Stir well to mash slightly and serve.

Thanksgiving in February?

So, I know that I still have two months to go but sometimes I feel like a float in the Macy's Parade. Yeh, yeh, yeh, "you don't look that big Patty". I get it. But listen to my theory on why I feel this way. I live in a small house that currently has boxes and tubs stacked up everywhere (rearranging to make way for baby). Well common sense would tell you: protruding stomach = toppling furniture, boxes, etc. It can't be avoided. And for some reason, I still think that I am thin enough to "squeeze" through behind someone or something. I don't know, maybe it's denial...who knows. For now, I'll try to stay out from beneath the rubble and hopefully someone will hold onto my ropes so I don't float away.

What a goal!

So while I was reading today's headlines, I came across this story. Since Jeff and I have recently enrolled ourselves in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, I was very interested to read more about this family. So I went to their blog and found out the following. They are a family of four that have recently started their own financial challenge: to live on $1,500 for one year for groceries, household items and personal expenses (haircuts, medical copays). Wow! Now mind you, they have stockpiled plenty of non-perishable deals before they started the challenge and admit that they probably wouldn't have been able to even attempt such a feat without their stockpile but still...wow! If you read on about how they used deals and coupons to build up their stockpile, the true value of it would far outweigh what they actually paid. But...you have to live in an area that these deals are readily available in and you have to have the time to plan out all of your shopping/couponing/wheeling and dealing.
I do admire that while they are striving for their goal, they are dedicated to maintaining a healthy lifestyle for their family and reinforcing family time throughout the month with their $0 spend days. They are very honest with how they are doing in their challenge which makes you want to root for them to ultimately succeed in their goal. If nothing else, they are shining a light on us all to look out how we spend our money.

New Pics!

A friend of mine took these photos for a Valentine's gift idea I had for Jeff. Since he has already received his V'day gift, I can finally post them. Didn't Liz do a great job?! Even though these were only taken a couple of weekends ago, I feel like I look twice as big now!

Neat little tip...

So, I got this idea off of a blog I read and decided to try it out last night. The last time I used up a stick of butter I saved the wrapper, folded it in half, and put it in a ziploc bag in the fridge. Last night I finally got to use it. I was making a loaf of pound cake and needed to lightly grease or butter the loaf pan. So, I whipped out my handy little butter wrapper and rubbed it all over the sides and bottom of the loaf pan. It was the perfect amount! And it worked perfectly. The loaf did not stick to the pan at all. This nifty idea saved me a little cooking spray and was really easy. Try it for yourselves! :-)