Recipe: Quick and Tasty Tilapia

I've been making this dish for years.  So easy to prep and so delicious, this is a great dish for people to get their feet wet with cooking fish.  Tilapia is so mild and versatile, you can put your favorite flavor or seasoning on it and that's what it will taste like.  Before posting this, I combed the internet to find the original recipe, because I know I did not come up with it.  Here it is, a Paula Deen recipe from Food Network.  See?  Not every recipe from Paula Deen is bad for you.  This one doesn't even have butter in it!  Y'all know I love me some Paula Deen, and I've already answered the haters regarding her diabetes.

This tilapia recipe is simple.  You marinate your fillets in oil (she uses olive oil but since I am allergic to that, I just use canola), orange zest, orange juice, grated fresh ginger, tabasco sauce, salt and pepper for an hour and then grill.  I buy the bags of frozen, individually-wrapped tilapia fillets form Wegmans or Costco and they are pretty thin.  So I only need to cook them 3 minutes a side.  Paula's directions are longer but she uses thicker filets.

Tonight, I used my indoor, electric panini press/grill/griddle.  I got this for Christmas 2010 and used it only once between then and April of this year.  But in the last 2 weeks I have used it 5 times and I love it!  Anywho, since I lowered the top onto the fish, cooking it like it was in a George Foreman grill, it was done in 3 minutes flat; no need to turn over.  I've cooked it on the gas grill before, but not directly on the grate; I line the grate with foil and cook it on that.  No grill marks, but it still absorbs the grill flavor.  I've never made the Mango Coconut Rise she serves it with; just plain rice and a veg.  But I will have to try her rice over the Summer.  Enjoy!

"I Don't Know How She Does It"

I am reading the book "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson.  When I saw the movie trailer it looked interesting, but not enough to see it.  I am very discriminating with my movie theater dollars.  I can be with how fast movies come out on DVD.  However, there are certain types of movies you should see on the big screen to fully appreciate: Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Avengers, Transformers and the like.  There are other, infrequent occasions to see something in a theater, too.  For example, making an evening of cocktails or dinner and Sex in the City or Bridesmaids with my girlfriends; my brother offers to sit for free and there happens to be a movie playing that both the hubs and I want to see but is inappropriate for B.

But in this case, it is a book turned into a movie.  I have a love/hate relationship with this scenario.  Hate: books are always better then their movie counterparts and most are better left alone on paper instead of put on the screen.  Love: Books I've never heard of are put on my radar and, subsequently, my reading list, when I see the trailer and I have enjoyed many of them.  Anywho, I heard over and over that "I Don't Know How She Does It" was much better as a book and the movie was a disappointment.

I was surprised to discover as I started reading, that Allison Pearson is from the UK.  I don't care for British authors on the whole.  Their tone, vocabulary and sense of humor (if there is one at all) is not to my liking.  In fact, JK Rowling is the only British author I like b/c she doesn't write like a "typical" British author.  I wonder if that is b/c her target audience was children or if she "Americanized" her writing style, knowing that if the book was a hit, more copies would be sold in the US than the UK b/c, well, we have more people?  However, Ms. Pearson is quite successful in getting me to relate to her on the primal level of being a "mum".  Maybe that's b/c she isn't British; she's Welsh.  ;o)  I find her dead on with her descriptions of the main character's feelings, predicaments, guilt, responsibilities, in-laws and the shameful, ever-present battle line drawn between WOHMs (work outside of the home moms) and SAHMs (stay at home moms).

I checked the book out of the library and am wishing I owned it; it is the kind of book I want to read with a highlighter in hand.  I am having Steel Magnolias stirrings inside me from this book and I have only read the 1st two chapters!  (In case you don't understand the Steel Magnolias reference, IMO that movie is to women what The Godfather is to men.  As Tom Hanks said in You've Got Mail, "All of life's questions can be answered in The Godfather.")  Steel Magnolias is the movie I quote the most in my life and I quote a lot of movies!  Here is a highlighter-worthy excerpt from "I Don't Know How She Does It" between the main character, Kate, and her father-in-law, Donald:

"Emily, Grandpa asked you to put that down."
"No, I didn't," says Donald mildly. "I told her to put it down. That's the difference between my generation and yours, Kate: we told, you ask."

Zing!  There are paragraphs titled, MUST REMEMBER, that are simply the constant stream of thoughts going through Kate's head.  And in the middle of each one this is thrown in:

"Pelvic floor squeeeze."

LOL!  I am looking forward to reading the rest of this book.  I'll let you know what I think on the other side.

Recipe: Grilled Greek Chicken Kabobs

My friend, Julia, is a whiz on the grill and she always made delicious dishes that looked so elaborate to me.  But she shared the "secret" to her menu planning a number of years ago with all her friends: Kraft Foods.  She got their quarterly cookbooks in the mail and chose several seasonal recipes from them to add to her dinner rotation.  Luckily for me, they have a website full of these recipes.  Grilled Greek Chicken Kabobs was one she highly recommended, and it has been a staple in our house ever since.  I will use the grill no matter what the weather and this recipe does not use "seasonal" ingredients.  Chicken; yogurt (we use mayo); Greek salad dressing; red onion.  Does it get any simpler than that?

Served with rice and green beans.  I know, I know. You see A LOT of green beans in my pics.  But when the farmers markets are not open in my area, there are very few veggies we buy frozen - peas, corn and green beans.

The Ferrie Girls: Red Eye Studio QUILT giveaway!

My friend, Stephanie, over at A Houseful of Fairies and a Prince, is giving away a beautiful, homemade quilt by Heather at Red Eyed Studio LLC.  Click this link - The Ferrie Girls: Red Eye Studio QUILT giveaway! - view the quilt, learn about Heather, find out how you could win the quilt and get a coupon code good for 10% off at Heather's Etsy site.  Entries for the quilt must be received by 11:59pm EST on Thursday, May 10th and coupon code is good through 11:59pm EST Tuesday, May 15th.

Good luck!

One of the Secrets to a Successful Marriage in Our Home

Apologize.  And make sure the same person isn't always the one apologizing first.  You don't have to apologize for your opinion/belief/stance as long as you believe in your heart that you are correct.  But you do have to apologize for your tone/defensiveness/nastiness that contributed to the argument and any subsequent off-topic tangent you may have dragged into the argument.  Couples are known for not staying on topic and dragging up all kinds of supposed dead and buried issues!  LOL

Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul

I have felt like crap for a week.  Like most people around here, I seem to be developing allergies in my old age.  My nose is running like a faucet, my lungs are full of gunk that I cannot blow out my nose quick enough, I had the croup for 2 days last week and have a cough that keeps me up.  I have gotten very little sleep which has made me short-tempered and very crabby.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!


I've had no energy nor desire to cook while I've been sick.  You know I have got to be pretty bad off
to not want to cook!  Cooking is my happy place, my stress reliever.  As I lay awake Friday night, I realized I needed some homemade chicken noodle soup.  In addition to tasting good, making you feel all warm and full and reminding you of your childhood sick days when mom fussed over you, chicken noodle soup really does have "magical" properties that help get you better physically.  I usually make soups from scratch, starting with homemade stock, but had none in the freezer.  *sigh*

Math Worries

I've been struggling with B's Math curriculum the past 2 years.  I did my research in 2010 and I thought Math-U-See was the right choice for B's personality and learning styles.  He loves LEGOS and is so creative with them that I assumed Math with bricks would click.  I was wrong.  I know that multiplication is taught to 3rd graders in my county.  And, although I have heard a couple of public school parents struggle with getting their 3rd graders to understand multiplication, I was still struggling with B over addition!  How was I going to get to multiplication if I couldn't even get through addition, let alone subtraction?!

In March, I had a rare day off from work that coincided with an informal get together in my homeschooling group.  The talk of Math came up and a friend of mine spoke about where her 3rd grade daughters was.  She said that when she started homeschooling this past Fall (her daughter had been to public school for kindergarten - 2nd grade), she realized that she had to start over and reteach her daughter principals of addition and subtraction and had not yet gotten to multiplication.  That made me feel better, that B was not odd man out.  It reminded me of so many homeschool authors I'd read that talked about when the public schools say kids should be reading - kindergarten and 1st grade.  These authors, like me, struggled with their boys over reading and finally stopped.  They read to their boys, instead, and all of the boys picked up reading by choice between the ages of 7 and 9.  And that is exactly what happened with B and reading.

When I mentioned my Math worries to my brother, he asked if I'd tried flash cards b/c they were used to teach the 2 of us in school.  So, I went out and bought flash cards for addition, subtraction and multiplication.  And I have learned that B can do Math in his head and is a wiz at flash cards!  I thought he wasn't getting Math b/c he struggled with worksheets.  It's just that he isn't a worksheet and show-your-work kinda kid!  Phew!  Flash cards are so much cheaper than a Math curriculum and I can create word problems and find some freebies online.

I also got a great tip from another homeschooling mom - Timez Attack by Big Brainz.  It's a video game with timed Math problems.  B did some addition on it last week and was getting upset by the timer (too short, IMO) but still did well.  Today, I had him take the pre-test in multiplication.  Man did that upset B!  He had not even been exposed to multiplication before that.  He was stressed over the time and frustrated b/c he didn't know "anything".  Well, he got 10 out of 66 right and I know he came up with the correct answers for a few others but just didn't get them typed in fast enough.  He was not happy when I pulled out the multiplication flash cards after that experience.  So, I got a pad of paper and a pencil out and went over the easier multiplication problems with him.

1. Any number x 0 = 0 
2. Any number x 1 = that number
3. Any number x 10 = that number with a 0 on the end 
4. And to boost his confidence, I threw in any number x 100 and any number x 1,000 and he was pretty impressed with himself that he could multiply something by 1,000.  And that's exactly what I wanted - to bolster his confidence that he could do multiplication.  If I'd put the times table in front of him for memorization, he would have been lost, frustrated and given up.
5. 1 through 9 x 11 = 1 through 9 in the tens and ones column
6. 10 x 11 (follow the principle in #3)
7. 11 x 11 and 11 x 12 = memorization.  These were the only 2 answers he had to memorize today so he could handle that and he remembered them!

Just using the flash cards that worked with the above 7 situations, B was able to answer 104 flashcards correctly!  The other 65 flash cards that do not fall into the above 7 situations I didn't show him.  We'll cover those another time.  He and I are just so proud that he's got over 60% of the multiplication table down in his 1st lesson!  After I put the cards away, I actually went over multiplying by 5s with him, verbally.  Even telling him some of my tricks.  For example: 8 x 5 seems daunting.  He can count by 5s eight times to get there or he can do 8 x 10 = 80 in his head quickly and then cut that in 2 to get 40 b/c 5 is half of 10.  If he can't remember what 11 x 11 is, he can do 11 x 10 = 110 in his head and then just add another 11 to that.  But I'm sure he'll work the numbers out in his head his way.  He was so proud to tell the hubs that he "...had a great 1st multiplication lesson today, Daddy!"  And I am thrilled to unlock another mystery of how his brain works.