Garlic Butter Tilapia

My house is not a big fish eating house but I am trying to find new recipes that make it more enjoyable. 
My newest one Is Garlic Butter Tilapia
I had a large bag of Frozen Tilapia fillets I had got on sale at Wal-mart. It was a 3 lb bag for $8 so I took out 5 fillets (in case My Mom wanted to eat)

I melted 1/2 a stick of butter in a sauce pan (big enough to fit the fish in so I didn't have to dirty any more dishes) I added 1 1/2 tsp of Garlic granules to to the butter as it melted and kept it on the heat so the butter would absorb the flavor.

I had some hot dog buns left over from a party that I dried out and made into fine bread crumbs.

A dipped each peace of fish into the Garlic Butter then into the bread crumbs.  I sprinkled the top with a little pepper and baked on 375 until the fish started to flake, probably about 20 min.

I served it with Green beans from the garden that I steamed and tossed with a TBLS of Roasted red pepper Italian dressing and a shake of Parmesan cheese.

I had really good intentions to do Mashed potatoes with this, but realized too late that I had used the last of the potatoes.

I was worried that the fish would have no flavor since I didn't season the bread crumbs but the garlic Butt flavor really came through.

New Adventure

I am just letting my followers know that I will be adding a new element to this site.  I will be reviewing products for companies and offering a link to purchase them.

Yes there will be a little incentive in it for me of coarse, however, I will be setting some of my own personal rules too.

Everything that I list will be reasonably priced, useful, and something I would use myself.  I will not Push anything on anyone, I will simply be reviewing and offering everyone a link on where to find and purchase it.

I of coarse am going to focus on Family friendly products as those are the ones most useful in my life.  I truly hope this works out since I love sharing new things with my friends and family.  I am not sure when the first product will arrive but I hope to be able to put it to use and review it as soon as it arrives.

Freebies

I have been so busy this summer that I have been neglecting my blogs and I apologize for that. 

Today I am going to talk about freebies.  There are a lot of freebies out there to be had if you just know where to look and if y are willing to work for them a little.

The first thing I recommend that you do is start a new E-mail with Hotmail or Yahoo because to access many of these freebies creates a ton of Spam mail.  This also helps keep your freebie updates from getting kicked to a spam folder in your regular e-mail.

There are many different types of freebies so I will go a few different ones.

1. Codes or coupons:  You normally have to google the word code, in relation to what it is your looking for. (ie Target codes) most of these are Free shipping or $5 off $75 purchase.

2. Samples: One of my favorites!  The best site for this is sweetfreestuff.com they will send you a daily link to free samples of items from Body wash to dog food.  Just remember these are samples so you get small quantities or 1 or 2 items. Another great way to free products is to go directly to the website itself, many offer free samples.  Procter and Gamble have a great one, and they send you e-mails when new freebies are available.

3. Search and win:  Swagbucks is one of my favorites for this.  I use their tool bar for searches and earn swagbucks, they also have codes to find(so it's kind of fun) plus multiple other ways to earn bucks, then you can cash them in for gift cards or hundreds of other gifts they have available. I have a Swagbucks link on the left if you just want to click and look around.

4. Surveys:  This one takes some patients and time but you can potentially earn money, free entries into contests or multiple other items.  I recommend looking into these pretty closely before you tackle them.  Inbox dollars is a good survey site, they also have an options of just accepting and E-mail and click Read and earn $0.02 each.  Takes a while but will earn you a little something.

5. Coupons.  I have to say yo are not going to find coupons for free items but you will find many many free coupons.  This saves me from having to purchase a Sunday paper as I can get almost all of the same coupons.  Although Procter and Gamble does do a HUGE coupon flier once a month and you do have to purchase the Sunday paper for that one.

There are many , many different options out there you just need to look around and decide which ones are right for you.

I just want to say that have a enough trail packs of Shampoo to last me for months.
Good Luck on your own Freebie search!

Shopping trip

Friday I went to the Lands End warehouse sale and I found some pretty good bargains. I purchased a very cute Aqua skort for $11.50 and a pair of wedge sandals for $9.00.  I bought Braxton a long sleeved tie dyed shirt for $5 and $7.00 for a yellow puff vest for him.  I also bought a really heavy beach towel for $4.00.  It has someone else's name Monogrammed on it, but 20 min and a seam ripper and I will have that taken right out.  If you are willing to take the time to remove the monograms all of those items are 50% off whatever sale price they have on them. 

This is a trip my Mom and I Make every year and it is so WORTH It!

Garden time

Oh it is my favorite time of year!!!  The garden is growing and the veggies are fresh and I am in heaven.  I have already harvested beans and got them in the freezer and I have more ready to pick.  My Mom says the Cucumbers are going crazy the last couple of days.

 We lost a lot of our garden to early rain that rotted many of our seeds before they got the chance to grow, but we will survive it.  we have plenty of beans, peppers, onions, cucumbers, broccoli, Swiss chard, and beets to get us through the winter.

Since WI isn't the best place to grow fruit (besides Apples) I do buy a bushel of Peaches or Pears every year to can.  I'm actually going to get my Peaches this afternoon.  I also make Applesauce but that has to wait until Fall.  Today however I can go pick up some peaches.

This week in a nut shell is pick up peaches today, pick and freeze beans on Tuesday, can peaches on Wednesday, then Thursday is pickles, Friday however is a Warehouse shopping event at Lands End so I will not be in the garden.  I'll try to keep everyone updated on progress of freezing and canning, and I will definitely let you know how much Money I saved at the warehouse event. 

Happy Gardening!!

summer sales

Since this was a holiday week there were some pretty good sales in the flier from my local grocery store.  One thing that was a HUGE bargain was Boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.99 lb. I just wish now I would have bought a few more packages, the other BIG item was a package of Klement's brats (have to support WI) for $3.99.  The only problem with that one was that it was limit One and you had to have a separate purchase of $5 (which isn't hard to do).  I also picked up 2 pounds of strawberries for $3.00 and 1 pint of Blueberries for $1.99.

So for lunch yesterday we all just snacked on bowls of fresh fruit, it was very refreshing and super Yummy.

I did have to try to come up with something for supper and since I had the chicken and was in a mood for light and refreshing I decided to make Chicken fajita salad with homemade tortilla strips.

To make the salad I marinated 2 breasts of chicken in Lemon juice, fajita seasoning, garlic, and cilantro for 1 1/2 hours. Then I grilled them on my stove top grill pan.  I also lightly grilled a green pepper and some red onion.

The salad was just iceberg lettuce, sweet corn, tomatoes, and Colby jack cheese.  When the chicken was done I sliced it into strips and tossed it with the salad, pepper and onion and used some fat free ranch salad spritzers on it.

The tortilla strips were super easy to make and made a great addition and added some crunch to the salad.
I took 2 10" tortillas, brushed a little butter on both sides then sprinkles them with Garlic granules, onion salt, and cilantro.  I then cut them into strips and backed them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.  My son LOVED them and had 1/3 of them eaten before the salads were ready.

I have some tortillas in my fridge that are getting a little old so I think I am going to make them all into these strips and have them around for a little snack.

New recipe

I had a pork roast in my freezer and decided today was a good day to throw it in the slow cooker. I didn't want potatoes cooked in with it so I needed to find something new to do with them.  As usual I hit up Allrecipes.com for ideas.  What I found was a recipe for Neapolitan potatoes, however I only have regular potatoes, not red, I have 6 cheese Italian, not fresh Grated Parmesan, and all of my herbs are dried as I didn't get around to doing an herb garden this year.

Tonight's Supper:

Slow cooker Pork shoulder roast and Neapolitan Potatoes

1 Pork shoulder roast (free for me) about $2.50 lb at the store
1 package of Onion Soup mix $0.50 ..I had bought a package of 2 for $1 earlier in the month
1 cup of water
Combine in a slow cooker and cook on Med/high for 5 hours

Potatoes
5 large Idaho potatoes Sliced...around $0.50 as I got a 10lb bag for $1.99 last week on sale
1/2 med onion chopped
2 T. garlic (minced)
2 T. Oregano
2 T. Parsley
2 T.  Basil
1 tsp salt and pepper
1 can Diced tomatoes $1.00
1/2 cup Cheese I'm using the 6 cheese Italian
5 T. Olive oil

Combine 1 T. oil, Potatoes, garlic herbs and spices
Place 1/3 of mixture in 9x12 pan add 1/3 of the tomatoes and sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese
Repeat 2 more times and bake at 375 for 1 hour or until the potatoes are tender. 

Just a reminder that I just found this recipe and I am experimenting so I am going to decide if I like it myself tonight.

I think I'm going to have my hubby stop at a roadside stand on the way home and grab some sweet corn too.

Just another Healthy but inexpensive meal to feed the whole family and feel good about.