Parmesan Crusted Fish



This recipe works best with thin, firm fillets, such as halibut, red snapper, catfish, orange roughy, etc. ( I actually used flounder, and it was perfect!)The fish is coated with seasoned Parmesan cheese and quickly sautéed. The cheese forms a delicate crust which compliments the fish in both flavor and texture. If small fillets are not available, use larger ones and cut them into smaller pieces.

Ingredients

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds fish fillets
3/4 to 1 cup Parmesan, grated
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 lemon, cut into wedges...Beat the egg lightly with the garlic and pepper.
Coat the fish fillets with the beaten egg, draining off excess. Roll the fillets in the Parmesan to coat. Let sit 5 minutes before cooking.
Heat the oils in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the fillets and cook until browned on one side, about 2 minutes. Turn the fillets over and brown the other side. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

I really like this recipe. I have used it with flounder, tilapia, and I think snapper. I'm not a huge fan of fish, but the parmesan cheese adds a great flavor to the fish.

Handy Old Man

My father has decided to rip up his carpet in the living room and put down wood laminate floors. I went over today to help him get the flooring started. He already had the carpet pulled up and the wood out and ready to go. Pretty impressive for a guy who just lost his leg 8 months ago. He has already laid slate tiles along the walk way from his bedroom, through the living room to the kitchen. It makes me feel as if we should be way further along in our kitchen! Now I can say that I kind of know how to lay the wood flooring. It is kind of hard to get it all snapped together, but once you get in the groove it moves along!

Stripping

I have had the pleasure of stripping our kitchen cabinets of the paint. Ugh. The process seems easy, paint on the stripper, wait, then scrape off of the cabinets. Sure,,, uh-huh,,,, sounds to good to be true. Well, they failed to mention that the stench of the stripper is enough to dissolve all nose hairs and curl your eye brows. Wow, it packs a punch. Okay, so I painted on the stripper, used my little plastic tool and proceeded to scrape. Hmmmm. So it doesn't all come off. Damn you paint. So it takes 2 to 3 applications to get it all. But it isn't really all gone, there are some green paint streaks and some green tinted wood. I think that is because I was seeing things after inhaling the fumes. I really thought that it would be an easy process and be done within a day or two. I guess I should have expected the extra time since this entire process is taking WAY longer than expected. I'll do one more round of the stipper with the cabinet drawers to try to get it all off. We don't know what we'll be doing with them (stain or paint) until we figure out what color the granite counter tops will be.

Here are some pictures of my progress....

I will find a recipe to use this purple-icious veggie during my vacation. I have always wanted to cook one of these up but never had. Oh yes dear readers, this eggplant will be sliced, diced, sauteed, fried, or grilled before Monday!

Oh vacation.... how I love you.... let me count the ways :)


I'm into my 4th day of vacation (including last weekend) and I don't really feel like I did much. This weekend was spent at the lake, so I guess I couldn't do many chores during that time. Yesterday was spent running errands, cleaning my desk, and light cleaning. Today I'll start working on the kitchen. I'll be taking down the cabinet doors, stripping them and the rest of the cabinets, and then putting up dry wall. Well, at least I'll put up the small pieces of dry wall.


I have a feeling that I won't get as much done as I want. But I'll certainly try!! :)
But at least I can sleep in, eat when I want, leave my hair in a bun, not wear makeup, eat ice cream for lunch, watch a movie in the middle of the afternoon, and whatever I want!

Some pictures of my kids.......

Non-people pictures from our weekend trip

Great Weekend

We spent a fun Saturday at the lake with our friends. Lindsey was able to get her hands on her work's cabin at Lake Buchanan (which is about 60 miles from the house). Almost everybody stayed both Friday and Saturday, but we didn't want to kennel the dogs so we only stayed one night. Courtney came over while we were gone to let the dogs out for us (thank you lady!!!)! We could have taken them, but we spent most of the day on the boat and we weren't sure what we would have done with the dogs during that time. I love my kids but they are high maintenance every time we go anywhere with them.

John and the twins brought their boats, so we were able to spend lots of time on the lake. Lake Buchanan is pretty big and there are some beautiful areas to cruise around like the waterfalls. We spent a lot of time at the waterfalls swimming around and laying out on the boats. I even did a little cliff jumping (it was only about 12 feet high or so). It was such a rush to jump off of the cliffs into the water. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of me jumping off, but I have included one of Nick jumping off. I swam around with my camera, so I was able to get some pictures with different views.

Chris smoked a brisket all day, so we had some great food waiting for us once we got back from boating. We then hung out on the boat dock for an hour or so. I have to say I was quite the baby, cause I was in bed by 10:30. I was freakin tired and the boys were about to play poker so I decided to get some sleep. All of that swimming (and beer!!) made me tired!!

Here are some pictures!!!

Yes, I am sucking in. It makes me feel better :)

Chris, Lindsey and Charlie

John and Jim

The twins... Mike and Charlie, or is it Charlie and Mike? :)

Jim and Enoch

Hanging out under the waterfalls... not the greatest picture, not great light under the waterfalls

Here is the cliff that I jumped off of. If you look above Jim's head in the water, you'll see Nick diving off of the rocks.

The happy couple

Yes, those are my feet.

John and Tammy

Ahhhh.... Chris and Lindsey

Wakeboarding by sunset.... I think this is Mike but it could be Matt. Sorry guys :) It is to dark to tell you apart.

Tammy and Champ

An Univ. of Arizona hat in Texas.... really? seriously? A serious booooooo to Charlies hat.

I love this picture. Great colors, calm and life like.

Hot mama!

Ah, my first day on vacation. We are on our way to meet up with friends to hang out on a lake in a cabin. It is about 1.5 hours from the house. I don't think I have been to this lake before so it should be interesting. We have the truck packed up and are currently waiting at Sonic for lunch. Then we head back out on the road! I have both cameras so you know I'll be posting lots of pictures.

Night Pictures

I was outside playing with the kids when I realized that the moon looked pretty cool and the clouds were moving fast. Soooooo.... I ran inside, grabbed my camera and tri-pod to take some pictures. I think they came out okay... I tweaked them a bit. I forgot bug spray so I was eaten alive while I took the pictures. Damn bugs.

48 Hours

I have 48 hours until I am on vacation. Oh... My.... Gawd..... I can not frickin wait until I am on vacation. I don't have any big plans and Jim has to work, but I am still really looking forward to some time off. Work has been a little stressful lately so not being there will be a nice break.

My biggest plans are to do stuff around the house. Of course I have made a huge list that would probably take a month to finish, so I'll have to prioritize what I want to do. Stuff like put drywall up in the kitchen (the stuff that I can do by myself), paint the den, re-grout the foyer tiles, steam clean the carpets, check out some granite yards and tidy up the yard are on my list. I also need to take Taylor to get her teeth cleaned, and I'm pretty sure I'll make time to get a massage! I might also take a half day and get lost in Texas to get some good pictures. It is my vacation, so I need a little pleasure mixed in with all of the work!! :)

I finished my eBusiness class for school, so I don't have that stress of final projects due. However I did start some financial class, but it won't be to bad. Usually new classes don't have a lot of homework/projects due :)

Okay,,, Off to work where I'll be counting down the hours!!

Tiny Baby Steps





We have neglected our kitchen lately. It seems that our weekends have filled up in August with stuff to do. I so want to be done!! The last thing we did in the kitchen, was put up dry wall around the window. Here, take a look!

Before

After

As you can see, we have more drywall up. I think we just need to dedicated a time after work during the week to work on it along with the weekends to get the process going. Next we'll be visiting granite shops to check out their slabs. At this point we are going to keep an open mind and not look for one color or type.

Shrimp-a-licious

I found an awesome recipe online at The Pioneer Lady blog. It is so simple yet so finger lickin good! There isn't really a recipe because you make it based on your tastes, but I'll let you know what I did.

I used about 25 or so 21-25 shrimp with shells still on (21-25 means that there are 21-25 shrimp per pound)

Arrange shrimp on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle on lots of black pepper. I probably used about 2 table spoons. Then sprinkle on some salt. Then get out your Worcestershire sauce and squirt on 7 to 8 shakes over the shrimp. Next it is time for the Tabasco. I thought I used a lot (10 squirts) but the shrimp wasn't super spicy (which is what I wanted). Once you have everything squirted on, then you'll take 8 pats of butter and put it on top of the shrimp.

Now stick it in the oven on broil (and I had two options on my oven, hi and low, I picked low) for about 8 minutes or until the shrimp is pink.

The shrimp will be in a sauce in the pan. I scooped up the shrimp onto my plate, and then covered them in sauce. They are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good! And the recipe is so damn simple. We had corn on the cob and some crusty french bread.