Try it, you'll like it!

Tonight I actually cooked. It had been a while, but since I discovered Everyday Food on PBS Saturday mornings, I've been more inspired. Thing is, I've been waitressing: love the food at the restaurant, but develop a sort of love-hate relationship with cooking at home.

So here's a really easy, easy recipe for anyone who likes fish! I wish I had a great camera, but this was the best photo I got. Hey, it's not easy to make an appealing photo with sour cream in the way! :)


The taste it leaves in your mouth is fabulous, even now (nearly 2 hours later!). Even Lulu wanted some... could you resist this sweet face? (She's rolling over on her back.)



Tilapia Tacos from Everyday Food
(makes about 4 Tacos)
3 Tilapia fillets, salt and peppered
1 head red cabbage
1 lime
3/4 sour cream
salt and pepper
diced, minced jalapeno
scallions, minced (I skipped the scallions)
package of tortillas

To make the sauce:
To the 3/4 cup sour cream add the juice of the lime. Reserve half to be a topping.

To make the cabbage-slaw:
Cut off a little more than 1/4 of the red cabbage, core and slice it into small strips. Add to the bowl of sour cream (not reserved), along with the jalapeno and scallions.

To prep the fish:
Put a pan on medium heat with some olive oil. Add fish when hot. You'll cook it about 3 minutes on each side, and it is ok if it breaks apart.

To warm the tortillas:
Place in a warm oven until they are flexible to work with. Place in a stack in a towel until you're ready to make your tacos.

To make the tacos:
Place fish in bottom of tortilla shell. Add a generous portion of the cabbage-slaw and top with the reserved sauce.

**The nutty flavor of the Tilapia is wonderful with the sweet cabbage, but I wonder what other kinds of fish might be good in these. Try it for yourself!

Mardi Gras- King's Cake

Laissez les bons temps roulez!

I had a blast with my French club these past few weeks... First we made masks, then had our Mardi Gras party and finally, on Mardi Gras, paraded thru every classroom with our masks and beads, dancing to Mardi Gras music playing over the loud-speakers! It was great to introduce something like this to the kids, they don't want it to be over! Alas, it is, but for you I'll share the easiest EVER Mardi Gras King's Cake!

King's Cake:
2 or 3 containers Pilsbury Cinnamon Rolls
food coloring
sugar (the decorative crystals look best)
clay baby, fish or unbaked bean

Preheat oven according to package directions. Grease a pizza pan or round baking sheet.

Open containers and separate "rolls". Inside of the first roll, place the clay baby or fish. Now ball it up and place it on the baking sheet. Now ball up, individually, all the rolls, placing two next to eachother on the pan (in a circle formation) and one on top, between the two. Continue until you are out of rolls. Make sure it's in a pretty good circle and bake until a toothpick comes clean. You'll probably only have to bake it a few extra minutes, and watch that it doesn't burn.

While it is baking, remove the icing from the containers. Separate into 3 equal portions into small bowls. With the food coloring, make one bowl green, another purple, and another yellow. Also add color to 3 small bowls of sugar.

Remove cake from oven, let cool about 5 minutes before you add the icing. You'll want to make sections of each color with coordinating sugar on top.

Enjoy!

February Sweets

(Artwork by a student- use electrical tape to "draw," then watercolor over top.)
This has been a busy couple of weeks! Lots of birthdays and get togethers, but I regret to say I left my camera in my bag. Here are some tidbits of all kinds of goodies...

First off, we celebrated our 4th Valentine's Day together! We were lucky to have the day off work, and we had a fun day. Jeremy made me a sweet, lovely dinner and a homemade card (our tradition is to exchange homemade cards)... I can't show you the card :), but I can show you his gift from me! It's a puzzle-message, the kind I can't think of the name, where one letter stands for another, etc.


Basically, it says, "We're going to see the Harlem Globetrotters in March!" I think it was the perfect gift! We're both really excited. He's seen them before (back in the 80's) but I haven't.

More sweets! A gift from my mother! My very own, hand-knit scarf! It's the perfect length, color, feel (not too scratchy)! She's been knitting the past few years, and this was my first knitted gift from anyone! (Minus baby blankets before I was born)...


Just lovely! Thanks, Ma!


I've recieved some great mail lately, too. Just got this package from Jennifer at the Felt Mouse! She really is just too cute! This was a wonderful surprise-- a little pink container with red flower, beautiful Chinese card in the envelope....


And the goodies inside! A hand-made fortune cookie, a chocolate dipped fortune cookie and some yummy fortune chocolate hearts! This girl deserves an award! She's always doing such fun stuff for every holiday, and I wish I lived in the West so I could shop with her wherever she finds all this cool stuff!


Thank you Jennifer!!!! You are so sweet!

And finally, after a delay in the shipping, my new Amy Butler fabrics have arrived! They were supposed to (the greens and blacks) be a birthday present for Ashley, but, since I also gave her a late Christmas gift as a birthday gift, I don't want to keep being so far behind. I made her something else, and now (sigh) I'll just have to find another way to use these! :)


I'll be honest and say I've visited so many of you, but had some trouble logging into my account, so I couldn't leave a comment! I hope everyone's had a lovely month!

Snowed In This Month

I've skipped on blogging for a while, to sort of hiberate (yeah, I know the computer's in the house, too) and enjoy winter since it finally arrived. We've been completely spoiled by the number of snow days we've had... now at the sight of fog or ice on the trees, we're sure that they'll reward us with at least an hour delay or two. After all, they gave us 2 snow days without the sight of a drop of the white stuff! What's funny is that now, after a few weeks of hoping for a snow day, all the teachers talk about wanting Spring to arrive! (Probably because if we have another snow day, we'll have to use one of our Spring Break days!!!!)



Here's a few photos from a day in the snow with Jeremy and Lulu...


For once, she wore the jacket! Usually she won't move with it on.

A Few More...

My favorite, a pop-up!

Valentine Goodies

What a week!

I discovered that someone figured out my eBay password, and bid on some very costly items. Fortunately, they didn't bid high enough & I recieved emails reminding me to bid higher!!!! The foolish thing I'd done was to have the same password for ALL my accounts, important and unimportant; so, this week I went in and changed each one individually. Thing is, I CAN'T remember them all! The Blogger one is especially confusing because I was forced to switch to a Google account, which I didn't really want to do, and so now, I'm all mixed up. I finally got in this AM using the same username and password that I tried yesterday, that they claimed wouldn't work. Argh!

Besides all that, the week was good. We had another "snow day" on Thursday, and not a drop of snow or ice was seen. It was a beautiful day! It gave me a chance to go through my closet, and find some goodies I'd forgotten all about-- like this silk tablecloth (probably from the 30's) that my friend Elizabeth gave me. I should photograph the whole thing, but it need to be repaired in some areas. Once that's done, I'll show ya.


Mail! I am notoriously bad for not returning emails or phone calls. It's not that I don't have the time... I guess it's just that it's so impersonal, and I prefer snail mail above all communication. In middle school and high school, I think I had about 10 pen pals. To open the mailbox and see a letter... so exciting! This was a fun week for mail this week-- check out what came!

A New Year's Goodie from The Felt Mouse! Thank you, thank you, thank you! That was fun to open, especially in front of the cat-- it even popped! It was beautifully made, in greens and blues, down to the tape on the box it came in! See...


Inside Goodies... ( I'd already eaten the chocolate!)


I'll have to remember that for next year! She is so creative, always up to some kind of cool project! You've got to check out her Groundhog Day cupcakes! They remind me of that arcade game where the groundhogs pop up and you have to bop them on the head with that stuffed hammer! So funny! Thank you again, Jennifer!

And... a Valentine from Misadventures of Sarah and Jack!


We swapped Valentines and I just love what she made! She even used the glitter I'd love to get my hands on! It's just lovely, and I love that she used crepe paper! Now I want to make more Valentines, just as I thought I'd finished, now she's inspired me to make more! Thank you Sarah!

Oh, and graduation gifts arrived for my French Club students! I know it's a little early, but I'm ready for summer! :) I have a group of about 16 students (1st, 3rd, and 4th graders) who have been meeting with me during school. They're a great group-- really enthusiastic about everything. Next week we'll begin making Mardi Gras masks and prepare for our Mardi Gras party! Anway, I've been looking for a good souvenir of sorts for the group, and what better souvenir than a Eiffel Tower! I'm going to wrap them with some goodies later, but they arrived this week. If you like them, HappyMall sells them and other European goodies for cheap!


Now, for you: some old Valentines! All were saved by Jeremy's grandmother, Erma & are in beautiful condition. These are just a few of my favorites, but she saved quite a few.







Now for a challenge: I'm curious-- did anyone save Valentines from elementary school? I wish I had, and if anyone did, I'd love to see them... especially rad 80's cards!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!