Healthy Fish Dish

Tonight was fish night, and I wanted to do something different. I found a jar of my mother's canned tomatoes and decided they would go well with the Tilapia I had thawed. 

Here's the recipe:

1 pack of Tilapia (4 filets)
one sweet onion, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
1 can of tomatoes (the "put up" kind or the diced canned kind from the grocery store)
minced garlic or garlic powder
Italian seasoning
sliced black olives

Spray a 13 X 9 inch metal pan with cooking spray. Spread the onion and pepper slices on the bottom. Put the filets on top.  Mix the tomatoes, garlic and Italian seasoning in a bowl and put 1/4 of it on top of each filet.  Sprinkle with olives.  Cover with foil and bake at 450 for 20 minutes. 

We served it with garlic spinach (see earlier post) and garlic bread.  The meal was inexpensive and easy (but looked and tasted fancy).  My husband is not a fan of fish, tomatoes or olives, but he requested eating the leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner.  It was that good!

Socks, socks, everywhere socks - and none of them match!

When our youngest child arrived, I found myself so overwhelmed with laundry.  The worst part is matching socks.

That's when I came up with this solution:

When we buy a new pack of plain white socks, we assign a letter or number to them.  We use a Sharpie to put that number on the bottom of each sock before we wear them for the first time.  It makes matching socks so much easier, and it's easier to purge socks that become too small as our kids outgrow them. Just a minute of work will save so much work down the road!

Get your feet ready for spring

Tired of dry, cracked feet?   Several years ago I found a remedy that actually works.  My feet were so badly cracked they would bleed and they were very painful. I tried everything - spa treatments, lotions, pumice – but nothing worked until I tried this new inexpensive method.  

Get a container of acne scrub, the kind with 2% Salicylic Acid as the active ingredient.  This will kill the fungus/junk/germs that actually cause the cracking. Then pick up a big container of Vaseline petroleum jelly for hydration.  Every night before bed, wash your feet well with the acne scrub.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes before rinsing.  Towel dry your feet.  Then coat them with Vaseline and cover with a pair of socks.

After one week, you will notice a BIG difference in the texture of your feet.  

Grow your own Microgreens

My new hobby is growing microgreens. Microgreens are typically very expensive and are served in fine restaurants.  Growing them at home is very cheap and very easy!  

Microgreens are the very young shoots of plants – they are harvested when the sprouts get 1 - 2” tall.  They are full of good nutrients – Google “growing microgreens” for more information from people who are a lot smarter than me.  They are so full of flavor!  Best of all, my almost 3-year-old is fascinated and this is teaching her about growing her own food.

My first batch was peas.  I purchased a packet of pea seeds for less than $2 at Lowes.  I’m going to try a mix of peas, asparagus, mustard, beets and spinach next time, and I’m going to order one of the mini-greenhouses for my back deck so I can grow bigger batches.

Try it!  All you need is a sunny window, a shallow flower pot, some potting soil and some seeds.  I mixed some vermiculite with my soil (that’s the white stuff you see in potting soil, it helps retain moisture and keep the soil from getting hard).  Fill the pot with soil.  Spread a ton of seeds on top of the soil, then cover with half an inch of more soil.  Water it well.  Set it in front of a window and watch it grow for a week or so.  Once the shoots get a couple of leaves on them, it’s time to harvest.   When you are ready to replant, just stir up the soil and start again. Leave the roots from the previous harvest in the dirt to fertilize it.

The photo shows my plants just before harvesting.  Grab some scissors and cut them off right above the soil level.  I started out my seeds the first few days under a loose cover of plastic wrap to help retain the moisture and heat.

I made a delicious salad with my microgreens. I took the pea shoots and added finely shredded carrots, some thinly chopped green onions, a little feta cheese and topped it all off with some creamy Balsamic vinaigrette.  It was so good with our steak!

Please leave comments if you try growing your own microgreens.  Let me know how it goes.  Don’t be intimidated – give it a shot!  You’ll love the results.

Seasonal decor at Party City

According to the associate I spoke with yesterday, Party City rarely marks down major holiday decor after the holiday. Judging from my experience this year, I think she's right. 

If Party City has a lot of seasonal/holiday product leftover, they pack it up and send it back to their warehouse for next year. When they put it out on the shelves the next year, it is already marked down drastically.  I have found that the best time to shop for holiday decorations at Party City is the week after a holiday, when they are setting the shelves for the next holiday.  That's when they put out all of the marked-down product from last year for the next holiday.  So get out there this week if you want Spring decor!

For example, yesterday I picked up some Easter/Spring decorations.  My toddlers LOVE to decorate for holidays, and I love to find them for cheap.   I picked up 3 sets of Dragonfly lights (the kind with 10 lights on a string) for $4.93 on clearance - they were originally $12.99.  I got a great big 22" butterfly for $2.93, and they were $9.99 last year.  I got a lovely tacky plastic tablecloth for 2.93, and last year it sold for $5.99.

I worked in retail replenishment for 6 years before becoming a SAHM, and I have never heard of this strategy before. Typically, if product is going to be marked down, it is done immediately after the season to get rid of it.  I'm not sure why Party City chooses to warehouse product for an entire year only to mark it down when they put it out on the shelves the next year, but it certainly works for my family!

Lasagna for special occasions

I made some really good lasagna last night.  While it ran me about $10 and took a while to make, I don't think it qualifies as cheap or simple, but it would be a wonderful way to celebrate special occasions.  It was still much cheaper than a night out at an Italian restaurant, and in my mind it tasted even better!

Ingredients:
12 lasagna noodles, cooked and rinsed in cold water
1 pound mild Italian sausage - removed from casing
2 cloves minced garlic (the kind in the jar works just fine)
48 oz Prego traditional spaghetti sauce (splurge for this brand, use a coupon!)
10 oz package frozen chopped spinach
24 oz container small curd cottage cheese (it's cheaper than ricotta!)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Cook lasagna noodles and drain. Meanwhile, cook and crumble the sausage in a large skillet; drain the grease. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add sauce (except for 1 cup) and stir.  Remove from heat. Drain your spinach.

Mix Cottage cheese, spinach, 1 cup Mozzarella, parmesan, egg, salt and pepper.

Spray 13 X 9 inch dish (deep dish is best) with cooking spray. Spread 1 cup spaghetti sauce on bottom.

Layer: 3 noodles, then 1/3 of cheese mixure, then 1 1/2 cups sauce mixture.  Top last noodle layer with remaining sauce mixture and the other cup of mozzarella.  Cover with nonstick foil.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake 15 more minutes.   Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Serve with salad and Italian bread. 

Cheap entertainment and dinner

Tonight we had a bonfire in our backyard.  We built a little fire and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows.  The kids were in heaven!

It didn't cost us much at all, as hotdogs and buns were both on sale at our local grocery store. I already had ketchup, mustard, relish, marshmallows and bananas (we needed a healthy side item, right?).  After our delicious meal, we sat around and sang a few songs.

The glow in my kids' eyes and the smiles on their sweet little faces were priceless. It's the simple things that make life so much fun.

Opinion Outpost

I received my first check from Opinion Outpost this week for $7.  If you would like to make a few extra bucks for completing easy online surveys, sign up at www.opinionoutpost.com

I usually get a couple of emails each day, asking me to participate in a short survey.  They ask a few demographic questions, and I usually get to participate in about half of the surveys they send based on my answers to the preliminary questions.  You get a certain amount of points for each survey completed, and you can use your accumulated points to get a check or credits to Amazon.com.

Check it out!