What's for Dinner Wednesday? - Baked Fish

I am so happy to be doing my Wednesday dinner posts again.  I'm doing a super simple dinner tonight as I haven't had much time since I got my computer back to research new recipes.

Tonight I am doing fish and I think this is an oft neglected meat because sometimes you just don't know what to do with it.  But, fish is full of excellent nutrients that aren't found in other meats and its lean and really good for you and your kids (note - consult your doctor if you are pregnant before consuming lots of fish).

When it comes to fish SIMPLE is best.  I am using Tilapia because it's a nice firm fish that doesn't fall apart on you easily and it's almost always BOGO at Winn Dixie in the frozen food section.  That's another nice thing about fish, it is just fine frozen.

Today I am using:

Frozen Tilapia

Panko breadcrumbs

1-2 eggs, beaten

Chef's Style Seasoning Salt

Box of rice

Fresh green beans

Start out with your thawed fish and season on both sides with the seasoning salt.  This will add flavor and not just saltiness.  Dip your fish in the egg, then the breadcrumbs and lay on a baking sheet.  Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes, I bake until the edges just start to brown.  It is best to serve these right out of the oven.

Easy huh?  You can serve this with just about anything.  Add some applesauce for the kiddies (or the grownups) for an extra serving of fruit.  A baked potato or roasted potatoes would be awesome too.

It's not the most glamorous meal, but its really healthy, yummy and can take less than 30 minutes.

On a side note - just about everything for this meal was on sale, making this a SUPER cheap meal :)

Be sure to check back next week, I'll be trying out something new :)

Night Time Cloth Diapering and My Go To Diapers

We have been having nighttime diaper issues since about 6 months ago.  We only cloth diaper my daughter, who is 1 1/2 right now and she was ALWAYS leaking.  We ended up putting her back in disposables for night time since we use them for big brother anyways.  Well I thought about it and that was 30 diapers a month which wastes money, which completely defeats the purpose of us doing this.  We could save a whole box of diapers by trying to figure out how to keep her leak free at night in CDs.

Well I happened upon a blog post at Cloth Diaper Addiction about this very topic and it was about using prefolds at night.  I'm like seriously...you must be kidding.  But prefolds are cheap, I already have them and it really couldn't hurt.  My daughter has even woken up wet in sposies so we needed a new option.

So I did just like she did.

 Here I have an Imagine prefold, a Thirsties hemp doubler and a Bluebery diaper cover.  In the blog she places the prefold sideways, so the center panel is left to right not up and down, this didn't work for us so it really just depends on the prefold you are using and your baby's shape.

Fold up like so and place inside diaper and fasten.  No need to use a snappy, just lay inside like you would a pad and because there is a little extra bulk, it won't move around.

This worked like a CHARM!  She woke up dry even though she woke up in the middle of the night (teething) and had another cup of milk.  She usually never wakes up so this will definitely work on a normal night.  I have no idea why this worked...but who cares!

So this brings me to my favorites.  I haven't used tons of diapers mostly because I don't have the time or money to try a million brands, I just stick with what works.  

My workhorse diaper is the new Bumgenius 4.0 pocket diaper.  It just WORKS.  It can always last for longer than the typical 2 hours, is perfect for going places and using with daycare, nursery workers and other family members.  Super easy to put on (we use the snaps version) and they wash nicely everytime.  Not a SINGLE complaint here.

My second favorite is a surprise and ties in with my nighttime diaper dilemma.  PREFOLDS.  I LOVE PREFOLDS.  They seem really old fashioned and maybe aren't as stylish but I love them.  Here are a couple reasons.  They are CHEAP.  Wash and dry easily.  No stuffing! (My favorite part). Incredibly versatile.  Incredibly absorbent.  Prefolds scared me a bit at the beginning of my cloth diapering journey, but now, I just wish I had more!  Add some fun diaper covers, a few Snappis and some hemp inserts and you are good to go.

And that's it.  I am sure other moms could give you a list three and a half miles long, but this does the trick for us and to me, cloth diapering should be SIMPLE, not more complicated that disposable diapering.

Questions are welcomed :) I love answering them :)

Happy to be Back Again

I am sooo glad to be back and blogging!  It has been a dreadful couple of weeks without my laptop and even thought it's not my old one and I am not used to the keyboard yet. 

The week of our break-in was a big week for us.  My parents were coming in to help us with our bathroom remodel, and if you have ever done a remodel of any kind, you know what an undertaking that can be.  My parents got in Thursday afternoon and me and my mom headed off to a hotel with the kids.  My dad and hubby had the bathroom demo'd and the new bathtub in and completely tiled and I think the new window in by that night!  We had some major roadblocks the next day but they managed to finish everything by Sunday afternoon.  

Here are some before's and these have to be the worst before photos ever, it reminds me of a bathroom in a prison, AHHH!  These were taken after some of the demo was done.

Because we had to replace our door and we decided to go ahead and replace the window, my new vanity got knixed from the budget, but our current vanity is fine until we get a new one.  We also have a super nice toilet for some reason, we priced it and apparently its the ONLY thing in the house that the previous owners spent money on....weird.  So the only thing we had to replace was the horrid claw foot tub and tile :) That and the walls were a mess so lots of drywall work (thus lots of drywall dust all over my house...)

So after one meltdown and some serious hours put in by my dad and hubby my bathroom looks like this.

 I would call this Phase II as we still have to paint, put up new towel bars, decorate, and put the frosting stuff on the window.  But all in due time...

 

I grabbed this photo of the inside of the tub real quick this morning.  For some reason this photo makes the tile look yellow-y but it is actually white.  And excuse the ghetto towel over the window...

So we managed to survive the remodel.  My dad and hubby did an INCREDIBLE job.  You really have no idea.  It took a while for the house to completely recover and it has been a LOOONG couple weeks with no computer and having no internet escape. 

So I am back :) resuming my blogging duties and hopefully going to finish some of my projects that have been postponed due to all this chaos!

Have a great Monday everyone!

Sorry for the Absence...

A couple of weeks ago I came home from bible study to find both of our laptops and our TV stolen.  Both me and my husband do a lot of work on our computers so this has been really devastating for both of us.  I am writing this from the computer lab at my school, I have been coming here several days a week to do my schoolwork.  Not the ideal situation, but at least it is here. 

I will hopefully be back up and blogging again next month, but I just wanted to pop on here and let everyone know I am indeed still alive :)

Hope everyone has been doing well and I so miss reading all my favorite blogs (it just isn't the same on my iphone...)  I have had to do a couple projects with instructions from my phone and while I am glad I have it...I absolutely cannot wait till I have a new laptop!

I also wanted to mention how important it is to KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS.  We have a fairly successful neighborhood watch in my area and we haven't had any experiences with theft in quite some time.  Soon after the theft at my home our area started seeing auto thefts.  A neighbor a few streets down noticed a neighbor behaving suspiciously and caught him trying to break into her vehicle.  Just as we suspected, we had a criminal actually move in and it is possible this person(s) may be responsible for our theft and others.

Now that being said, I am not saying to watch your neighbors because they are probably criminals, but you really never know and if you do not know your neighbors, you might not know when there is suspicious behavior going on around their house.  We should not be so insulated from the outside that we don't even know our neighbor's names, it is absolutely essential to having a safe community.

So everyone stay safe and get to know the people around you, you never know, you might make some great friends!