Grilled Lemon Tilapia with Asparagus

I thought I'd post this recipe before the memorial weekend holiday. If you are doing some grilling and like fish, then you will love this recipe. It has a great flavor to it with the lemons. Here is what you need:

Ingredients-

5 lemons, divided into 4 slices per lemon

1/2 cup  KRAFT Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing or any you can find, my store never carries it in Kraft

4 firm-textured fish fillets (we only did 2 for us) (1 lb.), such as cod, tilapia (I used this) or salmon

1 lb.  asparagus, trimmed

Directions-
SQUEEZE juice from 1 lemon; mix with dressing. Pour half the dressing mixture over fish in shallow glass dish; turn fish over to coat both sides of each fillet. Refrigerate 15 min. to marinate. Refrigerate remaining dressing mixture for later use.

MEANWHILE, heat grill to medium heat. Cut each of the remaining lemons into 4 slices. Remove fish from marinade; discard marinade. Place 8 lemon slices on grill grate or enough to hold each fish;

Top your lemon slices with fish. Brush with some of the remaining dressing mixture. Cover grill with lid.

GRILL fish 5 min.; turn over onto the same lemon slices again

Add remaining lemon slices and asparagus to grill. We put them on foil so they wouldn't fall through and brushed with some extra dressing. Grill 5 min. or until fish flakes easily with fork and asparagus is crisp-tender, brushing occasionally with the remaining dressing mixture. Remove fish, lemon slices and asparagus from grill. Discard lemon slices under fish. Serve remaining lemon slices with fish and asparagus.

We just had a big sale on cucumbers so I made a cucumber salad. It was just sliced up peeled cucumber and added some Italian dressing.

Hope everyone has a great, relaxing Memorial Weekend! What are your plans for the weekend?

Top Three Thursday- Games

This week's top three is on games. This could be games board games, video games, phone games, games to watch etc... Here is my top 3!

1.) The Game of Life! I used to love playing life when we were kids. I loved picking out the car and going around to see what your career was going to be and how many kids you were going to have. If only real life was as easy as spinning a wheel!

2.) Uno- David and I like to play this game. We had a game called Uno Attack that was also fun. Some other card games we like are Rummy, Poker (David) and Euchre.

3.) Match Game and Newlywed Game- These ones I just love to watch on the game show network. They are so funny and they have to be the ones that aired back in the day and not the new ones.

I also like to play Super Mario Kart on my sister's Wii or Playstation 2.  What are your top 3 games?

We love our new Roomba!!

We've been researching and looking around for Roomba's for a while now. David looks on craigslist every day for good deals. We finally found one for a good price. It is a 400 series Roomba, which are the older models, but still work great. We went and picked it up this weekend. The lady said it needed a new battery, which are $30. David cleaned it out really good since there was a lot of dirt and lint stuff stuck in there. And guess what! It didn't need a battery at all! So we got a great deal. We spent $40 on this little guy. I have to say, I was a little skeptical. We have a lot of dog hair and grass that gets tracked into the house. You can run it while you are not home, but we really wanted to watch it in action. We just starred at him as he was working. I call it a him, because I already named him Rudy the Roomba. Check out this video of him in action. We put a treat on top of it so that you could see Molly with Rudy. She just backs away and tries to get out of his way.

We were very impressed on how he worked. It even came with these virtual walls you can set up if you want him to concentrate on a certain room. We focused on the front of the house one day and the back the next day. I would rate him a 9 out of 10. I wish he would be more intelligent on where he was vacuuming. The new models that are $300 plus actually scan the room and know how big it is and vacuum in a pattern. Yesterday before work I started a couple loads of laundry and turned on the Roomba. I felt like my house was cleaning itself while I was gone! I would highly recommend it! We feel like the Jetsons! I'll leave you with another video of Rudy in action.

Menu Plan Mondayish

So, I'm a day late for Monday's menu plan post. The good news is I already went shopping for all this last night and only spent $55! This week I have a common theme- Asian and Mexican food with a lot of chicken. I think it's because I had a big juicy hamburger at a bbq this weekend and I don't want hamburgers for a while now. I can't wait to try meals 2, 3, 4, and 5 because they are new to me! I wish I could go home right now and just start cooking. What are you having for dinners this week?

Meal 1- Chicken Lo Mein- Had it last night and it was mmm mmm good.

Meal 2- Grilled Roasted Corn Salsa (Nacho style with some chicken) I've heard this is fantastic and I can't wait to make it. I'll share with you once I'm done.

Meal 3- Crock Pot Sante Fe Chicken from Fairhope Foodie

Meal 4- Beef and Broccoli from Pioneer Woman      

Meal 5- Grilled Chicken Pineapple Quesadilla from Pioneer Woman

Meal 6- Grilled Stuffed Zucchini- I never made them from last week because I forgot the Zucchini.

Lake Day!

It is officially pool and lake season in Georgia! Our pool in the neighborhood opened this weekend and is in full swing. Amber invited us on her boat on Saturday and it was looking a litty iffy on the cloud situation. The weather kept saying it was going to clear up, but it was so cloudy and foggy all the way up until we went out.

 Miraculously though, as soon as we got to the cove the clouds cleared and the sun came out! It worked out great since it wasn't as crowded. We went to Lake Lanier, which is the closet lake we have by our houses.

Audrina loves the water and her rafts. She likes to jump in and out of the rafts all day long. She can't make up her mind if she wants to stay in or out though!  I can't tell if David's eyes are open, we'll just pretend the sun was in his eyes.

I'm so glad that Leah and Kyle were able to join us for the lake! They live a bit further away so it is hard to make the journey to hang out on weekends. We had a lot of fun together and Kyle is a skilled boat driver!

For our entertainment we had some back flipping off the side of the boat. Here are some action shots of the boys doing back flips. I am perfectly content in my raft enjoying the sun while they show off. Amber showed the guys up with her perfect back flips, but she was too fast to even catch it on camera. 

The back flips weren't our only entertainment for the day. We had this lovely lady dancing on their gigantic boat with a hula hoop!! She was not just skilled keeping the hula hoop up she was doing it while dancing to about 5 songs in a row without stopping. The music from their boat was so loud because of all their speakers that no one else in the whole cove had to turn any on.

Here is a group shot minus our camera guy of us enjoying the sun. The water was quite cold at a nice 68 degrees.

Here is a shot of Leah and Me on our way back in for the day.

We also took a girl shot as we were waiting for David to back the trailer down to load back up. Audrina was napping in the cuddy cabin on the way home. We had so much fun! Thanks again Amber!

When we got back to Amber's house David scrubbed and cleaned the boat down for us. Audrina was helping and loved the water and wanted to go back on the boat as soon as we got back home. It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

French Dip Dinner- Version 2

I made french dip a few months ago, but I decided to try another recipe to compare. This one comes from my other favorite food blog, Pioneer Woman. Honestly, I just don't know what one is better. It depends on the ingredients you have.

Ingredients-
    * 1 whole 2.5 To 4 Pound Chuck Roast
    * ¼ cups Butter
    * 1 whole Large Onion, Sliced Thick
    * 3 cloves Garlic, Peeled
    * ½ cups Soy Sauce
    * 1 cup Sherry (cooking Sherry Is Fine)
    * ½ teaspoons Salt
    * 4 cups Water
    * Toasted, Buttered Deli Rolls
    * OPTIONAL: Rosemary, Thyme, Other Spices

Preparation Instructions
Heat butter in a heavy pot or skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the onions for a couple of minutes, or until starting to get brown. Pour them into your crock pot.

Add a little more butter to your skillet and sear your chuck roast for a few minutes on each side to seal in the flavors. Move your chuck roast to sit on top of your onions. Add all remaining ingredients. Cover pot and simmer (very low heat) for 6-8 hours, or until beef is fork-tender and falling apart.  Shred meat with two forks until all large chunks are gone. Serve immediately or continue to simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

*Mixture can be refrigerated overnight. Remove hardened fat from top of pan before reheating.

Serve on top of toasted, buttered deli rolls. Top with cheese and place under the broiler if desired.

Amber and Audrina came over for dinner. She brought Wine Ice Stirs. I got it for her for a birthday and we wanted to try it out. You were suppose to make the powder mixture and freeze it, but we skipped that step. You mix it with wine and put it in a blender with ice. It was very good.

Here is the final masterpiece. It was so yummy!

Amber also brought these yummy desserts from the diner that we all like to go to. We had baklava, Strawberry shortcake, and Peanut butter cup cake! They were all soo delicious!

I had fun playing with Audrina outside. She loved the tarp that we had out. She thought it was similar to bubble wrap and would jump on it and dive into it.

She was also just running around the yard and David was trying to keep her out of trouble. I snapped this picture really quick, but they were moving a lot so it was a bit blurry.

We tried for a group shot, but Audrina really didn't want to be apart of it.

So here is just me and Amber. We had a lot of fun! Hope you guys can come over again soon!

Top Three Thursday- Iphone Apps.

Today's top three is on Iphone Apps! I'm sorry if you don't have one, they are the best phones ever and we are both addicted to ours. Since David and I both have them we will both share ours. He is guest blogging his top 3!

1.) Dragon Dictation: I like this one because I spend a lot of time on the roads or in a rush and don’t have time to type out a long text. It's a voice recognition software that types what you speak. This app. works great about 95% of the time, which is pretty good.

2.) Google Search: I like this app. a lot. I just tell it what I’m looking for and bam there it is. You speak instead of typing out what you are searching for. It can also link to your maps so it can show you the way to the place you just looked up.

3.) Jibbigo: Now this app I don’t use as much as others, but I think it is worth the shout out on my top 3. It is very similar to the dragon diction app, but it changes the English to any other language you want and says it for you. It also goes the other way so if someone says something in Spanish it will say it in English.  This little app. will be coming on our trips for now on (it works while on airplane mode so you don’t get any data charges out of the U.S.).
I have a ton more but those are the 3 I use the most.

Jen's top 3 App's- I choose apps that are cool, but not that common. I'll share my everyday apps. after too.

1.) Knocking Live Video: This app. is really cool. You can knock with someone else who has an iphone. They just have to sign up for an account. Once the other person answers you can see what is on their screen like a video camera. We used it when my brother and sister were in Mexico. I got to tour around their hotel and hang by the pool. The only downside is that there is no voice, so you can't hear anything.

2.) Air Cam (costs money): This app. you can use with a camera that is on your laptop/computer. We set it up so that we could watch Molly during the day. You just have to install software on your computer and you can log into it using your IP address. We get to see Molly sleeping on the couch and when she would get up, we can tell what direction she is going, but not exactly what she is doing. It is still really cool. Here is a picture I took from my camera that showed Molly on the video, it's a bit blurry though. She sleeps a lot, but is so darn cute.

3.) Stitcher- This is an app. that has podcasts. They are like mini radio shows on a variety of topics. I like to listen of course to the Dave Ramsey podcast, and Money girl. David introduced me to it so he loves the technology podcasts. You can choose your favorite shows and it updates everyday with a new show to listen to.

The more common ones that I love are of course Facebook, Redbox, Pandora, Tmz, The Weather Channel, Usa Today, Dish, and Bank of America.

What are some of your top apps? We are always looking for new fun ones!

Maybe still a Garden, Maybe not

Well, I thought I was going to post about our new watering system in the vegetable garden. It uses a drip hose and is set with a timer. I had been noticing that the tips of the onions were getting yellow and started googling. Well, of course they said lack of water even though I thought I'd been watering enough by doing it twice a day, maybe it wasn't enough. So David went and installed this lovely irrigation system.

 

As we kept watering we noticed underneath our garden that there was too much water coming out. After further analysis our tarp that is under everything was leaking out too much of the water. So we had a plan A and a plan B.

Plan A was to install another more durable tarp and pull it through by taking the sides off. David then used a rope and fed it through while pulling. Well it went about half way and was starting to rip and we knew that wasn't going to work. I was too nervous to even take pictures of this. Plan B wasn't going to be pretty.

Here you can see the tips of the onions that are yellowish.

You can see the drip hose in action. It works really well and we hope to use it again at some point.

I figured we had to try to save the garden and we couldn't do much more damage since if we did nothing the garden was going to die anyway. We had to transplant each individual plant into small cups and take ALL the dirt out and put the new more durable tarp underneath. Then we had to put the dirt back in, the wood grids back on and replant all the plants.

This took place about 9:30pm last night. David did most all the work, I just cut the cups and told him what had to be planted where. Now, this probably has a 5-10% chance of working. I have no idea what damage we did be taking them out and putting them back in. We tried to dig so far under each plant not to disturb the roots. All we can do is hope for the best and if not, we learned some valuable lessons. I'll give it a few more weeks before I post on lessons learned. I will keep you updated, but my dream of luscious vegetables might be squashed until next season. I know I can go to home depot and use their plants that are already grown, but that defeats my purpose of starting from scratch and I already invested enough money into this. Cross your fingers!

House Project- Yard Mulch

It seems like there is always something to work on when you have a house. It could be small like changing smoke detector batteries, mowing grass or changing air filters. Or it's big like getting a new roof, fixing flooring issues and landscape maintenance. It can cost more than you want it to, but I wouldn't trade it. I love our house! I'm just glad I have David who loves to fix anything and everything and is a great team player about it. Remember when he was vac-pack back-pack vacuuming out our dryer vent on the side of the house. Oh, and did I mention we just had to buy some replacement parts for the grill because they crumbled inside the actual grill! But hey- $30 is cheaper than a $300 new grill, right? Anyways, this weekend we decided to put mulch down.

During the past 3 years we have used pine straw. I have never loved the look of it and David for sure hates to throw it down. We always thought mulch was more expensive, but it ended up being about the same. This is a before photo of the yucky old pine straw from last season and a hint of the red mulch we got to put down.

This is an after photo! I really wanted a dark brown mulch, but I'm glad David forgot because I love the way the red brings in some color. My sister, Michelle was right! She told me to go for red in the beginning.

Since David has a truck he was able to fill up by the scoop. It was about $17 per scoop and 3 scoops filled up a truckload. We ended up getting 3 truckloads with 1.5 cubic yards per load for a total of 4.5 cubic yards. David did a price comparison with bagged mulch. We would have spent $289 for same amount bagged, but we only spent $165, for a savings of $125! It did leave a good residue of red and we had to scrub it out pretty good. We did make sure it was treated mulch so we wouldn't have any termite issues. That was a concern for using mulch, but it's all good to go.

One of the reasons we got mulch by the truckload was so he could drive the truck around the yard and stop at all the beds.

Here is another photo of the front garden area.

We were done with the front and now it was time to go to the backyard. A project that I forgot to photograph was the fence project. David widened the fence opening so my garden and his truck could fit through the gate and into the backyard. I'll have to take pictures and post about it later. I was assigned the job of driving the truck around the yard! I have fun in the air conditioning listening to my music.

I  brought Molly along for the ride, mostly so I didn't run her over. It's hard to see in that truck. She was facebooking on my phone when I went inside to get some water.

Here I am driving around. I look like a little kid in that big truck. I'm so glad we decided to get mulch and next year we probably won't need as much so it might be cheaper!

Molly was taking a little nap in the backseat as we were riding around the yard. I realized I was taking more pics of Molly than the actual yard and mulch. Sorry, I didn't get one of the back yard. You can get the idea from the front yard photo. Thanks David for all the sweat labor, the yard looks great! What do you guys use in your yard?