Mammograms and Cooking for a Cause Tasty Tilapia

As you probably already know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  I chose for my next cookbook one from Huntsville's Women and Children's Hospital called Cooking for a Cause.  The cookbook is a collection of recipes by breast cancer survivors, family, friends and health care providers.  It is awesome , and I plan to cook several recipes for the blog from this cookbook.

Breast cancer has been a major player in my life with my sweet Mama being diagnosed with it at the age of 50.  She battled the disease and was a 20 year survivor when she was diagnosed with another form of cancer.  She taught me how to face that type of adversity with grace and courage.  She insisted that I start getting my mammograms before I turned 50.

With that said, I began having annual mammograms at 43 years of age.  I must be honest and say that is not one of my favorite things to do in life.  You just have to laugh and go do it.  I believe this cartoon says it all:

Don't get me wrong.  It does not hurt one bit but that is how you feel while you are having one done.  HAHAHAHA!  I just thought this was too funny!!

This last time I got my mammogram, I get called back and look up at the Tech, and it is one of my EX-STUDENTS!!  Horror of Horrors!!  I am thinking "Oh no!!  This is just way too awkward!!"  Luckily, she used common sense and said that she had just wanted to tell me Hello and let me know how much she appreciated my being her teacher.  Whew!!  Crisis averted.

Thank goodness that all my mammograms have been good, and I want to encourage you to go and get yours as soon as possible if you have not done so.  Enough of that, let's talk about something that I do love and that is food.  The Eeny Meeny Miny Mo game chose "Tasty Tilapia" for this go round.  Can I say a keeper, a winner, a homerun, a touchdown??  It is awesome.  So let's get started....

Here is the cookbook.  I don't know if they still sell them at the hospital, but it is worth a shot.  All the proceeds went to the Liz Hurley Foundation.  Again, too much flash!!  AGH!!

You will need tilapia, mayonnaise, parmesan cheese, a lemon, green onions, and salt and pepper.  I forgot to put the Smart Balance butter in the picture!!  Whoops!

I like the frozen tilapia in the bag from Publix.  The filets come individually sealed in a little pack.  Very nice.

You combine the cheese, butter, mayo, green onions, and salt in a bowl. 

Cover the fish with the mixture after brushing the filets with lemon juice.  You then bake it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

Here you go.  I served it with rice and fresh broccoli.  DELICIOUS!!

Here is your recipe:

Tasty Tilapia

Cooking for a Good Cause

Carrie Nelson - Breast Center Mammographer

2 lbs tilapia

2 T lemon juice

1/2 c grated parmesan cheese

1/4 c melted butter - I used Smart Balance spread

3 T mayonnaise

3 T chopped green onion

1/4 tsp salt

Coat baking dish with non-stick spray.  Place filets in dish and brush with lemon juice.  Combine parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise, green onion, and salt.  Cover filets with mixture.  Bake at 350 degress for 30 minutes.

Now go have a great day.....

Memories of Halloween and Frightfully Fun Halloween Recipes Potato Bugs

Halloween is my second favorite holiday behind Christmas as far as the decorating aspect of it goes.  In future posts, I will tell you about our Christmas lights.  We are the Griswald's!! 

I remember when I was a little girl, we always got to go trick or treating around our neighborhood with all our friends.  I would get a huge bag of candy and then proceed to "save" it and not eat it except at special times as my Aunt Susie so fondly remembers.  First, let me tell you about Aunt Susie.  She is really like my sister because she is only 7 years older than me.  She is the queen of sarcasm and utilized it early and often on me.  I learned the art of sarcasm from the very best.  Susie crowned me "Miss Save-a-dee Lot" at Halloween one year.  I could stretch that Halloween candy well into Christmas.  But saving it had to do more with, first and foremost, torturing my younger brother than conserving my candy. He would eat all of his candy the first week after Halloween.  I would then proceed to pull out my saved portions and eat it in front of him without sharing!!  How cruel was I!!!  He would run crying to Mother, and she would make me choose - either give him a piece of candy or get a spanking.  I would usually take the spanking!  Of course, he had to tell Aunt Susie who proceeded to tease me by calling me "Miss Save-a-dee Lot!"  She was mad too because I would not share my candy with her either.  What is so funny, though, is that I would save the candy for so long, it would get old and yucky, and I couldn't even eat it and enjoy it.  HAHA!

Another memory I have of Halloween revolves around my Nana (Mama's Mama) who was the sweetest person on the Planet.  She made me a ghost costume out of a nightgown for Halloween.  I loved that thing and proceeded to wear it as a nightgown after Halloween.  I was and still am a Scaredy Cat when it comes to night time.  I hear things go bump in the night, get torn up, and can't sleep.  One night while wearing my Ghost nightgown, I heard something and proceeded to get up and go to my Mama and Daddy's bedroom to seek comfort.  For whatever reason, instead of waking them up, I proceed to stand over Mama willing her to wake up.  Well, she did and when she did, she let out a bone chilling blood curdling scream and literally levitated to the ceiling screaming the whole way.  I started screaming.  Daddy started screaming, Sam the dog started screaming, and Mother never quit screaming.  When it was all over, I was schooled on the proper procedure for waking them up at night when I got scared.  I don't think I ever wore that nightgown again either.

Here is a picture of Mama and Daddy as Elvis and Priscilla one Halloween.  This is when he realized he was Elvis.

When Food Police was born, we kicked it into high gear when Halloween rolled around.  I remember one year she wanted to be a Barbie Doll.  This is when I humiliated myself in the eyes of the other neighborhood moms.  I thought it was fine and dandy to buy one of those plastic one piece costumes that came with that little plastic mask with the little nylon string that held it on from the Walgreens store.  Horror of horrors!!!  What was I thinking?  When all the other kids came over to trick or treat, they had on awesome costumes that had a lot of effort put into them.  I was mortified.  "Never again" I said to myself.  Little Food Police loved that costume though. 

I found the picture of the Barbie costume.  I guess we opted out of the mask!!  Look at her posing. Oh my!

 I redeemed myself by hosting two neighborhood Halloween parties while Little Food Police was in elementary school.  The first one was outside complete with dry ice in the back yard, a fortune teller in our gazebo, and a scary house where they had to touch the proverbial peeled grapes for eyeballs and the spaghetti noodles for the intestines.  The second party was the best though.  I turned the whole inside of my house into a haunted house.  The premise was that the house was for sale, I was the real estate agent, and the kids were the potential buyers.  I took them into the house two at a time to show them the house.  We had scary music going and candles and spider webs everywhere.  At the dining room table, I had a person underneath with their head sticking through the opening where you lengthen the table.  I had a silver tray with lettuce surrounding their head with a dome over it.  When the kids would come into the dining room, I whipped off the dome, and there was this head just sitting there screaming with no visible body!!!  We would go onto one of the bedrooms where someone was dressed like a zombie and appeared to be dead and of course, they would jump off the bed and chase the poor little kids down the hall.  In the bathroom there was a large doll in the bathtub that had blood all over it and a knife sticking out of its head.  Finally, they would go down the hall to another bedroom, and a friend of ours dressed like a red Bigfoot would burst out of the room and chase them outside.  Those kids were literally hysterical and crying as they flew out of that house.  One kid was so scared he kept running down the driveway after he got out of the house.  Oops!!  I worried for a long time that I had made it too intense (they were only in the 5th grade, and I do have tendencies to take things over the top), and that all the parents would hate me!!

Look out!!  See how the costuming has upgraded.  I learned my lesson with Barbie.  Little Food Police is Paula Abdul !!  Look at Daddy's face!!  How funny!

Now I can't wait until I get little Grand-Food Police. What fun that will be!!   It will also be so much fun to watch Food Police deal with the candy issue and the lack of nutritional value of it all.  She will be that parent who will give out those horrid little boxes of raisins or worse yet, Halloween pencils and stickers!!  Horror of Horrors!!  Happy Halloween Y'all!

On to the recipe....I chose my cookbook called Frightfully Fun Halloween Recipes.   The Eeny Meeny Miny Mo game chose the recipe "Potato Bugs".  These are the cutest little things and taste wonderful.  I can't wait to make them for the Grand Food Police!!

Whoops..still getting too much flash!!  I have got to work on the photography.  Notice in the background the beautiful hydrangeas.  I think they are the perfect plant.  In the spring, they are that wonderful blue and then they fade to a pretty green color.  Now in the fall, they have that gorgeous jewel tone fall look of purple. 

You will need hash browns, broccoli, spaghetti, olives, and carrots.  I left out the sour cream.

After baking the Tater Tots and skewering them onto dry spaghetti noodles to hold them together, you decorate their little faces with broccoli for the hair, carrot sticks for the legs, and cut black olives for the eyes.  You get everything to stick using sour cream.

 

Ok... I think these are too cute!

 Here is your recipe....

Potato Bugs

Frightfully Fun Halloween Recipes

1 package (16 ounces) Potato Nuggets

6 pieces uncooked spaghetti, broken into thirds

1 carrot, cut into 1-1/2 inch strips

Sour cream, black olive slices and broccoli pieces

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Lightly grease baking sheets.

Spread Tater Tots on baking sheets and bake for 7 minutes.

Thread 3 Tater Tots onto 1 spaghetti piece.  Bake 5 more minutes.

Carefully push carrot strips into sides of each Tot for legs.  Use sour cream to attach the vegetables to make the face.

Makes about 15 servings.

Now go have a great day.......

Dancing in Front of the Whole School and Huntsville Heritage Cookbook's Corn Fritters

Oh goodness!!  I have decided I like being in my 50's because it gives me permission to do things that earlier in my life I would have rather died than do. With that said, about a month or so ago, the high school where I teach wanted to raise money for United Way.  So the SGA came up with the grand idea to have a contest where the students would nominate their favorite teachers to participate in a dance-off at the next pep rally.  I thought "No way!"  The next day, I had several students tell me that me and my partner in crime - Kim - were nominated.  I thought "No way!"  Then I get an e-mail from the SGA sponsor who confirmed this horror of horrors.  Again I think "No way!".  She said to let her know if we wanted to proceed to the next step which would be to put a bucket on the cafeteria stage with our name on it, and the students would vote by placing money in the bucket.  The 5 teachers with the most money would have to dance in front of 1000 screaming adolescents at the pep rally that next week.  I thought "No way!"  But the students begged and begged and begged, so I thought "OK!  I will let them put my name on a bucket!"  I again thought "No Way!" would it go any further than that. 

Well, it did.  Kim and I were two of the 5 teachers to get the most money.  No way!  So now my students want to see me dance in class that whole week to get me ready for my dance debut.   I let them show me the newest dance moves at the end of each class.  They were enjoying the training, but by the horrified looks on their faces, I could tell they felt very sorry for me and my definite lack of rhythm.   I was the kid who tried out for her high school dance team to "Kung Fu Fighting".  Do you remember that horrid song?  Well, let me tell you one thing....  Every time I hear that song, I get sad because I was the only one of my friends who did NOT make the dance team that year.  I definitely didn't deserve to, but oh,  I was so sad.  I am also the woman who watches "Dancing with the Stars" and thinks "Oh I could do that!"  I need to say to myself "How about you bought the Dancing with the Stars Exercise DVD, and you cannot even do that Sister!!"  No you cannot do that. 

On with the story....Friday arrives, and I am nervous as a cat.  The students continue to practice with me.  2:08 pm arrives and I must go to the gym.  Well, it is 100 degrees in there and between that and my nerves, my face is blood red.  I am sweating and thinking that I am going to pass out.  They call our names to go out on the court, line us up, and start the music.  The first song is "The Twist", and I think to myself  "You've got this one Sister!"  I start twisting and going lower and lower, and I am thinking that my knees are going to give out.   They stop the music and cut the first teacher.  It was not me.  HAHA!!  I begin to have an inflated sense of self.  The joke is on me though.  They start playing music for us to do all the new teenager dances like the "Dougie" and the "Wobble", and who knows what else.  I didn't know how to even begin to do those so I just start free-styling and going nuts!!  I must confess that I don't remember what I was doing.  I think I started doing my Kung Fu Fighting routine.  Who knows???  I got too caught up in the pandemonium, and if I ever see myself on video, I will have to lay down, crawl in a hole, and die.  I know there is one out there because all the students had their phones pointing at us.  I don't know what came over me.  I guess it was the pent-up frustration of being a closet dancer and not making the dance team in high school.  Well, the end of the story is that Kim and I won the dance off!!  I could not believe it.  But I paid for that win.  My knees were so sore the next day that I could hardly get off the couch.  My arms hurt from waving them around like a fool.  But the United Way got over $500.00 so it was worth it.  I am going right now to look at YouTube and see if anyone has posted that video.  AGH!!!

Now on to the recipe.  The game chose Corn Fritters.  I had never made these before so I thought this should be good.  I decided I would serve them alongside some vegetable beef stew.  "Oh son they are good!"  I have to credit Son-in-Law for adding the exclamations "Oh Son" or "Son!" to my vocabulary.  What is so funny is that all my friends at work say it now as well.  But oh son, they are good.  You need to try them.

You will need self-rising corn meal, an egg, salt, sugar, one 8-oz can of cream-style corn, milk, and a little margarine.  The recipe calls for bacon grease but Oh son, could you imagine the reaction that would get from Food Police?

Combine the first six ingredients and mix well.  Add enough milk for thin pancakes.

This is how big I made mine.  Cook on a fairly hot pan.

Brown both sides.  I think I got them a little too brown.  Whoops!

And here you go.  Corn Fritters!  They were delicious.  They kind of taste like Paula Deen's hoe cakes.  Oh son!!!

Here is the recipe...

Corn Fritters

Huntsville Heritage Cookbook

1 cup corn meal

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbs sugar

1 8-oz can cream-style corn

2 tbs bacon grease (I used Smart Balance margarine)

Milk

Combine first 6 ingredients;  mix well.  Add enough milk for thin pancakes.  If batter thickens, add more milk.  Cook on hot greased griddle, browning both sides.  Serves 4 generously!!

Now go have a great day!