Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

 

Last night for dinner I decided to try a new recipe, Parmesan crusted Tilapia. Tilapia has always been one of my favorite kinds of fish, so I was very excited to try this recipe last night. I served this delicious fish with seasoned wild rice and a stir fry consisting of, green beans, snow peas, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, garlic, onion, peppers, and carrots.

 

We took a car ride down to the fair they had set up in Manistee yesterday. As we were walking past the many venders I came across this beautiful stainless steel French chef's knife. I had been looking for a new knife for awhile and was ecstatic when my dad agreed to buy it for me. I mean what kind of girl gets excited when she gets new cooking utensils? (This one right here) Anyway, I am in LOVE with how it cuts, and was having the time of my life cutting my veggies up for the stir fry.

Dad's Rating

8.5

 

I was very happy with how this dish turned out and I will defiantly be making this again in the near future! My dad gave this a 8.5, which surprised me because awhile back he was telling me how he hated tilapia. I guessed I showed him ;)

 

Enjoy your forth of july!

Chicken Cordon Blue

For dinner tonight I wanted to try a new recipe. I searched around in my favorites under chicken and found a recipe that I had saved awhile back to try, called chicken cordon Blue. Essentially you take a piece of chicken, pound it out thin, put a piece of ham and Swiss cheese in the middle, roll it up and secure it with toothpicks, and then roll it in bread crumbs.

 

We had bought the frozen ones already made at the grocery store before and they were delicious, so I decided to give this recipe a try and replicate the favorite frozen entre or even better, surpass it in taste.

 

This is how it turned out

I must say this looks D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s  

According to my dad (the ultimate critic) this was 9 stars, which if you know him, your lucky if you can get 7 stars from him. He said it would of been a 10 if he wouldn't of found half of a tooth pick stuck in his chicken (oops I guess I didn't get all of them out.) Hah. I defiantly recommend making this for your next family dinner. I mean common, I'm only 15 and I could make it, that means you can too!

 

Here is the link for the recipe http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/golden-chicken-cordon-bleu

 

Have a great 4th of July!

Softball Cake

Softball Cake

 

Due to the fact that I have a love for all sorts of baking, especially cake decorating; I volunteered to make the cake for our softball banquet. I was very happy with how it came out, and received positive feedback from many people.

 

I started by baking one vanilla cake and one chocolate cake in a 11x24x2 pan for 40 minutes in a 325 degree oven. I got the recipes for the cakes from Buddy Valastro; you know, the famous guy from cake boss. I first tried his recipe a couple months ago while baking a cake for mothers day and fell in love with it. I will never use another cake recipe except for this one! It is moist, light, and almost melts in your mouth. You can get the vanilla recipe here http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/buddy-valastros-vanilla-cake/ and the chocolate recipe here http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/buddy-valastros-chocolate-cake/.

 

I then put both cakes in the freezer for about 2 hours until chilled. I leveled them both off with a serrated knife and dirty iced them together with buttercream frosting tinted green. I then piped grass on every inch of the cake with the #233 tip from Wilton. I created an exact copy of our softball uniform out of fondant and also used the fondant to create softballs with each of the girls names on them.

 

Enjoy!