Walnut Crusted Tilapia

I know it's been a while since I have posted a recipe... so, I'm posting a really fantastic fish recipe to make up for my months of slacking!  Bobby visited Ted's Montana Grill in Atlanta recently and had the Pecan Crusted Trout.  He came home raving over it and asked that I try to make something similar.  I didn't have pecans or trout, but I did have walnuts and tilapia so I decided to go with it and see how it turned out.  Bobby and Luke both gave it a big thumbs up and every last bite got eaten!  I served it with a tasty homemade tarter sauce that I whipped up in just a few minutes (click here for the recipe).  This recipe is definitely a keeper and will make it onto our regular meal rotation.

 

A couple of tips to make this recipe turn out perfect:

 

1) Don't over crowd your pan - I have a huge non-stick skillet that I used and I only put three fish fillets in at a time.  This gave me lots of room which made flipping the fish really easy.

 

2) Just turn it once - To keep the crust from falling off, just flip the fish one time.  Let it brown on one side, flip it once, and let it brown on the other side.  The more you mess with it the more crust you will loose (and believe me, you don't want to loose any of this crunchy, nutty crust).

 

Ingredients:

1 cup raw walnuts

1 cup Japanese bread crumbs (panko breadcrumbs)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 eggs

1 pound tilapia fillets

1/4 olive oil

 

Directions:

Place walnuts in a food processor and process until walnuts reach a fine crumb texture (it should only take 5-10 seconds... you don't want to make walnut butter).  Mix together walnut crumbs, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish.  Place eggs in a separate dish and whisk until frothy.  Dip fish fillets in eggs and then in the walnut/breadcrumb mixture.  Gently pat walnut/breadcrumb mixture onto fillets to ensure an even coating. 

 

Add olive oil to a large, non-stick skillet and heat over medium heat.  Add fish fillets being careful not to crowd the fish (see tip above).  Cook over medium heat until golden browned on first side (about 5 to 7 minutes).  Carefully flip and continue to cook until second side is golden brown.  Remove from pan and serve with tarter sauce (or your favorite sauce if you're not a tarter fan). Enjoy!

 

The Living Room Project - Part II

Ok, so to begin my living room transformation adventure I challenged myself to come up with a decorating scheme for the room that would utilize as much existing furniture as possible, cost as little as possible, maintain plenty of space, and at the same time make this into a homey and cozy living area.  I spent every minute I could find the time surfing pinterest and dozens of home decorating websites, but I couldn't find anything that I liked or that I thought would really bring the room together.  At one point I gave up and told Bobby that I needed the help of a professional interior decorator.  Shortly after this I was sitting on the deck when a wave of inspiration hit me.  I have always loved toile prints and french country decor, so I decided to try to use this as a starting place for the room.  I finally settled on replacing all of my limp and lumpy throw pillows with new pillows in a chocolate brown toile print and chocolate brown plaid print.  I thought that this would bring a little life warmth to my dull, tan couches with worn out throw pillows.  I wanted to add a little splashes of color to the room by using a nice country green and a lovely sunshine yellow as accent colors.  I thought maybe a few vases with flowers (which I already had) and a brightly colored lamp might do the trick.  Then I decided that I needed to purchase a couple of side tables for the couches and one club chair for a totally empty corner in the room.  I'm happy to say that I was able to find these items new for a very good price that didn't blow my budget for the room.  I found an incredibly comfortable chair and was able to customize it with a fabric of my choice.  I chose a bold chocolate brown and white pattern for the chair since it would stand alone in an empty corner by one of the big windows.  I then went on a hunt for the toile and plaid throw pillows.  Let me just say that I looked through dozens of home decor websites and couldn't find a single brown toile throw pillow in a toile pattern that I liked (without spending a fortune).  I couldn't even find the type of plaid that I wanted.  I was pretty discouraged by the time I happened upon Etsy.  Wow, I can't believe that I have never been to Etsy before, but I'm officially hooked now.  Thousands of hand made and unique items... a little pricey, but you can find exactly what you want.  I found a wonderful lady who makes beautiful throw pillows and sales them on her Etsy site The Cottage Cupboard.  She did a custom order for me since I needed ten pillows and had them sewn and shipped in less than a week. 

Below are photos of the not quiet final, but much improved living room. Working toward a cottage look with a bit of french country. I absolutely love it already. I still need to get a couple of lamps (something in green I think) for the end tables and I need to get some photos up on the walls. I plan to put a large canvas family photo over the fireplace, but I want to wait until Baby Bell is here and can be in the photo. I love the light and the view from the big windows, so rather than putting up blinds or shades, I plan to only add panels for window treatments.  I have chocolate brown sheer drapes ordered which I think will frame the windows without blocking the light or the incredible view. In Part III of this series I will post some photos of the room with the new panels and hopefully photos on the wall.

 This new chair fills up the empty corner and adds a bit of flair to the room.

My old couch looks almost new with the puffy new pillows.  The mixed patterns break up the bland tan and brown that I had before.  Also, a new side table adds a nice touch.

Still lots of room for the little ones to play!  As you can seem the walls and windows are still a little plain.  Photos and drapes with remedy that.

I adore my new throw pillows.  I have wanted to work toile into my decor for years!  It's also been tons of fun mixing up the patterns a little!

 

The old, broken side table has been replaced.  We store Luke's downstairs toys in this cute polka dot storage bin.

The Living Room Project - Part I

The past three months have been a total whirlwind, but I think things are finally beginning to settle down a little bit.  We officially moved on February 1 and have been working to get settled into our new home ever since.  There was (and still is) so much to do.  Bobby has diligently been setting up furniture, hooking up appliances, changing door knobs, building shelves in all our closets, hanging drapes, installing blinds, changing toilet seats, installing towel racks and toilet paper holders, changing shower heads and faucets, and soon (he doesn't know this yet) he'll be hanging pictures on the walls.  In addition, we spent several weeks getting our townhouse ready to rent out.  Oh, and did I forget to mention that he's been doing all of this while taking care of a 2 1/2 year old?  I on the other hand was completely overburdened with my job for the first two months after moving and spent hours working late into the night and working some weekend.  Fortunately, the project I have was working on is now complete so I'm finally getting some relief.  So, that's where I've been lately.

That said, I have in my spare time (when I can find some) been working to get our new home decorated and unpacked.  So far, this has gone really well and I have been able to use a lot of the things I already had in our townhouse to decorate around here.  The one room where I have really struggled is the living room.  Our living room at the townhouse was small and snug and really didn't require anything more than a couple of pieces of furniture to fill it up.  Our living room in here in the new house is a very large room, neutral walls, white trim, lots of windows, and hardwood floors. Sounds great doesn't it?  Well it is a great room and I really do love everything about it, but furnishing and decorating this room has been a challenge.  I was determined to use my old furniture which is not in bad shape, but the couch cushions were limp and lumpy and the colors were pretty bland (tan).  I only had one really old side table that was broken and scratched and dates back to Bobby's childhood.  Although I plan to refinish this table, it looked really out of place in this huge room.  Other than that, the room was pretty much empty.   

So, here are some before pictures of the big, and rather plain room:

I've made quiet a bit of progress lately, which I'll talk about in a separate post (Part II).

The Front Door Project (my new wreath)

This post was supposed to come after the next one that I will post, but I'm going ahead and posting this one since I finished it first. The next post has an explanation of where I've been and what I've been up to lately!!

The other day I was struck with a strong desire to create something crafty for my new house.  I had recently planted a big pot of colorful gerber daisies and placed them on my front porch so I decided to add another touch to our front porch by making a summery wreath for the front door.  I searched pinterest and found several ideas that gave me some inspiration.  This picture from the blog On Sutton Place was most inspiring to me:

I decided I had to make something similar for my front door.  I opted for brighter colors since my front door is white and I was afraid all of the white flowers would just blend in with my door.  Thankfully, Hobby Lobby (oh how I love you) had all of their silk flowers half price and I had a 40% one item coupon that I used on the grape vine wreath.  After two hours, a lot of snipping flowers, a lot of florist wire, and a little bit of hot glue, this is what I ended up with:

 

 

Oh, and here are my beautiful gerber daisies... my very favorite flower of all time!  I had to put a small pot on my back deck as well so that I could see them from my kitchen!