recent kitchen happenings.

because i just know you have all been DYING to know what i've been eating lately. and i dont blame you. its pretty exciting stuff. and i havent told you in a while, whats up with that?

well, two weeks ago (as in not last week but the one before that) i failed at my goal to try a new recipe every week. yes, we spent the week back in the world of quick and easy pasta/pizza type meals. and i felt bad about it.

so that Sunday i threw together some breaded chicken and mashed potatoes. nothing groundbreaking, and not really a new recipe, but at least it required more steps than just boiling water or turning on the oven (in fact, it required both!) it turned out really well, but oh my word i made a LOT of mashed potatoes.

in an effort to have us not be eating mashed potatoes as a side with every.single.meal. last week, i came up with the idea of trying to make shepherd's pie to use them up. i kind of sort of followed this recipe, except i didnt have any onions, only some frozen soup veggies, and i forgot to add any sort of seasonings at all, and i think i had too many mashed potatoes and not enough meat. honestly, it was kind of a weird meal.

then, to make up for missing two weeks ago's new recipe, i made a strawberry cake. because i never said that my new recipes had to be a dinner or be healthy and because it just looked so good! i got to use my pie plate for the first time. (its 9.5 inches, not 10 like was suggested, but the cake did not overflow)  it mixed up really quickly, but took FOR-EV-ER to bake, and i didnt end up pulling it out of the oven until 10pm, but oh my word it was SO worth it. i ate it as dessert, and as an appetizer, and breakfast, and a snack, and i had to exercise a LOT of self-control to not just eat the whole thing, so i ended up sharing it with my bible study group to rave reviews.

last night for dinner, i made this recipe for broiled parmesan tilapia. honestly, i didnt really expect it to turn out well. i was almost certain that i would undercook the fish, burn the topping, and give us both some sort of fish-disease. especially because i wasn't giving dinner my 100% attention, mostly just urging the rice cooker to cook the rice justalittlefaster because i had some major cleaning to get done. (i might have even vaccuumed the floors while i was making dinner) so its pretty much amazing that dinner was edible, let alone the delicious-ness that it turned out to be!

mark claims it was restaurant quality. i think it was the parsley garnish that put it over the top.

do you have any good recipe ideas for me for next week? anyone else out there baking for summer? or are you (like my mom) just starting to take the summer off from being in the kitchen?

i originally had titled this post something different, but then i thought about it too long and somehow a few simple, innocent words had been morphed and twisted by the strange way my mind works into something that could possibly maybe somehow be construed as a little bit risque, and so i changed it. because even though it wasnt really risque at all, i dont want to risk anyone thinking that this is one of those blogs.