Fiesta tilapia

I made up a recipe. Go me! Well, ok, it's probably more accurate to say I borrowed one I read on all recipes and then adjusted it for city apartment living. You see, I love grilling. I will grill anything. Especially pineapple. Swoon. But since I'm not going to whip out the hibachi at 830pm after the toddler is in bed I wanted a recipe that I could make stovetop. Although playing Caribbean steel drum tunes may be optional at your house.

1-4 fresh tilapia fillets

1 14oz can of tropical fruit salad

1 t Chinese chili garlic sauce

1 T brown sugar

1 T butter

1-2 bunches of chard. (rainbow is good with the fiesta theme. Plus

have you ever seen anything so beautiful?)

1-2 c rice

Pour the juice from the fruit over the fish in an oven safe dish. Add a few pats of butter in between each piece of fish. Cover in tinfoil.
Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork. Chop up the fruit in another bowl and add the garlic sauce and brown sugar and stir together.
Wash the chard and steam in a skillet with a drizzle of olive oil and some of the fruit juice. Serve fish over chard with a side of rice. Add a few big spoonfuls of the chopped fruit mixture and be sure to add a spoonful of the juice mixture from the fish over the rice! Yum!

Saving dinner time

At our house it's rare we finish a whole jar of spaghetti sauce at one

meal. That's if I haven't made a huge pot of homemade sauce. But on

those nights I just want to make one serving of ravioli or spaghetti I

go for the jar sauce. Of course that means the rest of the jar sits in the fridge for weeks and goes bad. In a cleaning fit yesterday I started a bag of baby food accessories to donate. But I saw this individual meal freezer holder and thought it's be perfect for individual servings of sauce. So I'm keeping it. Pop one out and defrost it, voila.

Now that's a family restroom!!

We went to Cleveland for the holidays and what do you do in Cleveland? Why, go to the mall of course! Ok, not always. But we had to see Santa, and the mall is where he is known to hang out so there we were.  Anyhow, as it is traveling with a toddler in potty training mode, I have one eye open for suitable bathrooms at all times.  We cruised out of JCPenney (woot! party!) and spotted a sign for the family restroom. In pretty colors. Again, in a preventative measure, we took a side trip down this pretty colorful hallway to the most amazing family restroom I have ever seen. It actually had a SEATING area with games and TVs for the kids (or bored Daddies, imjustsayin...) and it had a large room with 3 baby-changing 'bays' (is that the appropriate word? I know they aren't cargo vehicles, but still...) with sinks and even a microwave. Then there were small curtained rooms with plush couches and a table. Must be for napping or nursing. I never wanted to leave. And I'm not even nursing anymore. Apparently I'm not the only one at this mall that knew of this hidden gem because the only actual toilet (that also had the cute toddler size toilet too!) was occupado. We waited. We waited. Then we heard the telltale flush, followed by the feared second flush! Out walked an older woman, sans child.  Can't say I blame her. That place was a palace.  Why can't more public establishments be like this?? When I was nursing maybe??