Foil-Packet Fish

As soon as it starts to get warm out, I pretty much refuse to cook in the kitchen.  Our kitchen gets SO much sunlight and tends to act as a sauna.  Plus, there's no fan.  All of those combined clearly equal an unhappy, sweaty, and undoubtedly hungry pregnant lady. 

Since it was around 90 degrees for two days in a row (sans air conditioning), we opted for a different way to make dinner: on the grill.  Here's our favorite recipe for lemon-herb tilapia.  It is SO good every time. 

Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients:
Whitefish or Tilapia Filets
1 Lemon, sliced into rings
Salt & Pepper
1 Tablespoon Herb Marinade (or garlic vinaigrette or even just a splash of cooking spray)
1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
Fresh Herbs (we like basil and parsley...and dried herbs would work too)

Directions:
[1] Slice up lemon rings and herbs.
[2] Get 2 pieces of tin foil on the counter top.  They should provide ample space for the fish toppings and room to wrap it all up.  Pour the tablespoon of marinade on the tin foil and spread out (this prevents the fish from sticking to the foil and adds great flavor).

[3] Place the filets on top of the marinade. Then sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic, and half of herbs. Place lemon slices on top. Then sprinkle with the remaining herbs.

[4] Wrap the foil packet tightly so that the fish will actually steam on the grill.

[5] Place the packet on the grill (medium heat) for about 10 minutes.

[6] After cooking, let the fish packet rest for 5 minutes before opening it  This allows the juices to stay in and it's fantastic because you get a nice lemony-herb sauce. 
[7] Serve and LOVE.

We enjoyed our fish with some garlic-parmesan cous cous (pictured above).  That recipe was simple.  Start with a plain box of cous cous.  Prepare, following directions on the box.  Add parmesan cheese, garlic vinaigrette and fresh herbs.  We also had some corn on the cob.  Nothing says summer to me like corn on the cob...yum.

This is one of our favorite summer recipes and dinners.  What's on your menu tonight?  Ours is pizza.  Not homemade either.  We're watching the nephews so we opted for the easy way out :)

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What I'm Loving Wednesday

HOLY RAIN BATMAN!  I don't remember the last time it rained so hard for as long as it did today.  But the good news?  Now that we're out of work, the sun in shining and there's a cool breeze blowing, which is a relief since it's been 90 up here the past few days...and in Northern Michigan most people don't have air conditioners.

Here's what I'm loving this week:

[one] 

Planters out on the deck -- these herbs are making me so happy and I can't wait to cook with them tonight!

[two]

Our garden - overcrowded a bit?  Probably.  Looking fantastic?  Yes.  Organic soil?  Yep, it's all composted and some old horse manure (who wants our extra veggies? jk). 

Radishes!

Peas!

Spinach!

Tomatoes!

Beans!

Summer Squash errr maybe Zucchini

Pumpkins!

Random potato...thank you composting.

[three]

That our good friends Ryan and Jessie are coming up this weekend.  And of course, they're bringing Whitney's boyfriend, Cubs.  It's great b/c Jess and I were partners in crime in college and now our husbands seem to be bff's too.  Maybe that's just because they both love fishing!

We all have a pretty good time together :)

[four]

We only have 1.5 more days of school left!!!!  YESSSSS.  Even though I'm teaching summer school, it's only Monday through Thursday and only from 8-12.  

[five]

As always, my husband, JW and our Whit-bug! 

Welcome to the world, Baby Connor!

Yesterday my good friends Natalie and Brian abruptly welcomed their baby boy, Connor Francis to the world!  He was 9 days early, but mom was a champ and had him 2 hours after she got to the hospital (I'm hopeful Liza will cooperate as well as Connor did).  

Today I went up to visit the little guy and snapped a few pictures of him with mom and dad.  Keep in mind, I'm still learning how to use my camera so they are by NO means professional photos, but I think this sweet little guy makes up for that :)

 

Connor was such a sweet little boy...super sleepy and cuddly the whole time!  Congrats again Brian & Natalie :)

Weekend Recap: Fun in the Sun!

Once again, we had an amazing weekend.  

Here's what we did:

 We hung out in town on Friday night, spending some time with our P-town crew.  We hit up City Park Grill and jammed to the live band.  Either Liza liked it or was really confused because she was MOVING!

As for the rest of the weekend, most of it we spent here...

Yes, this is our beloved family cottage.  We didn't get up there till Saturday afternoon, but we JW, my pops, and I definitely took a quick dip in the lake.  It was a little chilly, but not awful!  

Because my lovely husband LOVES to have a good bonfire, we got up early Sunday morning, had a fire, and enjoyed coffee/tea and magazines with a view of the lake.

Then we headed back into town (a short 25 minute drive) on Sunday afternoon to get some work done on the house!  More to come on that tomorrow.  Let's just say we have about 1/3 more storage and it looks so perfect!  And because JW did most of the work and I helped, we had NO costs for labor. 

Although, there is one downside.  Whit's treats moved to this area.  This is what she did for about 20 minutes on Sunday afternoon when I was organizing and rearranging...

She likes treats?

So that was our weekend, but we'd love to hear about what you did :)

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Oh, hello Friday.

This week has flown by.  I could do 4 day weeks every week.  And now the time has come for a weekend at the lake. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

 We can't wait to head up there...although we'll probably wait till tomorrow.  It's raining a bit today so we might as well get some work done around the house.  Speaking of work, my husband has been busting his you know what to get the mudroom all set up.  Here's what it looked like before...(ok well after we started to move a bunch of stuff outta there).

 After pictures to come soon...it's just a little disheveled right now!  Anyway, here's our plan for the weekend:

BONFIRE.  We like to have one almost every night at the cottage.  S'mores here we come!

 Dinner for this guy's birthday at the Rusty Anchor!  Happy birthday Gramps!

 Enjoying the sunsets and hanging on the beach/dock/pontoon boat...

 Spending some QT together.  And relaxing by the fire!

 Good cottage, summer food!  mmmmmm.

 Those are our plans for the weekend.  Anything fun you have planned?

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Maybe it's just me, but I love being able to write this blog about wonderful things going on.  It seems that so often we don't celebrate these events/people/days enough.  Here's what I'm loving this week:

[one]

That as I write this, Baby Liza is moving around in my belly!  It's so cool to feel little jabs here and there :)  Oh, and here's an updated pic of the belly bump.  Needless to say, I've popped.

[two]

We got to see SO many friends and much of Jon's family this past weekend.  We squeezed so much in, but it was worth it to get to see some of our Lansing area buddies!  And it was great to celebrate two graduations in one family!

[three]

That JW and I got to go to our first Tigers game together on Sunday.  We were especially thankful since it had gotten rained out on Saturday and there were tornado warnings on Sunday.  But, once the storm passed it was an awesome night for watching baseball and the Tigs beat the Bo-Sox!  We also had pretty awesome seats -- here's a few shots from where we were sitting!

Hello Boesch!

Oh hey Jhonny Peralta!

[four]

That we got to spend some time at the lake on Monday.  We knew we couldn't consider it a true Memorial Day weekend without some Burt Lake time. 

[five]

Jon's cousins came and spent a few nights with us.  They were kind enough to take me in once we sold our house in Okemos last year and it was great to spend time with them again!

[six]

The Whit-bug of course.  She was a swimming machine this weekend and was pretty tired Tuesday morning.  But she still loves to jump off the dock even as a 10-year-old pup!

[seven]

My hubs, JW.  He makes me smile.  He works so hard around the house to get things done for Liza and I.  He puts in 10.5 hours at work every day and still manages to come home in a good mood (well...most days).  He is my rockstar :)