I do not remember ever having a meal at home that included seafood when I was growing up. My mom made a lot of delicious meals, but I never recall having shrimp, salmon, cod… any of that. My husband, growing up on a cattle farm, was the same way. Everything was meat and potatoes. He never had seafood growing up except maybe during Lent and for that they would go to a little town nearby for some fish at a restaurant (Masonville, IA… the best fried fish around. YUM!).
My husband and I love seafood. In fact, if we are going out to a nice dinner, a seafood restaurant would top our choice of places to go. Cooking seafood is one of my favorite things to cook. My kids love it, I love it, hubby loves it. We have become quite the fish family.
Of course, living in the midwest is nothing like what some of you experience living on the coast. Fresh seafood is not something that is readily available at a price I can afford. A lot of the fish we buy comes frozen from Costco. Either way, we do with what we can get our hands on and enjoy to experiment with different varieties and flavors.
I am slowly but surely building up my seafood recipe repitoire. In fact, I imagine that a lot of the recipes my kids will remember when they grow up have something to do with seafood. That is what I love about family recipes… they can be from the past generations, the current generations and then what the future generations take and do with them. The family recipe box is ever expanding!
What is your favorite family recipe? Do you think it could win you a $1000 Williams Sonoma gift card? How much would you love it if your favorite family recipe won you that coveted KitchenAid mixer you’ve had on your wish list forever? The Viva Diva Family Recipe contest is going on now. Remember to enter your favorite family recipe and you could possibly be one of the big winners! Head over there now before the rush of the holidays gets the best of you… you can enter until December 15th. Good luck!
Side note - you have until tomorrow night to win one of two Taste of Home annual cookbooks from a giveaway partnership between Kate from Kate in the Kitchen and I. Go to this post to enter to win.
Parmesan Crusted Tilapia (from Recipezaar.com)
(OK - small world time… just found out that the submitter of this recipe on Recipezaar was a Zaar user named Mommy Makes. Mommy Makes happens to be none other than Katie over at Chaos in the Kitchen! All this time I never made the connection that the two people were the same.)
25 min | 5 min prep
SERVES 2
- 3-4 tilapia fillets, depending on size
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs or crushed Ritz cracker
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- salt
- pepper
- garlic powder
- olive oil
- Thaw and wash tilapia fillets if frozen. Pat dry on paper towels.
- Combine crumbs, parmesan, italian seasoning and garlic powder on a plate, mixing well.
- On a different plate, pour 1 tbsp lemon juice.
- Working 1 at a time, place a fillet on the plate in the lemon juice, sprinkle with desired amount of kosher salt (be careful about how much salt is in your parmesan, crumbs, and other seasonings), black pepper, and garlic powder. Turn the fillet over in the lemon juice and sprinkle seasoning on the other side.
- Dredge fillet in the parmesan mixture patting it all over to coat.
- Place in an oiled baking dish, repeat with remaining fillets.
- Sprinkle a little lemon juice over fillets and drizzle or spray them lightly with olive oil.
- Bake at 425ºF for about 20 minutes or until they easily flake with a fork and edges are browning (you can sprinkle some more parmesan on top if desired). You can also bake these faster at 450ºF.














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