Recipe Recaps: Tasty Tilapia and Lemon Cream Bars

I don't have any pictures of these. I know, what was I thinking? How can you write about food and not provide a tempting photo? I'll try to do better.

The McHusband and I wanted to have fish last Sunday night so I picked up some tilapia, a new mustard that I had a coupon for, and some panko crumbs. I didn't have a recipe, I was just kinda thinking that my combo would work. And guess what? It was delicious! We'll be eating Tilapia a la The McWife on a regular basis.

You'll need: tilapia filets, French's Dijon with Chardonnay mustard, panko crumbs, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese.

For three filets, I mixed a quarter cup of crumbs with probably a teaspoon of pepper and a tablespoon or so of Parmesan cheese.

I spread the mustard on one side of a tilapia filet then put it mustard side-down in the crumb mixture and kinda pressed down to make sure the crumbs really stuck to the fish. With the fish still mustard side-down, I coated the other side with mustard and then flipped the filet so the other side could get crumby (not to be confused with crummy). Repeat for the next two (or however many you're eating) filets.

I baked the fish in a shallow glass pie plate at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, then flipped the filets and broiled the underside for a couple of minutes just to help them not be soggy.

BEST. FISH. EVER. From my kitchen anyway.

What do you need after a healthy seafood dinner? Dessert, of course!

This past weekend, I made some Lemon Cream Bars. I had everything but the lemons and it was a simple recipe so I thought, "Why not?" I made them to take to a graduation party where I knew there was going to be chocolate cake so I figured the lemon was a good flavor to throw into the mix.

These were really good. The lemon flavor was definitely there, but it wasn't overpowering like lemon sometimes can be. It was tempered nicely by the sweetened condensed milk and by being sandwiched between essentially two layers of crust. Oh, speaking of the crust: I ended up using the whole crust recipe for the bottom layer and making a half-batch for the topping. If you can get half to spread over the whole bottom of your 9 x 13 pan, let me know, but it wasn't happening for me.

I've starred some really fabulous-looking desserts in my Google Reader recently, and I'm looking forward to our busy social summer season as all the excuse I need to whip up some treats.