What's for Dinner? Mother's Day Edition

The other day, I was shopping at a favorite kitchen place and came upon a recipe book.  I love cookbooks. Maybe because I just like to look at the pictures and dream. I think, "This is what I would serve if I really could cook," or maybe 'cause everything just looks better in those dang pictures.

So I browsed through the book and decided to pick it up. It actually had some great recipes (from things in your pantry) and a lot of them were low-cal. Great, I thought, it's a good way to get the picky eaters in my house to try some new things and I wouldn't be using a lot of butter and cheese on everything to get everyone to try something new. Plus, I thought, wouldn't it be great to take a picture of the finished product for all you to see?  (Note to self, take picture before everyone eats).

Well, I did my shopping for the week a little early this time, with mother's day and all, and decided to try this great recipe for Tilapia. Hmmm, I thought, maybe I can get everyone to try something different. I figured I'd guilt them into trying something new. After all, it WAS Mother's Day!  (Ha!) It was a great recipe with just a Parmesan bread crumb topping (probably could have added butter), but it was supposed to be low-cal and it did not have butter in the recipe and it turned out great. How hard is it to bake fish? (Okay, I have been known to overcook things ... OK, OK, burn things).

Then I saw a recipe for potato smashers. I thought I would make this as a side dish since picky eater No. 1 would probably turn his nose at the fish (again using guilt on Mother's Day works).

The recipe for potato smashers calls for eight small RED potatoes, cooked bacon, shredded cheddar cheese and Italian salad dressing. Here's the part where I went wrong: I thought I had most of the ingredients already, however, while I was grocery shopping I could hear thunder from inside the store.  (It's not a good thing to hear thunder inside the store while you're grocery shopping and cut my trip short).

So, I improvised. Unfortunately, unless I follow the recipe exactly, it doesn't turn out at all.  I had potatoes, but not red potatoes. You were supposed to use RED potatoes,  and NOT peel them. Whoops. I peeled the potatoes I had and boiled them, however when it was time to smash them, they didn't smash, they "smooshed."

Because I took the peel off, they didn't stay in nice little round pancake shapes. So, here I go again, improvising. I ended up frying the potatoes in oil forgoing the Italian salad dressing that you're supposed to cook them in (OK, oil is Italian salad dressing, isn't it?) So as I'm frying, picky eater No. 1 stops by and while I'm complaining that the recipe isn't turning out right, picky eater No. 1 says, "Mom, how bad can it be, it's potatoes, cheese and bacon?"  Hmm ...  right you are. But I really wanted it turn out like the picture.

After I fried the potatoes, I let the cheddar cheese melt on top and crumbled the bacon on it. Needless to say, those dang fried potatoes were the hit of the dinner. No one really liked the Tilapia, (except me).  But good ol' hubby and picky eater No. 2 at least ate it (hidden in ketchup or ranch dressing, of course).  Picky eater No. 1 had a small smidgeon of it, doused in ketchup. (I'm positive it was Mother's Day guilt, but what the heck).  Picky eater No. 3 wouldn't even try it. At least picky eaters No. 1 and No. 2 kept telling picky eater No. 3 it was good! Yea! At least there's hope.

I just want to say to Kyle, I tried the southwestern chicken tortillas. Those went over well. I believe it was the peppers in adobo sauce that did it. So, I've decided I'm going to try another recipe in this cookbook, dear readers, and again will let you know how it goes.

I'm going to end this post with a great recipe for a chocolate chip muffin. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be talking about dinner, but what's dinner without dessert? Here's a case where substitution worked.

The other day, I found this quick and easy muffin recipe, (not really dessert, but still want to share it with you). Instead of chocolate chips, I substituted a cup of white chips. "WOW" — If I do say so myself. The white chips really made a difference. Those muffins were gone in two days.

Here ya go:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup white premier chips (you can use mini chocolate chips also)

Stir the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla and milk and mix until blended. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir gently until combined. Fold in the chips. Fill greased muffin pans with the batter and bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Recipe makes 12 muffins.  

Enjoy!