Grilled Tilapia and Mango Salsa

This is the first time I have ever attempted to cook fish. period.  Therefore, I went to allrecipes.com in hopes of seeking out a winner (at least in our book).  However, I don't think anyone would be disappointed if they tried this one.
  

This is a shot of the mango salsa.  It was super easy to put together.

Here it is atop the tilapia.

This is what Casey thought about the dish.

Ingrediants for Tilapia:

- half cup extra-virgin olive oil                                        - 2 teaspoons ground black pepper

- 1 clove garlic, minced                                                  - 1 teaspoon salt

- 2 teaspoons dried basil                                                - 4 tilapia fillets

Ingrediants for Mango Salsa:

- 2/3 cup chopped mango                                             - 2 teaspoons minced red bell pepper

- 2 tablespoons lime juice                                             - 2 teaspoons minced green bell pepper

- 2 tablespoons orange juice                                        - 1 teaspoon dried parsley

- 4 teaspoons minced jalapeno                                    - 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

- 4 teaspoons minced red onion

My modifications:

- I used mandarin oranges instead of mango (I didn't have a mango, and this was a great substitute).

- I used garlic powder instead of chopping my own

- I doubled the red pepper because I didn't have a green pepper

- I used our George-Foreman Grill

1. Stir the olive oil, garlic, basil, black pepper, and salt together in a bowl.  Put the tilapia fillets in a resealable plastic bag; pour the olive oil mixture over the fillets and seal the bag.  Marinate in refrigerator for 1 hours.

2. Make the salsa by stirring the mango, lime juice, orange juice, jalapeno pepper, red onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, parsley, and black pepper together in a bowl.  Refrigerate for 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend.

3. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil grate.  

4. Remove the tilapia from the marinade, shaking off any excess oil, and wrap each fillet in a piece of aluminum foil.

5. Cook the tilapia on the preheated grill until the flesh easily with a fork, 3 to 4 minutes per side.  Spoon the salsa over the tilapia to serve. 

Enjoy!

   

Not a recipe

I'm back!  Whew, it has been over a week since I last blogged.  I didn't mean to stay away for so long, but life/school took over.  However, I turned in my last research paper last week, and gave my final presentation on Monday of this week.  This means that I am in the home stretch school wise!  Only two small assignments left and finals.  Psh...no big deal - I hope.  I know I said I would be back with a recipe, but that will have to wait until the next post.  I found a handful pictures on my jump drive that are some of my favorites.  The best part about these pictures is that I have not edited them.  I normally edit my pictures in Picasa, but these  I just simply snapped with my little Pentax camera.  The number one thought that comes to my mind when I look at these is how creative God is everyday!  The adjective that comes to mind is magnificent.  Of course, the pictures do not do the real scenes justice, but it is nice to have reminders.  

This first one is taken in Orange Beach, Florida.  I went to the beach multiple times in college with several dear friends.  Treasured memories come from those weekend trips.



I love how the waves are powerful and graceful at the same time.

These next two were taken in Aspen, Colorado.  The natural beauty there is breathtaking.



The road twists and winds with the stream - lovely.

  

These pictures got me thinking...Casey and I were driving home from Jackson, MS this past Sunday afternoon.  We left from his aunt's and uncle's new house that is located out in the middle of nowhere.  On the drive out we kept commenting on how pretty everything was.  Now, I realize that Mississippi looks nothing like the pictures above, but it does have its own beauty.  God created every corner of the world differently, but it was all made by Him.  I think that makes every place we go magnificent.

Birthday Bash x3

This weekend is slammed full of birthday celebrations.  Yesterday was my birthday, and tomorrow is Casey's birthday.  This is our 23rd year to be alive and kickin'.  We came up to Cleveland and brought Casey's college roommate (Nathan) with us.  Mom had a great dinner awaiting us last night, and had a special cake made.  It is so cute - can you guess the theme?  Here is a picture... Note: I have to to warn you that the quality of the pictures is not very good, because I forgot I had my camera on the "flower" setting.  Nevertheless, the pictures still capture the moments and memories that are special. 

It looks like my blog!

I was pleasantly surprised - Mom and the lady who made it cooked up the idea.

Here is a side shot.

I should point out that the reason the date is 1-15-11 on the cake is because that is the day Casey and I "share" and celebrate together. 

Here we are before everyone sang.

Aaron designed the dry erase welcome sign that hangs out in the garage.  Don't you love the upside down snowman that doubles as the exclamation mark? 

   

This weekend we are also semi-celebrating Dad's birthday, which is on the 23rd. 

We are letting him open our gift to him while we are here this weekend.

I'll be back soon with a couple of recipes!  Have a great rest of the weekend!

Thankful Thoughts

Last night I got out of my night class, and there was an icy mist coming down.  I scurried to my car and cranked it up as quickly as possible.  A few minutes passed and my heated seat kicked in.  I leaned back and enjoyed the remainder of the drive home.  When I got home I turned on the heat and took a WARM shower.  I put on cozy pajamas and watched the remainder of the National Championship with Casey - curled up in a quilt.  As I laid down in bed, I thought about how thankful I am for a warm car, warm home, warm shower, warm clothes, and how I typically take all of those for granted.  I often remember to be thankful for those types of things in November, but rarely do I think about them in January.  Therefore, I've decided to make a New Year's resolution today.  (I realize that it is the 11th, but stay with me.)  I am going to make more of an effort to thank God for all He has blessed us with throughout this entire year.  If I take a moment to slow down every once and awhile I really am left without excuse.  I know this sounds so simple, yet for me it's not always.  Which is the reason I want to form a better habit of it, so it becomes more natural all the time!

Speaking of saying thank you, a big thanks to my sweet college roomie for my early birthday present.  Here are some pictures.  Any guesses?  I am really excited about it...and I had to ask her what it was, because I didn't read the label.

It's a casserole carrier!

You just slide the dish in the pocket underneath the spoon.

And it has this as the base to make it sturdy...

And here is a picture of roomie (aka Amy Beaugh) and me :)

This picture will be reversed on June 4th of this year!

That's all I have for today!

Home Sweet Home

It's good to be home.  Casey and I thoroughly enjoyed our travels, but there is nothing like your own bed.  It's good to have this Saturday without plans.  I have papers to write for school, and he has a spreadsheet to build for work.  At some point we may be venturing to Jackson for his sister's baptism - weather permitting.  We are expecting some intense weather from Mother Winter.  We'll see whether or not we stay put.  For right now, I am going to enjoy my peppermint hot chocolate and get to work on my papers.

Happy Saturday!

Things I am excited about:

I am excited about citrus season.

I am excited about my new "green" shopping bags from my parents.

These green guys will drastically reduce our plastic bag collection.

I am excited about our latest furniture addtion.  This was my great-grandmother's and Grandma passed it down to me while we were in NC. 

We have much to be excited about and much to be thankful for!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Casey and I just returned on Sunday night from our big Christmas adventure.  Part of that entailed going to visit my grandparents in North Carolina.  Well, today is that Grandmother's birthday!  Grandma, I hope you have stayed warm today, and that Granddaddy made you a big birthday cake :)  I love you!


Here is a picture of Grandma sitting on the steps of the house where she grew up.  It was NOT orginally painted that color when they owned it.  As you can see we were victims of the 5 o'clock shadows.

I'm not sure how to properly transition here, but I have two random things I want to share.  First of all, how many of you know about this line of different soups? 

I had never heard of it until last year when Casey's Nanny whipped up a pot.  It is so simple and so good!

As you can see, this is what we are having for supper tonight.  Some days I have more energy after work to cook a "real" meal - this is not one of those days.

Secondly, I need to pack up Christmas.

I like having the decorations out...

We enjoyed our minimalist approach to Christmas this year since we were traveling.  Maybe next year we'll have a tree!

Happy New Year!

Hello and yay for a new calendar!  My mom and I started the year off on the "right foot" by taking a walk on Delta States fitness trail.  It was windy, but it felt good to get outside and exercise.  Last night we watched the ball fall in New York via TV.  Even though it was 11:00pm our time, we were not feeling up to staying up another whole hour. We were all in bed before midnight our time.  I guess you could say we were lacking in the celebration department, but we looked at as being ready to tackle the new day.  I mean, all of the Leininger men had to be rested in order to get up to duck hunt at 4:30am.  I'll have to do a post on that craziness some other time.  Maybe one day this year...
On another note, I feel the need to look back on 2010.  After all, many fairly significant events took place.
Warning: this is a long post and I understand if some of you do not want read all of it.  I am doing this for the sake of documentation, so Casey and I can remember what has happend.  If you do make it all the way through this post - congratulations in advance!   
The year started off with two of our college friends (Will and Haley) getting married the very first weekend in January.  This is a picture of another one of my college friends, Grayson, who was a bridesmaid in the wedding.

Casey and his Papa built our cupcake wedding cake stand.  This is right after it was built, before we knew what color we were going to paint it.  It ended up being white with a light green ribbon trim.

Casey and I celebrated our two year mark for our dating relationship on March 25.  He suprised me with two dozen roses, and a date to Leetha's BBQ.  If you haven't had Leetha's then you haven't had BBQ according to many people in our area.

My sweet college Roomie (Amy) also my maid of honor, threw me a really fun shower.  She is quite crafty!  This is a picture of the party favor bags.  They were filled with chocolate covered pretzels she had dipped, because they are some of my favorite treats.

 Mom had some really pretty Easter cookies made.

 Another thing Mom did was register downtown with me.  Picking out my dishes was fun - this is my place setting in Neysa's Fireside Shop.

Roomie suprised me with Gerber daisies, and wrote a note telling me that I was getting closer to getting married. (Butterflies fluttered in my stomach of course.)  Gerbers were the main flower at our wedding. 

Casey and I received our Luckyday Scholorship stoles from the founder's wife along with the rest of our Luckyday classmates. 

Elizabeth was one of those classmates.

This is one of the last pictures Case and I took at USM before we graduated.  It was at our Luckyday Service Team awards banquet. 

Here is a picture with my faithful study buddy Emily.  I probably would not have graduated with the GPA that I did without her!

About four weeks after we graduated we got married on June 5th.  That was one full weekend!

Here is the gang.

We could hardly believe the day had come.

We went on our honeymoon in Fort Walton, Florida.  We had a great time!  As you can see, I got sunburned...

When we got home, we had to tackle our messy apartment.  Our storage closed looked like this.

Just keepin' it real here...

Over time, I organized it to look like this for my sanity. 

I bought a dresser from a flea market and Casey helped me redo it.  Just for the record, that is not a curse word on the masking tape.  It used to say damaged.

We like how it looks now.

After we finished the dresser, I was encouraged to continue being crafty.  (We'll have to see how that progresses in the coming years.) 

I also wrote a boat load of thank you notes over the course of about 6 months.  I hope I am not the only bride that took that long to finish all of them. 

We enjoyed our season tickets to Southern Miss home games.

One of the last events that took place in 2010 was Casey and I running/walking because we didn't really train for the St. Jude Half marathon.  I seriously trained and ran the same one a couple of years ago and was able to thoroughly enjoy it.  This year it was a different story.  We were limping for days afterwards.  Without question, if I ever do a third one I will train for it properly again.   

Here is a picture of us before the race - we look very sleepy.

That wraps it up for me and the year 2010!  Is it sad that those are most of my pictures from the year?  That is one of the reasons I started blogging.  It motivates me to take pictures! 

I just want to leave you with the scene that is currently happening in the Delta right now.

Happy New Year to Y'all!