Baked Cod with Lemony Bread Crumbs

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Another win from/for The Scramble*. One of the great things about The Scramble’s meals for our family is the introduction of NEW meals every week. There isn’t time to become bored or tired of one dish. Of course, there are favorites that I’ve saved, or special dishes we simply love to share with guests. The great thing is that this meal planning service meets your dietary needs while simultaneously expanding your dinner-time horizons.

Fish is a great example of this. I really love fish. But before the scramble I had only a few solid recipes to fall back on. NOW… In the Spring and Summer programming of The Scramble, there is a fish option almost every week! Major win for our family as it brings this lean healthy flavorful protein option to our plates more often than we otherwise would make time for. It’s so so easy!

XX, Megan

Ingredients for main dish

  • 1 – 1 1/2 lb. flounder fillets, or other firm white fish
  • 1/8 tsp. salt, or to taste
  • 1/8 tsp. black pepper, or to taste
  • 1/3 cup bread crumbs (use wheat/gluten-free if needed)
  • 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
  • 1/2 lemon, juice only, about 2 Tbsp., plus additional for serving
  • 1/2 tsp. minced garlic, (about 1 clove)
  • 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. Dijon mustard (use wheat/gluten-free if needed)

Serve with Farro or Pearled Barley and Asparagus with Pine Nuts.

Start: Begin by boiling your chicken broth for the Faro or Pearled Barley first if you are serving it. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Bake: Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray (you can see that I was out of foil, so I just applied the spray directly to my baking sheet). Salt and pepper the fish to taste. Top each portion of fish with the bread crumb mix below.

Mix: Bread crumbs, oil, parsley, lemon juice, garlic, kosher salt and mustard can be mixed in a medium sized bowl. Again, apply equal amounts of this to the top of each fish portion. Bake the fish for about 10 minutes until it is white and flakey. You can also broil the fish for the final two minutes of baking to achieve a more brown crisp appearance.

Saute: Once you put the fish into the oven, heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet. Add 2 tbsp of pine nuts and toast them for 1-2 minutes. (Don’t let them get too brown! They toast pretty quickly.) Add the asparagus (washed, ends trimmed), and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon if you have any left over from the fish.

Remove: Take the fish out of the oven. Give it another squeeze of lemon on the way to your plate and…

Wha-la!

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You can see that there is a bit of a difference in the face of the first boy looking at the fish and the second. This is simply to let you know that certain recipes still have differences in palatability from one kiddo to the next. My oldest loved this fish so much he is twirling his fork about! 🙂

*The Scramble is a meal planning service to which you can subscribe here. For a fantastic price you will receive 5 weekly meals which means 5 recipes (main course plus a side dish), complete grocery list, the ability to tweak the number of people you are making for, and full nutrition facts. PLUS tips as to how best to PREP your meal beforehand, add a punch of FLAVOR, and how to SLOW COOK almost every recipe if you’re especially slammed that night. This wonderful service really does live up to it’s name. You can come home at 6 p.m. and be sitting down to a DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, HOME COOKED meal by 6:30 p.m. most nights.

School Daze

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Everything about this evening was perfect. Beautiful light, abandoned basketball court, random chalk drawings, and my three incredible boys and me all hanging out. Pretty good stuff, indeed.

These pants are worth talking about for their color alone. That hit of green is simply lush. Just add palm trees and an umbrella drink for an outfit escape! Here’s to after school games, and slow evenings that slide toward summer.

Enjoy your day!

XX, Megan

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DSC_0237 - Version 2Shirt: Target, Pants: J.Crew (similar), Necklace: Stella and Dot, Belt: J.Crew (similar), Shoes: Enzo Angiolini (similar), Sunglasses: Karen Walker ‘Super Duper’ Tortoise, Lips: NARS Heat Wave

Mountain Ocean Skin Trip Coconut Moisturizer: Get This

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Other than daily applications of Oil of Olay (the regular SPF lotion version), I don’t have a set beauty regimen per se. I wash my face in the shower every morning with Dove bar soap, and again every evening. I use a St. Ives Apricot Scrub when I feel like my skin is looking a little dull. And I use Trader Joe’s Honey Mango Shaving Cream. Those are my staples, I’d say.

As I approach my middle thirties maybe I should change my lack of beauty routine! Do any of you have tried and true beauty routines you subscribe to? All of those products aside, if I could have one beauty product while stranded on a desert island it would be Mountain Ocean Skin Trip Coconut Moisturizer.

Nothing compares to my love for the gorgeous lotion you see pictured above. THIS is IT. This is my tried and true BEST beauty serum, lotion, product I have used to date. And when I say used, I mean used year after year, all over the world, in a myriad of climates. But pretty much, every. single. day.

I LOVE Mountain Ocean Skin Trip Coconut Moisturizer. It is light and yet emollient. It moisturizes but doesn’t grease up your clothes. I slather it all over my body. I’ve used it as a facial moisturizer. The smell… AH! It is heavenly. Light enough to even be worn under another scent, but carries enough to stand alone. Love.

You can find it at most organic grocers. You can find it at Whole Foods. You can find it at Albertson’s if they have an organic/natural section. You can find it at Smith’s Marketplace. You can find it at Fred Meyer if you live in the North West. You can order it on Amazon and have it shipped right to your door, 10 or 12 at a time. This is the BEST PRICE I’ve found it for online over at Lucky Vitamin.

I love it.

XX, Megan

Linen Boy Shirts: Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

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Let’s pretend these photos were snapped somewhere exotic– Kolkata, Tarragona, Mexico City. Preferably somewhere warmer than this 30 to 60 degree finicky Spring. Maybe then I could justify my linen shirt and mirrored sunnies. So yes, let’s pretend.

Listen, I’m not complaining. I am really enjoying the dramatic temperature swings, one day a sweater the next day a sundress. Hang in there and rely on those layers! If you notice my white knuckles gripping this straw bag, it’s only the wind chill. I’m just freezing. Cold. Tomorrow it will be different. Tomorrow will be sunny and 60 with a low breeze. C’est la vie, Spring!

May your Saturday be filled with sunshine, literally or figuratively!

XX, Megan

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Shirt: J.Crew (mens), Pants: J.Crew, Shoes: Frye Huarache (same, similar, save), Bag: Target (old, love this one!), Sunglasses: Oakley, Ring: Vintage, Cuff: Vintage, Lips: Buxom White Russian

StoryCorps Part II: YOU

11084227_10153163209488622_401358385330647470_o What did David Isay do when he was given 1M dollars?

So what did David Isay, founder of StoryCorps, champion of the personal narrative, the people’s listener, do with his 1,000,000 dollar TED prize?

Drumroll, please…

David Isay and his StoryCorps team have taken their message of listening one step further. They have created an APP where you, your mom, your neighbor, ANYONE can record an interview for StoryCorps. That’s right, anyone, ANYWHERE.

In Isay’s own words, “My personal dream of the app is maybe someday people take this app and go into homeless shelters and hospitals and maybe even prisons and honor people who feel like their lives don’t matter … and asking them who they are, how do they want to be remembered. Interviewing them is kind of the highest use of StoryCorps.” (New York Times, March 25, 2015)

View Isay’s TED Prize Acceptance Speech below. It is powerful.

Can you say DEMOCRATIZE! Everyone MATTERS! (I’ve realized recently that part of my online persona incorporates the microphone skillz of Aziz Ansari. Ever heard him finish a punch line? ALWAYS in all CAPS, friends.) Link to Ansari’s comedy.

I really can’t think of anything more incredible than a way to truly record your loved ones so that their voices, their words, their stories will live on in perpetuity. Incredible. Check out the App here.

I’ve already downloaded the app to my phone, but haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. But this is BIG. This is EPIC. This is REVOLUTIONARY. This app will continue to allow StoryCorps to amass the largest body of human voices, stories, and interviews ever complied. It is incredible.

Personal Aside: My Tie to StoryCorps

The intersection between my personal story of StoryCorps really crosses paths with this app in an interesting twist. What I am saying is, this app allows us to go after something we, myself and my husband, wanted to do a long time ago. While researching StoryCorps for my Master’s Thesis, I found out that you could rent a small sound system to be sent from StoryCorps to our home.

I had listened to hundreds of hours of StoryCorps recordings at a sweet little desk smack dab in the heart of the Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Not an interview went by that I didn’t see the overwhelming merit in the exchange the two participants had. Not a voice crossed those headphones that did not speak to some unique aspect of the human existence.

Not only was I researching StoryCorps from an academic perspective, I was totally and completely hooked. Here it was. Here was our chance to join the movement! Here was our opportunity to listen a little more closely to those we love.

I don’t remember specific pricing of the sound equipment rental from StoryCorps at that time, but I remember that it was almost cost prohibitive for us as a young couple, living on a shoe-string in an expensive area of the country. (We lived just outside of D.C. in Virginia). At one point, we decided that we would actually order the sound recording system and have it shipped to Utah so that we could record BOTH of our parents’ interviews over the Christmas break in 2008.

Time passed, plans changed, and we never did rent the sound system from StoryCorps. But we didn’t ever forget about it. We also did a couple of other interviews one with my Grandmother the other with my Grandfather for the Veterans History Project, also an initiative to record the stories of Americans who served in the armed services during wartime, and archived in the Library of Congress.

What about you?

I know that you know some pretty amazing people. I know that you know and love someone whose voice you would like to have recorded for ALL TIME. What can you do? You can listen to David Isay’s TED talk. You can download the StoryCorps app. You can figure out the app (I’m right here with you on this step!) The app is designed to be a digital facilitator. You can decide the person you want to interview. You can NOT WAIT.

Record now. Cross the street, go straight to the X and push RECORD. Now is our chance– me and YOU. Make Isay’s dream ring out, across the globe, enabled by technology. “Help us spark a global movement to record and preserve meaningful conversations with one another that results in an ever-growing digital archive of the collective wisdom of humanity.”

Remember, that your listening will always stand as one of the most powerful acts of love that we are given as humans who inhabit this planet. I can’t wait to hear the interviews you capture and record.

XX, Megan

Other Links:

Podcast:

http://video.ted.com/talk/podcast/2015/None/DaveIsay_2015-480p.mp4

Interactive Transcript:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_isay_everyone_around_you_has_a_story_the_world_needs_to_hear/transcript?language=en

New York Times Article, March 25, 2015:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/25/us/politics/ap-us-storycorps-global-expansion.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0