Tilapia with a twist....very delicious

Sorry I haven't been around for the past few days, but between work, the holidays, and things going on, I not only haven't blogged, but I haven't even cooked!  I really want to get back in the routine, but you'll have to have a little patience!  It's the whole juggling thing...

So welcome to my world of Tilapia.  I know I have shared recipes of tilapia with you before, but I really love this fish, bought some this weekend, and decided to try something different.  Hope you will follow me and try this.  It truly came out delicious!

I started by putting about 2 cups of croutons in my blender and blending them.   I then cooked up about 1/2 of a vidalia onion and 2 ribs of celery, both chopped and put about 2 tbs of butter in the pan as they cooked.  Added all of this to the ground croutons, along with some parmesan cheese.  I then cooked 2 garlic cloves that I minced, in about 1 tbs of butter.  In they go....

Next up is a can of artichoke hearts, that I drain and chop up.  I also add a can of crab meat that I have also drained.  Also chop up and add a bunch of fresh flat-leafed parsley, and some freshly ground pepper and salt.   At this point, please taste!  I drizzled a little olive oil in to make it a little more moist.

Now for the fun part.  Take each Tilapia fillet and put it on a piece of seran wrap.  Enclose in the seran wrap and gently pound until the fillet is all one thickness.  I then sprinkled the fish with some lemon pepper, and spread some goat cheese.  

Finally, add stuffing, and carefully fold in both ends of the fillet.  Place it in the pan and continue pounding and filling the rest of the tilapia.

The last step is to spray the tops of the rolled fish with a vegetable oil spray, cover with a crunched-up sleeve of Ritz crackers, and sprinkle with garlic powder.  Pop into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  If the top isn't toasted enough, just keep it in the oven for another 5 minutes.

I think this dinner took a total of about 1 hour to make and cook.  Not too bad considering some of my creations!  The stuffing was pretty much a basic...the twist was spreading the goat cheese on the fish before stuffing.   It really gave the fish a nice flavor.

Even though Shannon was tired, she really loved this dinner!  She actually ate two of them....