Taco Lasagna--So Good!

This is from "Taste of Home's Quick Cooking," so it's yummy and doesn't take too long. Ready in one hour or less.

1 pound ground beef (I use ground turkey)
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup water
1 envelope taco seasoning
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14.5 oz) Mexican diced tomatoes, undrained (I drained them)
tortillas
1 can (16 oz) refried beans
3 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend

Preheat oven 350 degrees.

Cook meat, green pepper and onion in large skillet. Drain. Add water and taco seasoning, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for two minutes.

Stir in black beans and tomatoes, then simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. (Just to thicken it so you don't have too much juice in the casserole dish.)

Cover bottom of greased 9x13 baking dish with tortillas. Spread half the refried beans on the tortillas, then spoon meat mixture over that, and sprinkle with cheese. Repeat the layer, then top with tortillas and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle cheese on top, then bake another 10 minutes or so until cheese is fully melted. (This way the cheese doesn't stick to the foil and make a mess.)

You could put sour cream and shredded lettuce with it if you want. It doesn't say to, but I think that would taste good.

One Man Wind Waker Theme

I used to use a couple tape recorders to record myself singing all the parts of my choir music from school (8th grade). I thought it was pretty cool to hear a choir of me, but I think this guy has taken it to the next level. I guess that's what real recording artists do too though, like Enya.

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

BREAD!!!

Another wonderful thing I got for Christmas is my BOSCH MIXER!




This heavenly industrial strength piece of kitchen equipment is the key to making really GOOD bread, and yesterday I did it for the first time!




The picture doesn't quite do it justice. It's larger than the regular bread you buy at the store, and it doesn't have any holes in it!

I got really excited when I saw it rising. It was a couple inches taller than it's ever gotten before when I just made it by hand. I was going nuts trying to find the camera. (Greg had it at school with him.) I also noticed that after having the Bosch mixer work on the dough for me the dough was nicer than I've ever seen before too. It was a lot, um, stronger? I don't know how to explain that. It just bounced back if I pulled a piece of it, like it was kind of rubbery.

Greg's Stocking

Hello,
I know Christmas is kind of behind us all now, but I haven't posted any Christmas stuff yet.

Greg's family doesn't have traditional stockings like we do. On Christmas morning all the kids would run out to the living room to find their Dad's socks stuffed with fun things sitting on the couch. One for each kid, and it had a big letter written with permanent marker on the toe so you know which one is yours. I think that's a fun tradition to have, but I really like my stocking, and I thought it would be fun to make a stocking for Greg, so this is it!


I was really proud of the stitches I did (with the machine, so I guess I didn't really do them).




The shape looks kind of funny. I just guessed and it came out pretty good. It's a little smaller than I meant it to be. Haha, When Greg unwrapped it and took the goodies out, he put it on his foot and it almost fit! (It's supposed to be a lot bigger than your actual socks.)



I also made him a pair of pajama pants, which he put on right over his pants while we were all sitting around opening presents at his parents. He always makes me laugh.

How to Smash a Bug

Greg taught me this new way of smashing a bug. Instead of just using one square of toilet paper to catch a giant-sized spider, then struggle to crush it and kill it while it's running out of the toilet paper...(like Mom does. Yuck! And you can hear it's exoskeleton crush as she smashes it down on the counter to kill it!)


The BETTER way, is to get a small wad of toilet paper and quickly wet it under a faucet of running water. There should be enough water that you can squeeze drips out of you wanted.
Next, you find the dreadful bug, aim, and throw your wad of wet toilet paper at it! The wad of toilet paper will stick to almost anything (wall, ceiling...) including the bug itself! All you have to do is slide the wad off the wall and roll it up, then calmly discard in the nearest trash bin. If the bug was rather large and you are afraid of it escaping it's wet coffin, you may flush it down the toilet for added relief.

The Biggest Loser!

I found this on Kaela's blog and I'm kind of excited to do it. It's just in time. Greg told me last month that as of Jan 1, 2009, I'm not allowed to have treats in the house anymore. That changed to, "Once our Christmas visit at our parents is over and we get home..." Which changed to, "Once school starts..." So Kaela will be my inspiration and we'll do our best! It's kind of tricky because I make treats for my Mia Maids class every Sunday (except fast sunday of course) and we had agreed that we can have one of those treats and that's it. It will be really hard to make them and not have ANY.

Biggest Loser Worksheet

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Nutrition Health student grammar

So, if you go to Kaela's blog (http://pkfish.blogspot.com/) she has this worksheet and is asking that you send $10 to put in the pot. Then the winner gets the jackpot, along with winning the joy of truly being healthy!
Good Luck everybody!

Floods

Well, we've had a handful of people come today to get storage units because their homes flooded, or their roof caved in with all the heavy wet snow. It's good business for us, but I feel bad about their homes being ruined. As we were driving around today it looked like big rivers flowing down the streets and sidewalks in places. At one intersection we noticed that the water was gushing out of the storm drain...it looked really strange. I didn't have my camera with me, but maybe I can get a picture sometime.

Snow

(This is the famous garden plot area. The snow on the roof isn't an accurate portrayal of how much snow has fallen because most of it blows off and makes piles on the ground.)

So if you didn't know, we've had a LOT of snow around here. On the news we saw that the snow plows are having problems. They were crashing into parked cars on the side of the street because there was so much snow, they couldn't tell that there were cars under that snow. They are asking that people move their cars off the streets, or at least dust the snow off so the plows can see it.

Two days ago I had to go take a lock off one of the units that paid their overdue bill. I had to shovel a path to the unit because the snow was deeper than my waist.

(This is the cars at the apartments next door)


And then the weather changed dramatically. We've had higher temps (35 degrees) and rain and lots of wind. Yesterday the few cars that tried to get into their storage units got stuck in the driveway. There's a big dip down in the driveway, and that became a messy pit of snow slop from all the melting snow. We've been kind of nervous about flooding, but it seems to be ok. The loud wind and blowing rain kept me awake most of the night, and when I looked outside this morning I was amazed to see how much snow has melted! I have a feeling the cold will come back and turn all the melted snow into ice again, and then snow on top of that. It seems to happen that way around here. Since we had snow in June last year, I know this can't be the end of the cold weather yet!

New Baby!

Wendy had her baby this morning! She was 8lbs 3oz and they named her Heidi Celeste Wells.



I thought Max looked cute holding her. He looks like such a proud big brother! It's neat that the kids are now all old enough to remember this--probably for a long time.