Skillet enchiladas. yummmmm

I'm sure someone somewhere has a recipe for something like this but I just made it up several years ago and we loved it so much that we have eaten it on a regular basis since.

Sorry, but I don't deal in exact measurements. That is just the way I cook.

Dice and saute a medium onion then add some hamburger meat or ground turkey and brown it. (I use about 2 -1/2 lbs but I am feeding a family of 8) Then I turn the heat down and add in
seaonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, whatever you like)
2 -15 oz. cans of tomato sauce
2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
A big 'ol scoop of sour cream or cream cheese (or kefir if your that type) or a combination.
And a couple of big 'ol handfuls of stale or left over tortilla chips that are too little to use with dip (or you can tear tortillas in to little bits and use those)
Stir and let it cook until the chips or tortillas are softened, about 3 to 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and then sprinkle grated cheese all over the top and let it melt.

This recipe could easily be adjusted for a smaller batch by using 1 or 1 -1/2 lbs. of meat and one can of each thing rather than 2. You could add re fried beans, or cheese soup, or nacho cheese, or black olives, or anything else that says "Mexican food" to you.

Ya see, just like I don't deal with exact measurements, I don't deal with exact ingredients all the time either.

It is so yummy.

Tha Animals are outta here!!

One symptom of my pregnancy is that my since of smell is very sensitive, which doesn't help the morning(allday) sickness. So our cute cuddley lovable animals have become a stinky source of avoidance for me.

Today I evicted them. We have moved the ferret and the guinea pig to the rabbbit cages outside. They both are so much happier! Their cages are now much bigger and they like to sun themselves. The ferret has claimed the nesting box full of hay as his own. And he is obcessed with the tennis balls we put in there. He wants them in his box. The girls will take them out of the box and he will instantly stop what he is doing to take the tennis balls back in his box. He always puts them back in the same spot. He also has a hammock that is about 3ft square now. His old one was about 10 inches square. The guinea pig likes her nesting box too. Her's looks like a little cave that she can walk right into since guinea pigs can't climb.

They are both so happy but more importantly, I am happy!!!!!!! No more animal stinck in my house! Yea!!!!!

We may have to bring them back in over night on days the temp drops but there shouldn't be too many more of those before spring.

Bad hair day

I was looking through old pics and came across pics of Gennifer and Heather going to a "wild hair" party. Black mail pictures for later in life hee hee!

More graden shots

This is one of the most attractive things about my wonderful husband.

Baking bread with homeground wheat

We have a really good recipe that works great with store bought flour. Not so great with home ground flour. hmm not sure why. It was very dense and dry. That was the first try.

This was my second try:
I added some unbleached white flour to my wheat flour (not much)and used less flour
This time the bread turned out yummy.

Here is the recipe:

2 c. + 4 TBs warm (not hot)water
2 tsp. Active dry yeast
1/4 C. sugar (we have used honey, a combination of honey and molasses, or evaported cane juice as a sub and they turned out great too. The sugar is to feed the yeast.)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 .c canola oil (we usually use cocnut oil you can use olive oil but you can taste the difference. some people like that. you can even knead in some italian seasonings.)

Start with the water yeast and sugar. That way the yeast can be "proofing" while you are adding the other stuff. We just put it all in our stand mixer bowl and then we start mixing it with our dough hooks and adding the flour.

The recipe calls for 5 1/2 C. of flour but we wound up using about 4 3/4 c. of flour because the dough was getting too dry.

let it rise for about 45 min then knead it. Let it rise for another 45 min, knead again and either put it in a loaf pan or form it into a loaf and cut slits on the top(on my stone is my favorite way). At this point you can bake it or you can let it rise for a little while longer and then bake it. Letting it rise for 20 min or so makes it look prettier. If you are in a hurry and just want to eat it. Skip the last rise it is for asthetic purposes only.

I like a crip crust so I rub my bread with oil before baking it.

Bake at 350 for about 45 min. After I take it out of the oven, I rub the surface down with a stick of butter. yum.

Planting Seeds....

I have to brag on my wonderful husband!! He is so great and diligent about getting stuff done around here. In a span of 3 days, he tilled aobut 1/2 acre of property into gardens. He strung fence for my beans and peas to grow on. He pulled trees from an area before he tilled. He lined out the gardens and planted half of them and all the while he did all of this with his kids.

D.J. is an exceptional garden helper. She gets her diligence from her daddy, for sure. Sharla is a great planter and he can give her a row to plant and she can basically plant it by herself.

As I watched my wonderful husband in the front yard gently teaching my girls about planting seeds, the school bus drove by to drop off the kids down the road. For a moment I had to reflect on the blessing that it is for my children to be able to be home all day everyday. In this day and age it rare for children to be with their parents anywhere for any reason during business hours. I am so blessed the the presence of my children, daily.

Here is a photo that wasn't really posed, he was handing her the seeds anyway, but I did ask him to be still and let me snap it from the right angle. I think it is representitve of the day he spent with his girls planting seeds.

The Candy Store

Actually the seed store but David was like a kid in a candy store.

I know it's still Feb but David has already gotten the garden ready and half planted. He bought a roll of plastic to make little green house structers over the plants.

So far we have planted in our garden: tomatoes(3 varieties), Cucumbers(3 varieties), green beans, early peas, zuchini, oninos(we discovered oninons from last year already growing this year. woohoo).

We have seeds started in the house for cilantro, basil, oregano, parsley, thyme, & speghetti squash. There are probably more but I cant think of anything else right now.

Bulk Grains

Yay! A friend, Natalie, picked me up a 50 pound bag of whole wheat berries today! Woohoo. Fortunately, this friend also has a wheat mill that I can use.

Natalie also shared some of her bucket of barley with me. Yumm.
Ok, I have to admit when I saw the barley, it was not the neat and tidy pearl barley I was used to. hmmm what do I do with this bulky looking stuff masquarading as barley? So I had to get online and do some research. This is what I found:

Barley-Hulled barley is brown in color and retains all the rich nutrients contributed by the skin. Pearled barley has been milled until the brown skin has been polished off, along with most of its nutrients. Protein, fiber, B-vitamins and minerals are still present in hulled barley.

Natalie kind of went crazy on her grain-buying binge. The good news is that buckets of grain have a 10 year shelf life. We have decided we need to eliminate as much buying from the grocery store as we possibly can.