Back at the grind May 26, 2009

So I’m getting back to work and am totally lost.  Lol.  After having an extra long weekend I can’t seem to focus properly.  But it was a very nice weekend.  Planted out a bunch of our peppers.  Still need to finish seeding the garden bed out back, plant the tomatoes, eggplants, and others.  I feel like I’m getting a slow start this year but I suppose it’s better than freezing my poor plantlings like I did last year.  

Matt’s truck is working beautifully with the new engine.  It’s good to have the truck back but paying it off it’s going to be fun.  Mums in town visiting.  It’s nice to have her.  A little odd to have someone else in the house again but it’s still good.  I’m thinking I might make black bean tacos for dinner tonight and lunches this week.  Supper easy.

Black bean and Potato tacos.

2 or 3 potatoes

1 or 2 cans of black beans (not drained)

1/2 to 1 onion, chopped

1 to 2 packets of taco seasoning

A few cups of prepared brown rice

Tortilla’s or taco shells

Cheese, Sour cream, Tomatoes, hot sauce, what ever toppings you like.

Microwave the potatoes until they’re just soft.  Let them cool abit and cut into small cubes.

Add a little oil to a pan, saute chopped onions until translucent, add cubed potato and let brown a bit.

Add black beans and taco seasoning.  Adjust the amount of liquid from the beans.  I recommend starting small and adding to get the consistency you want.

Simmer for maybe 5 min to let the flavors come together.

Serve on a hot tortilla or taco shell with a layer of rice, then taco mix, then add cheese and fixings. 

These are really easy and between the beans and rice you have a complete vegetable protein.  And it’s cheap

The weekend that wasn’t January 12, 2009

Well my plans for a mellow and relaxing weekend didn’t quite work out.  Matt’s truck died on the way home Friday.  Bad battery and bad alternator.  So Saturday involved running to pick and pull to replace a piece the boys had broken on my car last week.  That part of the day went really quick.  Car’s all better.  The alternator, not so much.  They got the old alternator out without a problem but the new one didn’t fit.   Grrr.  So Matt and Jon spent the whole day working on that.   Then still spent Sunday working on it.

I decide I was sick of having a torn up kitchen so I wanted to finish the grouting this weekend.  Not a problem except there was a lot more left than I thought.  So I spent Saturday doing that, Sunday doing more grouting and cleaning and getting my hair die in.  And I’m pooped.

The good news is that I’ll be able to seal the grout tonight and by tomorrow put everything away.  And the other good news is that the pink dye we put in my hair, is seriously pink:)!

OMG it’s nearly xmas December 12, 2008

The other day it finaly struck me that it’s the 12th of December…And I haven’t done any of the shopping part of christmas!  I always remember to start the handmade gifts nice and early.  And all of those are done,  well close:).  But I always forget about the shopping part. 

So tonight Matt and I are going to pick up a tree and deck the halls!  I think this year I actualy know where all the decorations are.  Meme and I are also making potatoe leek soup and fresh bread tonight.  My DMIL gave me the recipe for the bread she had when we were over there for supper Tuesday.    It’s already started.  Just needs an other rise then bakeing.  The recipe is writen poorly, very confusing.  If it turns out well I’ll post the reorganized recipe.

When we were cleaning up from dinner with the folks Tuesday I mentioned that I was planing to make another batch of pumpkin cholate chip cookies and use the spice mix that Aunt Lucy gave us.  DFIL started jumping up and down and makeing puppy noises at the tought of more cookies!  Well, I think I know what my holiday baking project is going to be this year.  The gift that Lucy gave us was really cool.  Handmixed spice mixes all fall kind of flavors.  Probaly the neatest thing about it was the packing mattirial.  Don’t hear that very often!  The bottles were packed with food quality bay leaves and cinnimon sticks and whole nutmeg.  Awesomeness, I was out of bay leaves too.

Our cousin Julie got her package.  I was a little worried it wouldn’t make it in time even tho it was 8-10 day shipping.  I’ve never shipped internationaly before so didn’t know what to expect.  Now I’m very glad that I individualy wraped the gifts.  She’s been opening them one a day.  Yay for the 13 days of christmas in Japan!

Tomarrow Meme and I are going to do our yearly christmas shopping blitz.  This usualy ends up being 8+ hours of silly, girly, highly caffinated fun with us totaly crashing afterwards.  I think our boys are going to go do their shopping together tomarrow too.  I know some of the things I’m looking for but alot of them will be based on what we find. 

And so the madness begins:)

Easy Project November 20, 2008

One of my fairly recent projects was to contact paper my laundry room shelves and my pantry shelves.  I rarely see people use contact paper anymore but it makes shelves easier to clean and look a heck of a lot neater.  So I thought I’d share a little bit about how to do it.

Contact is the name brand and I’ve worked with other types too. There are lots of colors and patterns.  I use a blue green marble kind of pattern this time.  They pretty much all have the same idea.  The vinyl, smooth paper is sticky on the back.  To stick it somewhere peel off the backing and press in place.   If you like to to thing in an orderly way, you measure your space and then use the nice neat lines on the back to cut it to size before you put it in place.  It you’re like me you grab the roll, climb a chair, streach out the amount you need and hack it off with scissors.  Then put it in place and cut to fit.  Either way works and just depends on your ways of doing things. 

Couple of things that help-

To make it smooth just keep smoothing out wrinkles as you go.  A very lightly damp sponge is useful. 

Always cut it a little too big.  You can always cut it back.  I use a razor and a pair of scissors.

If the paper has a hard time staying in place on the underside of the shelves, just remember that duct tape fixes everything:).

I’ll also use it to cover boxes.  Makes them easy to dust, a little stronger, and you can make them match your decor.

The other place I love it is under bathroom sinks.