Monthly Archives: December 2009
Mmm… Monday #2: Homemade Enchiladas
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
Mix the rice and meat mixture with enough sauce to JUST cover it.
~Fran Lebowitz
Today’s Mmm… Monday is a favorite of mine. My mom started making it when I was a young teenager. It’s been afavorite of my friends when they come over for dinner. I made it last night because I was really hankering for it. Of course, making it for just one person means that it will last me for several days, but that’s okay because it is one of those rare foods that taste BETTER the day after! I do try to make it as healthy as I can.
Homemade Enchiladas–Wifey Style
Ingredients
1lb ground turkey (or hamburger)
3 cups brown rice (or white rice)
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can spaghetti sauce
1 can salsa
6-8 large tortillas (I use low-cal whole wheat)
Spread thin layer of sauce on the pan.
- Brown the ground turkey (including seasoning as you wish) and prepare the rice as directed on the box.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- When both are finished, combine them into one pan on the stove.
- Add enchilada sauce and spaghetti sauce until the the mixture is just covered (don’t add too much so that it is runny).
- While the mixture heats on the stove, spread a thin layer of spaghetti sauce and enchilada sauce on the bottom of a 11″ x 13″ glass baking dish.
- Now it’s time to put them together. Spoon the mixture into a tortilla. Be generous. Add a couple of spoonfuls of salsa and sprinkle cheese on top. Fold it over and place it smooth side up. Do this until the baking dish is full.
Add mixture to the tortilla and top with salsa and cheese.
- Spread spaghetti sauce and enchilada sauce on top of the tortillas in the dish. Use a spoon to push the edges of the tortillas down into the baking dish. Make sure all parts of the tortillas are covered. If the edges are sticking up and/or you have places that do not have sauce on them, they will dry out and become hard.
- Spread cheese over the entire dish.
- Place the dish, uncovered, in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted on top.
- Enjoy!
This dish can be made as hot or as mild as you like with adjustments to the salsa and possibly adding Tabasco in it.
If you make it, let me know how it turns out!
Fold tortillas over and place in baking dish.
Spread sauce on top.
Add cheese and bake until melted.
Mmm... enjoy!
Bummer
See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.
~Pope John XXIII
Grrr… the item I thought I was going to Allison for Blogger Santa is no longer in the store. Oh well, back to Plan B. Wait, I don’t have a Plan B. Hmm…
Cold Weekend
Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.
~Janice Maeditere
It’s been an interesting weekend here. Five dogs in my tiny house has been… interesting. Not as bad as I thought it would have been but still. It’s been about 10 degrees here with the windchill. With five dogs, I had to be out of the house longer during potty breaks (Chase has to go out alone due to his back injury two years ago and one of the two Greyhounds I’m sitting is very Alpha and can’t go out with Lulu since she’s so Omega that she freaks out… plus, the monstrous fuzzy dog needs to go out on leash since he has Doggie ADD and if he didn’t, he’d “forget” to go potty because everything would distract him). It was a COLD weekend!
I’ve also come to a realization. I’ve decided that I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. And by “this” I mean living away from my husband (yes, he’s deployed right now, but when he gets back, I’ll still be away from him). It’s been eight months since we’ve lived together. Eight months of our 9 1/2 month marriage. He left for deployment in October… which means we should have been together for five of those months.
The last thing I want is for him to come back from deployment and us to be STILL apart and them him to be gone in a few months again on his next deployment. I don’t want us to find ourselves a year and a half into our marriage (approximately what it will be after his next deployment) and only lived together for seven weeks.
I just can’t do it. But, this is a decision for Huzzy and I to make together. According to Michigan legislature (Section 421.29 for any Michigan MilSpouses out there), you are disqualified for receiving unemployment if you voluntarily quit except for two conditions including: The individual is the spouse of a full-time member of the United States armed forces, and the leaving is due to the military duty reassignment of that member of the United States armed forces to a different geographic location.
So tomorrow I’m going to try and call the unemployment agency to verify that (yeah, that could be interesting… more than 15% of Michigan’s workforce is unemployed so getting a hold of someone is apparently pretty hard). If that is true, Huzzy and I lose approximately $700 a month if I went on unemployment. Not to mention the extra $1200 or so in paying rent in Washington (extra if my house doesn’t sell by then, of course). Not sure how we can swing that, which is why I need to talk to Huzzy.
But for me, I think it’s almost worth it to do it. We can’t afford it for long, but I truly think that job hunting will be easier if I actually LIVE in Washington. Plus, both of us are miserable not being together. It truly is one thing to be apart due to deployment… we expect that… but to be apart during his very, very short stints on land? Unacceptable.
Of course I still need to talk to him and I’ve only had two phone calls from him and average about one e-mail a week, so that might be tough. I really don’t want to do it via weeks of e-mail so I’m hoping that I get a phone call in the next several weeks. He indicated that I probably WOULD get at least one more phone call during the deployment, but that can always change depending on the mission. I hope so. I’d like to talk to him before/around Christmas.
So I think I figured out what I’m going to get Allison at I Heart Change for the Blogger Santa exchange. Normally, when I do exchanges, there is a $20 limit and I can usually find some great stuff for that, but this is only $10. It was tough to figure out something, but after searching around on her blog, I think I found the perfect thing. Of course, I can’t tell you what it is because even though I don’t think she reads my blog, she might with that link in there to hers LOL.
Now, I just have to go shopping to find the best of that “thing” and send it to her!
I Swear I’m in the Movie “Groundhog Day”
Winter is nature’s way of saying, “Up yours.”
~Robert Byrne
It’s winter. It may not be “winter” for another 18 days, but when “significant Lake Effect Snow” is forecast, it’s winter. And that makes me very sad. You see, I thought I’d be out of here by then and off to my new life with Huzzy in Washington. Heck, I figured I’d be out of here by the start of fall. Yeah, THAT didn’t happen.
—-> insert: Oh good gosh, I just looked outside and can’t see the freakin’ road. How fun is that. Blech. HUGE snowflakes.
So here I am, starting a holiday season and winter without Huzzy. And without a heavy winter coat. And snow boots. And my nice leather gloves. And a snow shovel. Yep, all of those are in the storage shed in Washington. Lovely. Of course, it wouldn’t matter if I was in Washington or not, Huzzy would be gone. But I hate having to buy stuff that I’m just going to have to move. Stuff that I’ve already purchased. It really seems like a waste of money.
Guess what else is in the storage unit in Washington? All my Christmas decorations. So me, who loves the Christmas season like none other, is stuck in a barren house (woo-hoo for the TV, couch and mattress on the floor!) watching everyone else get ready for the season to spend with family and not only am I missing my Huzzy, but I’m also not able feel like it’s Christmas since there are no decorations. I can’t even bake the 23 dozen cookies that I normally bake. I have 1/2 cookie sheet. Uh, yeah, that’s not going to work for that many cookies! Besides… guess where my mixing bowels and Kitchen Aid mixer are? Mmm-hmm. Storage. At least they are enjoying a nice, climate-controlled existence and are nice and toasty. Which reminds me. I need to pay the storage unit fee by January 1st (since we paid 2 months up front to get a month free).
Christmas is a little… not there for me this year (except for the awesomely fun snow that WordPress allows on blogs for free during time of year.. yay!). But I am participating in the (not-so) Secret Santa exchange that Allison at I Heart Change put together and that should be tons of fun. It’s (not-so) secret because everything is posted on her blog. Funnily enough, I got Allison. She’s a new mom and an Army wife. The gift is $10 or less… now what the heck should I get?
I seriously feel like I’m in the movie “Groundhog Day.” Okay, maybe I’ve never seen that movie, but I feel like what the movie sounds like. I just get up, let the dogs out, get in the shower, feed the dogs, let the dogs out, go to work, come home, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, let the dogs out and then go to bed. And then get up and do it all over again. Huzzy and I don’t have the money for me to do anything else or go out or do anything fun like that. Well, we do, but if I have to move and we lose one income, we need to have a bit in savings to keep us going.
I do have a feeling that these next few days I’m going to WISH it was the same-old, same-old. You see, back when I went to Newport to do the week of active duty at the beginning of November, I had a problem finding someone to take the greyhounds. My mom realized she just couldn’t do it. So I found someone to take them. In exchange, I get to watch her monsters sweeties for 3 1/2 days. And yes, I realize I have to watch them less, but my dogs aren’t problems. Hers have to be in crates whenever you are out of the house.
Why you might ask? Because one will chew up the entire house if left out and the other will pee all over the house. Oh, and guess what! The chewer has horrible separation anxiety. And one of them need daily, or twice-daily, pills. Oh, and they are poo eaters. Oh, and they like to kill cats… which means Jake and Sadie get to spend some quality time locked in a room together. But wait… one of them is a severe Alpha dog. She likes to boss my Lulu around. Hey, did you count that? That’s FIVE dogs living in a 1080 sq ft house. Minus the cat room. And the spare room that has my stuff to take to WA. That leaves… oh, probably 700 sq ft. And this house can’t be shown to prospective buyers while they are there (’cause I don’t have a car big enough to get all five out!).
Can I go back to Groundhog Day?
