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Easy Chili Rellenos

3 January 2012, 2:44 pm

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  • 2 t. butter, softened
  • 7-oz. can whole green chiles, drained and cut in strips
  • 8-oz. pkg. shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 8-oz. pkg. shredded Monterey Jack cheese
  • 14-1/2 oz. can stewed tomatoes
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 T. all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 c. evaporated milk

Spread butter in a slow cooker. Layer chiles and cheeses; add tomatoes. Stir together eggs, flour and milk; pour into slow cooker.  Cover and cook on high setting for 2 to 3 hours. Serves 6.

Chili Rellenos are my FAVORITE!  I’m almost sad that the crockpot is already cooking tonight’s supper.  Ah well, tomorrow is another day.  I’m certainly gonna double this and use my 7qt Crockpot, but I guess I could also use a single recipe in the 4 qt Crockpot for lunches.  Look-out, world!  Chili Rellenos is my new “go-to” recipe!  I’ll probably even add extra eggs to this since I have so many laying hens right now.

Just making sure you’re paying attention.  ;^)

Filed under Casseroles, Chickens, Crock Pot, Easy Home Cooking, Free Stuff, Lunch, Supper, Vittles.
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Chicken Doctoring

2 December 2011, 9:40 am

This boy is my animal wrangler.  He’s an extreme dog lover, but he takes an interest in the chickens as well.  OK, he takes a massive interest in all animals.

You’d be shocked to find out how little interaction I have with the chickens.  And the chickens would be shocked (do they care? not enough brain) to know that I’m the one in charge of how much and what they eat, but I digress.  It’s not about me.

It’s not about me because the chickens are afraid of me.  I’m not evil to them, I’m just somewhat of a stranger to them.  I’m not out there everyday putting food out for them or filling the drinkers, ergo – stranger.

This boy is trusted by the chickens.  He can walk right up to most of them and pick them up.  Good thing, because today he had to pick up our second-in-command rooster.

  • #1 Rooster is named Birdy Wooster.
  • #2 Rooster is named Jeeves.

Well, Jeeves found a bit of stout string and wrapped it tightly around his toes.

Let’s stop a moment and visualize Jeeves actually trying, on purpose, to tangle his toes up with string.

Jacob caught Jeeves and laid him on the patio table, held him down with his left forearm, while cutting away at the string with his box cutter.  Caleb came in to ask advice on Jake’s request, so I took Jake a pair of scissors, staying well out of Jeeves’ line of sight.

Remember, Jeeves thinks I’m an evil stranger, so I didn’t want to rile him up.

Jacob got all the string removed and asked for some hydrogen peroxide.  I had him move off the porch to pour the peroxide over the foot.  Jeeves thought he ought to squawk, flap, and run off as soon as Jake applied the peroxide, so there was an easy answer to the question “Do ya think we oughtta try to put some antibiotic ointment on that?”

Jeeves now walks with a bit of a limp.  We’ll let you know if he dies or if his leg falls off, but for now, odds are, he’ll be fine.  I’m certain he’s already forgotten about being handled today.  Small brains, chickens.

Filed under Chickens, Homeschooling, Jacob, Meanwhile Ranch.
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Shakespeare, seriously.

1 December 2011, 2:53 pm

So, I’m very easily influenced.  I know this and try to protect my naive self, but sometimes influences sneak in thru unlikely sources, say facebook.  Say a video on facebook that I thought was only there to make me laugh, but it also made me think.  (Yes, it did hurt, thank.you.very.much.)

Anyway, we got a few good laughs along the way too.

Wait, that’s not the point.

The point is, the dude on the silly video on fb DARED me to turn off the idiot box and read Shakespeare.  Yea, not only to read the bard’s works, but to read them aloud to my children.  (That’s what I heard, but there may have been a boat-load of guilty driving my interpretation thereof.)

Hold on, lemme think, wasn’t I gonna do that anyway?  Isn’t that why I bought my copy of Tales from Shakespeare nearly 20 years ago?  Wasn’t that part of the plan of yore.  I used to do this.  Seriously.  

But now?  We read a chapter of Farmer Boy (nuthin’ wrong with Little House on the Prairie, just happens to be what we are doing right now) and then we pop in a DVD.  Again, nuthin’ wrong with watching an occasional DVD, especially if it’s a well made, classic tale.

Right.

Explosions, hostage negotiations, Marvel comic heroes, futuristic robot take-overs.  That’s what usually plays around here.

*Extreme homeschool guilt happening in my head right now.*

So, to counteract the painful, nauseating guilt I got out my copy of Tales from Shakespeare and read the first chapter to Caleb and Rachel.

Painful.

I could cry.

Seriously.

It hurt my head to read the hard stuff.  And I had to explain so much, so many phrases.  (Glad I still could, bein’ as my mind is mush.)  Troopers that they are, the kids patiently listened and tried to keep track of who was the brother, who was the king, and what the good guy’s name was.  Then, when it was ended, they voluntarily went to clean their rooms.

Seriously.

Totally.

Shut up.

(That last was aimed at the inside of my vacuous vacuum I call my brain.)

So, because I know you’d like to share in my guilt and misery, here’s the video that snapped me back to my senses.

Shakespeare – HA

By the way, you can get Tales from Shakespeare for free for your Kindle (or Kindle for PC) here and lots of regular Shakespeare for the Kindle (most of it free) here.  Regular Shakespeare, <snort>, I mean sonnets and plays and so forth.

Filed under Books, Homeschooling, Rant, Read Aloud.
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Meddlesome Matty

30 November 2011, 8:21 am

One ugly trick has often spoil’d
The sweetest and the best;
Matilda, though a pleasant child,
One ugly trick possess’d,
Which, like a cloud before the skies,
Hid all her better qualities.

Sometimes she’d lift the tea-pot lid,
To peep at what was in it,
Or tilt the kettle, if you did
But turn your back a minute.
In vain you told her not to touch,
Her trick of meddling grew so much.

Her grandmamma went out one day,
And by mistake she laid
Her spectacles and snuff-box gay
Too near the little maid;
“Ah! well,” thought she, “I’ll try them on,
As soon as grandmamma is gone. ”

Forthwith she placed upon her nose
The glasses large and wide;
And looking round, as I suppose,
The snuff-box too she spied:
“Oh! what a pretty box is that;
I’ll open it,” said little Matt.

“I know that grandmamma would say,
‘Don’t meddle with it, dear;’
But then, she’s far enough away,
And no one else is near:
Besides, what can there be amiss
In opening such a box as this? ”

So thumb and finger went to work 
To move the stubborn lid,
And presently a mighty jerk
The mighty mischief did;
For all at once, ah! woeful case,
The snuff came puffing in her face.

Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, beside
A dismal sight presented;
In vain, as bitterly she cried,
Her folly she repented.
In vain she ran about for ease;
She could do nothing now but sneeze.

She dash’d the spectacles away,
To wipe her tingling eyes,
And as in twenty bits they lay,
Her grandmamma she spies.
“Heyday! and what’s the matter now?”
Says grandmamma, with lifted brow.

Matilda, smarting with the pain,
And tingling still, and sore,
Made many a promise to refrain
From meddling evermore.
And ’tis a fact, as I have heard,
She ever since has kept her word.

Ann Taylor

Filed under Character, Copywork, Homeschooling, Poetry.
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Mexican Chicken Soup

26 November 2011, 2:38 pm

Mexican Chicken Soup

(Caldo de Pollo)

  • 1/2 dried chipotle chili, seeds removed and chopped
  • 1 box (32 oz) chicken broth
  • 2 skinless chicken breasts, each cut into 3 pieces
  • 1 pkg (16 oz) frozen soup vegetable mix
  • 1 bag (16 oz) steamable spanish rice
  • 2 jumbo avocados, sliced
  • 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese and chopped cilantro

Combine the dried chili, chicken broth and 1 qt water in a large soup pot.  Bring the stock to a boil, add the chicken breast pieces, reduce the heat to medium low, cover and cook for 1 hour.  Remove the chicken chunks from the stock and set aside in a shallow dish to cool.  Shred the chicken, remove the bones and return to the stock.

Add the frozen soup vegetable mix to the soup and continue to cook for 15 minutes uncovered over medium low heat.  Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare the steamable rice according to the package directions and serve with the soup.  Top each bowl with avocado slices, shredded cheese and cilantro if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

I got this recipe from my new HEB Plus.

Filed under Soup, Vittles.
2 Comments

Book stores used to ROCK, and now they don’t.

13 October 2011, 6:20 pm

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to the book store yesterday.  And I even bought a book.  But just wasn’t the fun time I had hoped for.

I forgot how worldly the… um… world is.

I’m sure that lots of the books in the children’s section would be fun to read.  That is, if you don’t mind your kids being inundated with VERY WORLDLY THEMES.  Such as government school stuff, feminism, rebellion-as-a-normal-way-of-life, evolution, I could go on and on and on.  I’m sure I’m just the very most naive person on the planet to think that there was anything in that store for my littles.

I did find a nice field guide that we needed.  And Joe found some books he’d been needing.  So the outing wasn’t a complete wash.  But I’d like to remember the lesson I learned about going to actual book stores.  It’s a far, far better thing I do to click on amazon.com.

Also, we had a yummy burger at Wendy’s.

And, in looking around the books on the shelves there in the book store I was reminded of all the many wonderful books we already have on our shelves here.

  • Ballantyne
  • Henty
  • Tolkien
  • C.S.Lewis
  • Brian Jacques

Again, I could go on and on.

I need to remember all the (free) classics I have on my Kindle.

It’s just not worth the effort to go into a book store anymore.  (Hello Borders.) I guess it’s the end of an era.

 

Filed under Books, Joe.
5 Comments

We are Readers

12 October 2011, 12:32 pm

Confession: I love to watch movies.  I watch movies way too much for my own good and the good of my family.  We have a huge collection of  DVDs and we watch “re-runs” of our favorites.  A LOT.

Desire:  It is my hearts desire, and that of my husband, that we both set a better example of right living by spending far more hours reading than we spend gazing into the idiot box.

I got a Kindle for my birthday this year.  It’s a wonder.  I love it.  (Deep breath.) However, it seems more natural to me to have an actual book in my actual hands.  I suspect that I just need to play around with the Kindle more and get more comfortable with some of it’s  features, like highlighting and bookmarking and so forth.  Anyhoo…

Book reading, that’s the topic.  I know some of you (Frankie) use software to keep track of what books you own and enjoy, and what your favorites are.

What I’m wondering is, well, it’s actually twofold.

  1. Can y’all hook me up with the different sites for cataloging my massive collection.  (Really need to un-clutter the shelves before that big event.)  I want to organize my stuff, but I also want to be able to see what is in your collection.  Is that the way those things work?  Or am I just dreaming?
  2. Those of you who don’t have it all categorized and cataloged for me to peruse via internet, could you leave a list of your favorites in the comments here?  I know there are only seven of you out there reading this, but, you know, y’all are who I am meaning to ask.  I value your opinions.  Leave this info on any category of book you care too.  My favorite categories include, but are in no way limited to:
  • Cookbooks
  • How to:
  1. Build stuff
  2. Teach stuff
  3. Improve myself
  4. Survive T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I. (The End of the World as we Know It)
  • Historical Fiction
  • SciFi (mild, not horrific)
  • Classics
  • Poetry
  • Kids books – Starting with easy chapter books and on all the way up.
  • Biographies

Seriously, I could go on and on, but there is a Baconator with my name on it somewhere in town.  I have to go google Wendy’s locations and get out of here.

Why are we going to town again so soon?  Not just for the Baconator, although, if you’ve ever had one you know that it could warrant the trip all on it’s own.  No, the Baconator is just a perk.  We’re heading to the book store, and the thrift store (book section).

I made the mistake of going into Books-a-Million yesterday.  I steeled my resolve not to buy a book yesterday, and I didn’t, but those kind of pacts only last till sunset.  Beyond that I became vulnerable.  Vulnerable to recalling the aroma of new books. Vulnerable to dreams of cracking a brand new spine.  Vulnerable to the craving to meet new characters.   And the desire is overwhelming.

Must buy books.

If I’m smart I’ll stick to useful stuff for the kids, who do I think I’m kidding here?  I know this urge is going to compel my feet to carry me into the sci-fi section, or the survival novels shelves.

So, since we all love books so much we should point each other towards our favorites for consideration, IMHO.  So here is my tidbit for you to mull over.  Alas, Babylon.  Yes, it’s a “survival novel”  but oh my does it have story!  It was originally published in 1959, and that right there is a good recommendation.  And since it is older, the crisis is a different one than we normally think of today.  Ditto the difficulties to overcome.  Fascinating.

***Yeah, I just re’read this post.

***What is the matter with me?  Why do I feel guilty over buying a book and not over eating a Baconator?

***(Deep breath, tiny talk with self, pulling up boot-straps.)

***I’m so over it now.  Ok, book stores.  Look out, here I come!

Filed under Books.
3 Comments

Minimalist Much?

12 October 2011, 8:37 am

I copied these from my facebook profile “Favorite Quotes” section.  I could add a ton more, but in keeping with the general, over-all tone of the thing…

LESS IS MORE.

  • “Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”– Charles Spurgeon
  • “Keep calm, and carry on.” ~Queen Elizabeth
  • “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ~Thomas Edison
  • “It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
  • A gun in the hand beats a cop on the phone.
  • The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. – Benjamin Franklin
  • I do not want people to be agreeable as it saves me the trouble of liking them. – Jane Austen
Filed under Makin' Do.
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I’m peeved!

10 October 2011, 2:24 pm

And now, because you have no troubles of your own and must run around the internet borrowing  problems from others (are ya buying any of this?) a list of my peeves du jour.

  • The cd player on my Suburban stopped playing cds without notice, now what am I supposed to do?  I actually know the answer to this bratty question from my dirt poor days of yore, but I have nearly forgotten the words to “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain When She Comes” in all the subsequent years of listening to cds at my leisure.  (shouting to kids) “Somebody find that songbook with those corny-campfire songs y’all used to sing with me when y’all were little, it won’t embarrass you at all to sing with me in the car.  Promise!”
  • My grocery store is closing so that they can open a bigger (and hopefully better) grocery store right next door to it, so, guess what?  The shelves are getting kind of bare.  Now I have to shop in San Antonio for the next 2 weeks until they open the new store and actually have groceries again.  It’s like living in a third world country around here.  I tell ya.  (I know, I know, it’s not really, but people, a grocery store should have some groceries.)
  • WalMart and Amazon have it in for me concerning the CDs I want to buy.  I guess I have weird (read: non-mainstream)  taste in music.  (That’s probably a good thing)  This whole peeve is not as big a deal once you’ve fully digested the first point in my list here, which I haven’t yet.
  • It’s too late in the day to cook the black beans in the crockpot.  (Hey, nobody said these peeves would all be as earth-shaking as my grocery not having Thumb-Tacks today.)
  • The lady at the feed store blamed me for my red cow being out in the road this morning.  Ahem, I don’t own any red cows.  The cows that live around us are black, and they don’t belong to me, so even if I did own cows, they’d be black, not red.  Grrr.  (Weird problem though, huh?)

I just ate pizza for lunch so I don’t really feel entitled to complain any more.  AKA – I should just shut up now.

Later y’all.

Filed under Rant, What?.
4 Comments

Wonder if I remember how to work this thing…

3 October 2011, 5:08 pm

Once upon a time I was a blogger.  I thought I had time on my hands and I filled it with blogging.  Turns out I was robbing my kids of the time I should have been spending doing things with them.  OUCH!  Ok, ripped that bandaid off all at once.

Time, lots of time has passed since I was a blogger.  Time passed and I have changed, but those of you who know me well, know that time doesn’t even have to pass for me to change.  Sometimes I do it in the blink of an eye.  Don’t you feel sorry for my man.  Women are hard enough to “understand” but it’s really not fair when I change my opinions and ideals like a cuttle fish changes her dress.  What can I say?  It’s who I am.  Several things do remain the same.

  • I love God.
  • I love my husband.
  • I love my kids.
  • I love homeschooling.
  • I love watching movies.
  • I love these bullet thingies.

These are the steadiest parts of my life.

So what’s different about today?  I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking I just need a place to put my thoughts down and show off pictures of my kids and visit with you folks every once in a while.  I sure don’t have time to do this everyday, but I think it won’t hurt to try a “when I have a minute” approach.  Again.  So, here I go.

Okay, so today was hard.  Not the “heart-rending” kind of hard.  The “boy-howdy do my feet and back hurt from all the work” kind of hard.

This morning the kids helped me check (wait a minute, I have to do math, yes, it does hurt a little, I’m gonna get out the calculator)(11 cartons x 18 eggs per carton) ok, about 200 eggs for freshness using the “does it float or sink” method.  Then we took them and gave them to some of our friends and the staff at our local veterinary clinic.  I never told y’all at the time, but when Trixie died the nice folks at our vet. clinic sent me a very heart-felt card and everyone on staff signed it and wrote a little note.  People, those folks had only seen Trixie twice.  They’re just good people.  Anyway, we took 7 cartons of eggs to them and took 4 cartons to town for friends.

The bank was next on my list and I had completely forgotten that it was the first banking day of the month.  Lo-o-o-o-o-ong line.  And the A/C in the car quit.

After that forever chore I went to drop off some kids and a couple of pizzas and pick up the husband to go out for lunch.  What a nice time we had, just the two of us.

Then off to Sam’s Club.  Just me and my 2 littlest kids.  The littles are now 8 and 11, so it’s not like I went to Sam’s with a couple of toddlers, but you can’t tell my feet and back that.  My feet and back think they did ALL THE WORK ALL DAY LONG.  Granted we did have a big haul at Sam’s, but …well, not sure why.  I guess it’s the floor at Sam’s.  Sucks the strength and energy right out of a person, can I get an AMEN on that?

So part of the huge haul was two rotisserie chickens.  (I knew spell check was gonna flag me on rotisserie.)  Anyway, brought those tasty birds home and plunked them into the crockpot to keep warm until the rest of the family gets home in a couple of hours.  Then we’ll heat a couple of cans of ranch beans and dig in.

Until then I’m gonna sit on a cushion and put my feet up.  I might read a book.  I might try reading a book with my eyes closed.

Thanks for listening.  Maybe next time I’ll put some photos of the kids on.  For now I think I’ll try to get one from my phone.  Never done that before.  Cross your fingers.  (I don’t even know what “cross your fingers” means, I just said it to rile Perry.)

 

 

Filed under MATH STINKS!!!, Shopping, Trixie-the-Wonder-Dog.
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