Last week...

...went a little something like this;

Happy Addison


to pissed off Addison as shown here


Same time frame...we were just trying on new headbands!

The fact Wednesday is Cinco De Mayo has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I am making several different Mexican themed recipes this week just so you know. It does have to do with the fact that I have been on a serious Mexican themed craving jolt this past week or so.

What I am about to share with you could alter the way the world works. Please don't be scared...I think we will all be just fine in the end, but I feel it is my duty to share with each and every one of you just as a warning.

I Katie Blankenship (please take a deep breath) am sick to death with making or eating anything pasta related!

I know, I know, hell is freezing over as I write this. Never did I think this day would occur but it has and so far everything seems to be going as normal. With the death of my pasta relationship has come an overwhelming desire to eat all things that include soft or hard taco shells. No I am not pregnant so please don't even go there. I have three more months until I am willing to start trying again and will have my husbands permission, so sit tight for a little while. Daniel told me I have already had my allotted baby for the year so my baby hormones have been set to the side.

On that note, if someone could please explain to me why I have a two month old baby at home and still have this void like I need another baby right this very minute I would appreciate it. I want the fresh out of my uterus baby back, she is already getting so big it makes me cry and I just know that one night I will fall asleep and when I wake up she will be off to college.

Back to the purpose of the story...pretend like you didn't read anything having to do with babies or my uterus. THANKS a million!

Anyway I think this new craving started with these little devils, Creamy White Chicken Enchiladas. If you still have not tried these please, please, pleaseeeeeee do so immediately. Seriously folks I am drooling over them as I type this and I think I might actually have the ingredients to make a batch towards the end of the week which excites me to no end. It's like being a redneck...except now it's you know you're a foodie when...making these enchiladas is the most exciting thing you have on your agenda for the week.

I figured I would give up blog stalking Cassie for a little while so I pulled out one of the many cookbooks/magazines that currently reside in our microwave cabinet on Saturday and this is one of the meals I decided to take for a test drive. I really enjoyed it and I am not pulling your leg when I say it was almost like eating a burrito from Chipotle, just minus the rice. If you're a fan of Chipotle's you have to try this recipe and please, when it says use only 1 to 2 chipotle peppers, please follow the directions and do not add 4 to 5 like I did...3 maybe...but please not 4 to 5. Unless of course you like having your lips tingle during dinner, then by all means use 5! :)Beef and Chipotle Burritos

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. boneless beef round steak, cut 3/4 thick
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 to 2 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1 clove garlic, minced
6 9 to 10 inch flour toritallas, warmed
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Pico de Gallo Salsa, click here for my recipe...store bought is just fine!
Shredded jicama or radishes, optional
Sour cream, optional

Directions:
1.) Trim fat from meat. Cut meat into 6 pieces. In a 3 1/2 or 4 quart crock pot place meat, undrained tomatoes, onion, chipotle peppers, oregano, cumin, and garlic.

2.) Cover and cook on low heat for 8 to 10 hours or on high heat for 4 to 5 hours. Using 2 forks, pull meat apart into shreds. Place meat in a large bowl. Stir in cooking liquid to reach desired consistancy. Divide meat among warmed tortillas.Top with cheese, Pico de Gallo salsa, and, if desired, jicama and sour cream. Roll up tortillas.

Slider-Style Mini Burgers

I was looking for something quick and cheap to make the other day after work and this recipe was showcased on the main page of allrecipes on that particular day. We love hamburgers and I especially love sliders so I thought I would give these a shot. We both really enjoyed them and we will definitely be making them again. Not only were these good served for dinner but they would make an excellent finger food during all of your summer parties!

Slider-Style Mini Burger~
Source: allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
2 pounds ground beef
1 (1.25 ounce) envelope onion soup mix (I used only 1)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I used only 2 tbsp.)
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
24 dinner rolls, split
1/2 md. onion, finely diced (was not apart of the actual recipe but I added it in lieu of the second envelope of onion soup)
1/2 cup sliced pickles (optional)

Directions:
1.) Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

2.) Mix together the ground beef and onion soup mix in a large skillet; cook and stir over medium-high heat until the beef is crumbly, evenly browned, and no longer pink. Drain and discard any excess grease. Remove from heat. Stir the mayonnaise and Cheddar cheese into the ground beef mixture.

3.) Lay the bottoms of the dinner rolls on the prepared baking sheet. Spread the cheese and beef mixture on the bottom half of each roll. Replace the tops. Cover with another sheet of aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray.

4.) Bake in the preheated oven until the burgers are heated through and cheese melts, about 30 minutes. Serve with sliced pickles.

Now don't hate...you know you eat Spaghettios! LOL

Cost Saving Tips

I follow a blog called Kelly's Korner which I have become very fond of. Every Friday she does a special post called "Show us your life". Today's was money saving tips and I have already written down quite a few useful ones such as the envelope system. It's where you have envelopes for groceries, gas, and other various expenses and you put how much money you want to spend in each envelope. Once it's empty your done and can't spend anymore money on that category. Below I have posted a few money saving tips that I already use...hopefully you will find them useful.

Let the money saving begin...

1.) We spend a ridiculous amount of money at the grocery when we don't stick to my grocery list. For example last week we spent $112 at the grocery which included the $26 bag of dog food. If I wouldn't have created a grocery list we could easily have gone over $200 and the worst part of the number is the fact it wouldn't have lasted but a week. Prior to having Addison my grocery lists were usually color coded excel spreadsheets. I would make a menu of every meal I intended to make for that time period and then I would sort the list based on where the item would be located in the grocery that I needed to make in order to create the dish. The list would start with all of our produce/deli items since those items are the first stop at the grocery and they would receive their own color. I did this for every group of items which makes collecting them and crossing them off the list so much easier. Instead of jumping around on your list and then having to back track aisles because you forgot an item everything was right there color coded and ready to be marked off. I don't do the spreadsheets anymore but I still stick to my lists and create menus for the week.

2.) When making my menus I always try to accommodate any coupons that I may have on hand and always try to make items that can be stretched out over the course of one meal. My biggest cost saving measure is making my own spaghetti sauce. I normally make a double batch and freeze it down to four separate containers. One container can be used for meatball subs one night and then spaghetti and meatballs the next. We essentially get at least two meals out of each container of sauce and the cost of making a double batch of the sauce would probably cost what two jars of sauce would cost us if we bought them that way.

3.) Another grocery saver for us is we DO NOT buy pop. We drink mainly water, juice, and milk at our house and juice is not very often. When and if we buy pop it's because we have come into a little extra money and want to treat ourselves. Juice is bought in bulk at Sams Club!

4.) I do not buy sweets of any kind at the grocery. This is something I started doing a few months ago and you wouldn't believe how much money you save. Instead of spending 3 or more bucks on Oreos that would only last three to four days out our house I buy a bag of chocolate chips and make cookies that last a week if we try really hard. I buy sugar, flour, and oil in bulk when they are on sale and not very often will you find my pantry without at least one bag/bottle of each. Last winter my MIL stocked me up on vanilla extract as well as butter so I have enough of both of those items for the next year...no joke. She bought them when her local grocery store was having a huge sale and I think she paid a dollar for each bottle of vanilla and for each box of butter. Huge cost saver for us!

5.) Toilet paper and paper towels are bought in bulk at our house. Instead of spending a fortune on name brand toilet paper I normally buy the Wal-Mart brand White Cloud. It's the cheapest I have found that is most comparable to Angel Soft which I only buy when I have a coupon.

6.) Hand soap...Daniel and I are both pretty freakish when it comes to hand washing, me more so than him. When I am in the kitchen cooking I swear to you I wash my hands a zillion times. I despise dirty hands! Instead of spending close to two dollars for a bottle of soap, I spend closer to five for the big ol' gallon size hand soap and it lasts for close to a year. Also, I don't buy the name brand stuff, I buy the generic version from Wal-Mart and it works just as well as Dial or other leading brands.

7.) Formula...my arch nemesis right now. Can you believe that a container of formula for Addison costs $25.00 and it lasts exactly one week? Yeah neither could I at first but guess what? There are so many sources that you can sign up for coupons it isn't even funny. Prior to her birth I joined a few websites and I was bombarded with samples and coupons. I have not yet bought a container of formula without using a $5.00 off coupon. One would think formula would be more expensive at Babies R Us but it isn't. Her Enfamil formula at Babies R Us is $23.99 and comes with an additional 20% more than the containers at Wal-Mart where they charge closer to $26.00, subtract my lovely $5 off coupon and we pay....drum roll please... $18.99. They also run promotions where you buy two containers and you get a five dollar gift card or like right now you buy three and you get a ten dollar gift card. Right now they are pretty much giving me money just for saving money by shopping with them!

8.) Another I found today is swagbucks.com. It appears to be a search engine where you earn points that can be redeemed for other products. I enrolled today after seeing so many people suggest it on Kelly's Korner so wish me luck. If you are interested in checking it out click here! One of the ladies who suggested it said she doesn't plan on spending a single dollar on Christmas this year. So far she has already racked up $300 worth of Amazon gift cards just for using this site. Definitely worth a shot since Christmas is always tight for us.

Do you have any cost saving ideas that you could share with me? Money is really tight for us right now and we would love to be able to put a privacy fence up around the entire back yard...a dollar saved is a dollar that can go towards that big project!

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE

To the rotten individual who somehow abducted the perfect little angel that I brought home from the hospital on February 20th listen up! You have until 10 p.m. tonight to bring her back home to her adoring parents and take the child that you replaced her with who refuses to be content.

Seriously though, Addison has cried more in the past three days than she has in the entire two and a half months that she has been alive. She doesn't sleep which means Mommy and Daddy are barely sleeping. She cries in her swing, bumbo chair, and her boppy chair. We pick her up to console her and she still cries.

I have switched the nipples on her bottles from the slow vent to fast vent, added rice cereal (which pains me greatly by the way), added her gas drops to the mix, and gave her her first dose of grape flavored Tylenol and nothing worked. The minute I gave her the Tylenol she settled down and became very content but it wasn't from the Tylenol because it is impossible to work the second you give it to a baby. The contentment only lasted about two hours though before she was back at it and I didn't see the point in giving her anymore.

I hope that she is just experiencing colic or having a hard time adjusting to our new schedule. Daniel has started on third shift so the poor girl is forced to sleep all night with me and then go right back to bed with Daddy when he gets home at 6:30 in the morning.

No matter what the problem is I know one thing...I DEMAND that my perfect little angel come home to me immediately. I miss you immensely!!!

Sincerely,

Your grieving and very exhausted Mother~~

Chicken and Broccoli Spaghetti

I have posted this dish before but it was a long time ago and the picture didn't do it justice since I had forgotten to buy broccoli for the dish. I love it so much that I cooked it anyway! This is one of those quick dinners to throw together and has very simple ingredients so chances are you already have them on hand.



Chicken and Broccoli Spaghetti~
Source: Rhonda, a.k.a., the step-mom
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
2 lg. chicken breasts, cooked and finely shredded*
1 md. bag of frozen broccoli spears, thawed(disgard the majority of the stem using mainly the florette)
1/2 lb. spaghetti noodles
1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Seasoning
4 tbsp. butter
parmesan cheese

Directions:
1.) In a medium size pot bring water to boil, add spaghetti noodles and cook according to the back of the box.

2.) In a food processor chop broccoli until it becomes finely chopped.

3.) In a large skillet on medium high heat add butter, ranch seasoning, broccoli, and finely shredded chicken, saute until cooked through. Add several tablespoons of pasta water and turn burner to low.

4.) Drain spaghetti noodles and add to chicken and broccoli mixture, mixing until fully incorporated. Serve and sprinkle with parmesan cheese as garnish.

* If you are in a rush you can skip cooking the chicken and instead use two large cans of already cooked chicken that can be found around the canned tuna aisle.

Extreme Chocolate Cake

I can't believe I have posted so many items this week. There for awhile I thought I had fallen off the face of the blog world.

After making all of these yummy meals from Cassie Craves I needed something sweet to satisfy my sweet tooth so I decided to give a homemade cake a whirl. Honestly...this is the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted...the icing could be a little better but it is still yummy.

Extreme Chocolate Cake~
Courtesy of allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
Cake:
2 cups white sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose white flower
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling hot water (I used 1 cup of freshly brewed coffee)

Icing:
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
5 1/3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two nine inch cake pans.

2.) In a medium bowl stir together the dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla mixing for three minutes. Carefully stir in the boiling hot water or coffee. Pour mixture into cake pans as evenly as possible. Batter will appear rather runny so don't fret like I almost did.

3.) Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes before removing from pans to cool further.

4.) In a second bowl cream together butter until light and fluffy. Stir in the cocoa powder and powdered sugar alternating with the milk and vanilla. Beat until mixture is a spreading consistency.

5.) Split the cake layers horizontally. Cover the top of each layer with frosting and then stack together. Finish cake by frosting around the sides of the cake. (I did not do this...I just kept it at two layers instead of the four like the recipe called for.)