If the world is crazy and you want to make it crazier, just bake. It will bake all your cares away because you will be busy baking and not have time to worry about anything else. If you do not believe me, give it a try. Trust me your worries and everything else will still be there when you are done, everything else will just seem better.
Just so we are clear, I did not get all the cooking done that I had planned on. I did, however, make my list of things that I needed to get. I did even make a big dent on purchasing the things on the list. I did not, however, get everything. I did not even have the desire or energy, or even time, to do all the cooking when I was to that point. So I did not.
Do not get me wrong, I will get to it soon. I have to. I just did not get to it Friday or even Saturday. Today and tomorrow are soon enough for me. I have plenty of time today to focus on those things. Unfortunately, today I do not have everything that I need to do everything. That is actually still fine. I can prepare part of the stuff and finish the construction part tomorrow after we are done down at the courthouse. It would make it easier on me in some ways.
For example, I have all the supplies for the burritos except the right size tortillas. Since it is actually easier to roll all the burritos when the filling is cool anyway, that works to my advantage because I can cook all the stuff up today and get the tortillas tomorrow after we are done with court. Then I can sit and roll the burritos when I have time tomorrow evening or Tuesday during the day.
Thinking about it that way, I believe I have everything to do one batch of the Creaming Chicken Enchiladas. I do not have enough cream cheese to do both batches. I can make the enchiladas with the smaller tortillas that I do have. It calls for larger tortillas, but they would work with the smaller ones that I already have. The burritos would just be harder to roll with the smaller ones because you are also rolling the ends in, but the enchiladas are simply rolling straight.
I also think I have everything to make the Vegetable Alfredo Lasagna that I am going to alter and substitute chicken for the tomatoes. I am not a vegetarian so I am going add some meat to my lasagna. I will have to double check the ingredients on that one, however. The recipe called for an Alfredo Mix packet but I am skipping that because when I read the ingredients on the ones I found they had MSG in them. I have enough jarred Alfredo sauce to do the recipe in the cupboard already. I will just need to purchase more to do the Italian Sausage Lasagna Roll-Ups.
Today I will get those things started and finish them up tomorrow. Since it is easier to roll the burritos with the filling cool, my guess is that it will be easier to roll the enchiladas with the filling cool as well. I might as well chalk today up as preliminary cooking day and tomorrow or Tuesday as finishing day. Depends on how long it takes me to do the prep work on the double batches I am doing today.
Now that I think about it, I better double check and make sure I really have enough of everything I bought yesterday. I might not now that I think about it. The package of ground beef I grabbed at Sam’s Club was actually larger than I thought it was when I checked yesterday. I have enough burrito seasoning because I can substitute the taco seasoning I have for what I do not have. I have done that in the past and it has been fine. However, I might not have enough green chilies, green salsa, or re-fried beans now that I think about it. I need to double check.
I will be starting on something today at the very least. Since I am home from church today, I have plenty of time to get something done in the next little while. We were on our way to church this morning and we heard, “I do not feel so well” from Lance in the back seat. Of course that leads to us asking “how not well do you feel?” I knew that there were a couple of bugs going around. “Like I am going to throw up.” That is never good. Fortunately, I did actually have a bag of trash in the car that was more substantial. It was a large shopping bag. Ben handed that to Lance. It was also fortunate that I was driving so I could let the other three out at the door and drive Lance back home. We did not make it out of the parking lot before he was hurling. No fun! He threw up all the way home. Fortunately, he did manage to get it all in the bag and the car was spared from the mess. He did not even get it all over himself. That was the good thing. He said his head hurt after he threw up. Now we are two hours later and he is running a fever. No fun at all.
Alas, I digressed from the reason I was writing this post. Yesterday, I did a lot of baking. I actually wanted to do more than I did. It was my mother’s birthday so I was going to make a cake, but she said that she was okay with not having a cake. I told her that I was making Cinnamon Raisin Bread. She was okay with that. I made that.
I do have to confess to modifying (or tinkering with) the recipe again. I ran out of cinnamon. I did. I do not know how I ran out of cinnamon, but I ran out of cinnamon after the second batch and I had to improvise. It turned out absolutely delicious. I added some vanilla as the recipe did not call for some and I used Pumpkin Pie Spice instead of the cinnamon. Oh my it was delicious.
I did find out that my oven is getting worse. I used to be able to cook across the oven fairly evenly. It took longer but it was still fairly even. Yesterday, however, one loaf was not cooking. Now I have to put one loaf in the middle and the other on the left side. I do believe the right side of my oven is going out completely. This is not cool. I need it to hang on a little longer. It needs to last a few more months.
My sister had this awesome idea to give our mother a singing telegram. She sent one to our Aunt Nancy who also shares a birthday with my mother today. So we went and picked out some pretty flowers from Sam’s Club and we had the kids deliver her a Singing Telegram.
Katlynn wanted to throw grandma a surprise party, but that is not exactly what we did. This would have to work. Pretty flowers are always fun to receive right? Especially when you have grandchildren ring a doorbell and sing to you?
Yes, that is a very content smile on my sister’s (Jennifer) face. And do not forget Andrew who was trying to escape the camera. He did not get away this time. Hehehehe.
Speaking of Andrew, check out his really old pictures on the wall. The baby in the pictures on the bottom is Kyle and it was about a month old. Those pictures are 12 years old! My how that child has grown.
Kyle volunteered to make an omelette for grandma for her birthday. Of course, that means making omelettes for the entire family. Grandma, Uncle Jonathan, Aunt Jennifer, his cousin Katlynn, his two brothers, and mom and dad. Grandpa was at the temple.
For my omelette I wanted bacon. I fried up some of the less favorable chicken bacon I had in the freezer. The Tyson brand chicken bacon.
It really does have less fat than regular bacon and even turkey bacon. You have to spray the pan to keep it from sticking to the pan sometimes. It depends on the pan. It does not have that much fat in it. In that aspect, it is good. Notice the look of it? It does not look that good does it? It really is not that bad, but you have to get past the look.
Now, if you have ever had a fried bologna sandwich you are probably have flashbacks right about now. I was the first time I pulled this particular brand out of the package and put it in the pan. It kind of even smells like it when it cooks. It really does look like a slab of bologna. It is processed that much and mushed up to be sliced thin like a slice of bacon.
I did discover that in order to get rid of the rubbery consistency of the Tyson brand bacon, you have to over cook it. In fact, you have to almost burn it. I discovered this by pure accident today. I burnt a few pieces. The scary part is that they do not taste bad when mixed into an omelette. Strange. They were clearly blackened and nasty out right, but mixed in the omelette the flavor was not so bad. So to get rid of the rubbery consistency of the Tyson chicken bacon just overcook it but be careful because you will burn it. It burns very easily.
Now I have bragged about Kyle’s ability to turn out an awesome omelette. Well here is the big reveal.
Proof that I really do let him in the kitchen, near the stove. What? He is not watching what he is doing? No, really he was just talking and just happened to turn his head when I took the picture.
See he is even more of an “official chef” than me because I refuse the wear an apron. I actually hate wearing an apron. I do not like how they fit. I do not like how they pull on my neck. I should really sew on that fits differently as I always have stuff all over my front when I cook, especially when I am baking and doing bit cooking days. I just never think about it until I am done with it. I do believe I found a good gift for Kyle, however. Check out that omelette cooking though. That is my boy!!!
Check out this omelette prepared by my twelve year old son, Kyle. Is that not one of the most scrumptious looking things you have seen? You know it is not mine because it has ham all over it (and it is loaded too), but how good looking is that?
His cookies look just as good. I can make the cookie dough and I can trust him to cook them to perfection. I love it. He gets some of them like I like them and some of them how daddy likes them. It is perfect!
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