It's a 4 Ring Circus!

tacos o' the sea

Made the best shrimp & fish tacos last night.  Here's how it goes:

Cut fish into chunks, about one inch (I used tilapia).  Put these in a bowl and season heavily with pepper and seasoned salt (I used Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt).  Drizzle with olive oil.  Throw in some roughly diced white onion.  Fry this in a hot pan for a couple of minutes until just done, do NOT overcook!

Repeat with shrimp.  I use the frozen bagged 31-40 shrimp from Costco (thaw out a handful in a bowl of water for 10 min while you're doing other food prep).  Season, add oil, add onion, fry it up without overcooking.

Warm up your tortilla, either corn or flour.  Add some thinly chopped red cabbage, diced green onion and throw on some of the fish or shrimp with onion (or both, like I did!). 

Now add a couple of dollops of the sauce -- low fat sour cream mixed with Asian chili sauce (about 3 parts sour cream to 1 part chili sauce).

DELISH!

(This is a combo/resample of a couple of different seafood taco recipes from Sam the Cooking Guy, you already know that I love him.)

enjoying spring while it lasts

We've been having the most gorgeous weather here the last couple of days.  Grilled hamburgers last night and they were goooooood.

We were also lucky enough to run around at the Lenington's house yesterday and play with all of their baby chickens, geese, ducks, and lots of other assorted critters -- fun to have homeschool friends with their own zoo!  Trish also has a great garden going.

a gentle shove

Can't quite get the motivation for that new diet?
This oughtta do it!

dippy

This girl loves her bean dip!

blame Misty for my fatness

Ever since I had one of Misty's Oreo truffle balls at Christmas, I have been craving some more.  Last night we followed our usual tradition of making treats after dinner and I finally got a chance to make some.
YUMMY.

my other two friends

My friends arrived today via UPS.  Love the UPS guy.  And it's so great to have friends in the neighborhood that call to inform me that Mr. UPS has indeed started his rounds!  :-D

First, my friend Sam.  I bumped into his show a week ago or so and I feel like my life is transformed.  His recipes are really easy and have ingredients that are things I've wanted to try but felt intimidated -- he makes it all look easy.  The best part, though, is his show is right up my alley.  I love his sense of humor and he's pretty cute for an old guy with three teenagers.  Yes, my husband lays in bed watching episodes of 24 on his laptop, while I'm watching episodes of Sam I've taped on the DVR.  It's all very romantic.

Second . . . oh, I've been waiting so patiently to tell you about this one.  FINALLY got a digital SLR camera (used on eBay, of course) but it didn't come with a lens so I was trying to find time to figure out what lens I wanted to start with and then get it ordered and then WAIT for it to come......  So, the lens came today and I could finally try the camera out.  I did actually read the manual this time, but I still have a LOT of playing around to do to get used to this thing.  I have already noticed though how nice it is to have a camera that takes several shots as soon as I hit the button, so I never miss a shot.  Not that you would notice with my non-cooperative test subjects today, but that's another story.  Here's a few test shots.  (The first one I managed to use Photoshop Elements long enough to flip the picture so the words weren't backwards.  Another project of mine this year will be learning what in the heck I'm doing with that so I can quit using Picasa.)

can it

I've been reading up on emergency preparedness kind of stuff for awhile now, and finally bought a canner a few weeks back.  When my mom came up for Halloween we took the canner for a spin and did some chicken thighs.  Beware, canned meat looks like an experiment with canning brains or something, but I have been assured that it tastes really good later.  (We'll see!)

I heard that you can actually can dry beans without even having to soak them, so I gave pinto beans a try (with some pinto bean seasoning).

momma said there'd be days like this...

1)  Kids do not observe daylight savings time.  In fact, Ava has chosen to get up even earlier than usual both days so far.  Awesome!

2)  Got everybody ready to haul Ryan to the airport this morning.  About 10 minutes after dropping him off, get a call that his flight schedule changed today (he takes the same flight every weekend), and it left an hour before he got there.  I'm sure he'll get to San Diego sometime today.

3)  Told kids we'd hit the bookstore on the way back home to get some books for our road trip to San Diego this weekend.  Arrived at Border's to find that they've changed their opening time to 10:00.  It was 9:00 am.

4)  Tell kids, OK, we'll do an Amazon order when we get home and the books will be here on Wed.  Decided to start some eggs boiling downstairs while I take Delaney's book order. 

5)  At least 45 minutes later, as we are finishing up the entire book order (and certain people had to take a very long time deciding....)  I hear a loud pop noise.  Get up to yell at the kids who were wrestling around while they were watching a Discovery channel show on my bed.  Look around and realize that there is nothing broken.  So what was that loud noise?

6)  Realize that something smells like it is burning.

7)  Remember boiling eggs downstairs.

8)  Discover that of the 6 eggs we started off with, only 4 are still in the pan.  The other two have exploded all over the kitchen and have even made it into the living room.

Awesome.

post-Ike life

The out-of-towners headed back out of town today, including Ryan.  This whole experience has shown me again that God is merciful, and that even in the worst of circumstances, most people want to help each other.

We had custody of my brother's dog, Daisy, since they were already boarding several other dogs with their hurricane guests.  She is a sweet dog and we enjoyed having her.  The best part:  I didn't have to sweep the entire time she was here.  Oh Daisy, I will miss you.

Mee Mee made volcano cupcakes with the kids while I went to a school board meeting last night.  It was nice to have built-in babysitters.  Oh Mee Mee, I will miss you.  :-D

My brother has posted some of his pictures from their fact-finding/chainsawing trip back to the coast this weekend.  Luckily, all of the boys made it back with their fingers and arms intact!  I think that will be enough manly adventure for them for awhile . . .

speaking of food...

This is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time!

Muffin Tin Monday

I was also reading an article last night that suggested rinsing out the plastic containers on the WW/frozen food entrees, and using those as a plate the next time, as a good guide for a serving size.  I thought that was another nifty idea.