Mexican Casserole

I'm back with another recipe. Wow...three blog posts in three days. I'm on a roll.

We love casserole dishes during the week. They're usually pretty quick to make and always last for two meals. I've been on a Mexican kick lately. We made this dish the same week me made the Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup because they both used some of the same ingredients. We used the same package of tortillas, chicken, and corn bread for both meals. Double success.

The photograph didn't come out so great and it looks a bit like slop but it was quite tasty. I adapted this recipe  from allrecipes.com. After reading a lot of the comments, I sauteed an onion in garlic, then added the chicken. I didn't add any water and didn't drain the corn. I added about 3/4 cup of salsa instead of 1/4 cup and I didn't add the tortillas because I wanted them to be crispy and just served them on the side. And by served I mean to myself and JD. ha.

I'm not a fan of the boxed corn bread and made this recipe instead and it was very good.

Happy Cooking!

Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup

I've got a few new recipes to share.

First up, Chicken Tortilla Soup from eat-yourself-skinny.com. The only thing I did differently was add some corn. We made this last night and it was flavorful and super healthy. The best part was the homemade tortilla chips. Have you even made them? They are soooo good and so easy to make. JD and I both preferred these over the store bought kind any day. We had left over corn bread that we made from another meal and it was a great addition.

I often refer to my own blog when looking for a recipe I previously made that I want to make again. I realized it was hard to find what I was looking for so to help myself (and you) I organized all my recipes. Click on the recipe picture on the right side bar and everything is sorted into category.

Are you ready for fall? This soup got me excited for cooler weather, sweaters, and boots.

a new school year

Some of you may have saw the picture I posted on facebook, but I wanted to document a new school year here on the blog too. This is the start of my 5th year teaching and every year except one, I have moved classrooms.

This year I moved into a brand new portable. It's much cleaner, brighter, but also smaller. It looks pretty spacious now, but this week with 29 kids, there wasn't much room to spare.

i have since gotten a new longer white board that extends all the way to the all stars bulletin board

back of the classroom

It all came together literally 30 minutes before the students came for open house when the final repairs were being done. My portable got broken into and vandalized over the summer. Paint was splattered all over the front wall and the window was broken, but everything was replaced just. in. time. Looking forward to a new year and wishing the same to all my teacher friends!

summer's end + mississippi trip

Summer's over but I really can't complain because it's been a very productive 2.5 months. Let's talk about my summer bucket list for a moment. Here is the updated version. Please enjoy my color coded key outlining what I accomplished, areas in which I made progress, and things I just didn't get to.

Things to note...I'm about 70% done in the office so look for an update soon, I ventured into the card making business hobby, which I really enjoyed, and loved every minute spent sleeping in and relaxing by the pool. The life of leisure has come to an end. 

 On another note...I never got to share pictures from our Mississippi/New Orleans trip. We went down to the coast for a Douglas family reunion and had a blast. The humidity on the other hand fogged up our glasses and camera lens (as you can see in the first picture) as soon as we stepped outside.

It was great to meet so many distant family members and learn about our Douglas roots.

cake pops + baby shower

So, after reaching out to some of you on facebook..I took the daring plunge into cake pop world. I've heard they could be time consuming and difficult to make so I was expecting the worse...

After a few stressful encounters, they made it to Becca's Baby shower safe and sound. I used this recipe and highly recommend it for any other pop cake virgins out there. 

All was smooth sailing until we got to the icing. I thought the icing I bought would harden but it did not (note: gel icing does not harden). I needed the icing to harden because I was putting little plastic bags over them as they were part of the favors for the shower. JD and I tried to weasel the bag over the pop without smearing the icing but no luck. I forgot to mention that I had to drive from MD to PA with these pops.

What to do at 11pm? First, freak out and then listen to your husband who recommends wiping off all the icing and then buying new icing when in PA. So, that's what we did and surprisingly enough, the icing came off pretty easily.

So the next day I placed them (ever so carefully) into Ziploc bags and packed them into a cooler (I had class from 9-4 then had to drive to PA and these pops get a bit wonky when out of the refrigerator).

In the end, my mom found icing that hardened and I was able to place the bag over the pop...all in all a success not to mention delicious too.

Here are a few picture's from Becca's shower. We can't wait to meet our new nephew in September. 

a recipe, upgrade, and makeover

On my summer bucket list I mentioned trying new recipes. Earlier this week I made tacos in an iron skillet. I like to call it Taco Pizza. I found the recipe on pinterest [found here] and it was delicious.  Quick and easy too.

Onto the upgrade....which is a small change but a big upgrade. Well, anything is considered a step up from a cardboard box. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

Last summer when we moved into our condo we hung our tv on the wall. So we didn't need our TV stand. We stuck our old TV stand in the small nook beside the TV to hold the DVD played and cable box. It didn't fit right and actually was very awkward looking. But we lived it....Then, came Christmas when we rearranged some furniture and moved the TV stand elsewhere. Long story short, we didn't have anything small enough to hold our DVD player and cable box so we dug out a cardboard box for the meantime.

Well, meantime lasted 6 months. Ekk...how tacky. So this is what it looked like:

Don't mind the other box...JD ordered some shoes. But do you see the ugly cardboard-box-exposed-wire mess?

Here's what it looks like now:
The only thing I bought was the green plant and small silver frame (couldn't resist the $3.50 sale price). Still need to put a picture in it.

But the office (where I just dumped all the books that used to be on this shelf) now looks like this:

Wow. What a mess.

It doesn't usually look this bad but it hasn't really been put together since we moved. I made the desk last summer but everything is else very hodge podge.

Here's the other corner filled with more unpacked boxes.

But don't worry because we're already on Mission Office Makeover. Our goal is to create a guest room/office/video game room in this space. So here's the plan:

• add storage
• add a sleeping space
• hang all of JD's video game art
• add shelves for office storage 
• find a way to organize my desk supplies and all of JD's work supplies (when he works from home overtakes the desk with a lot of paper/books)
• do so in a functional, cohesive, budget-friendly way

Not sure when well be done...hopefully before I go back to work in just about 3 weeks. So sad that summer's almost over.  Stayed tuned.

photo editing

We're back from the beach and we had an amazing time. I'll share more about our trip in an upcoming post, but I wanted to quickly share a photoing editing site that I stumbled upon. It's too good not to share. The site is called ipiccy. I barely know what I'm doing but through trial and error,  I'm slowly figuring it out. Better than nothing right?

If your looking for something simple and easy, this site is great. I made these two collages below to show you the before and after effects.

The first photo we took in the car and didn't realize the camera was zoomed in. I actually like how it turned out but it was way too light. I don't remember what I did but I played around with the exposure, shadows, and contrast.

The second photo was too dark. I lightened it and adjusted the color vibrance and exposure.

Nothing too fancy but a great site with easy to use editing tools. Give it a try!

roooooooound here

Luckily JD and I survived the horrible storms and unlike so many here in the DC area, never lost power. But just minutes ago we realized our ac unit froze over. After some goolging, we determined it has been overworked. Reasonable enough, it has been running for two days straight.

Lately, I've been spending hours on this computer trying to finish all my grad work. Yesterday and today I logged 8 hours each day trying to finish before our beach trip. Almost there. I can almost feel the sand...

In the meantime here's some summer pics...

Did you notice that beer was gluten free? It is actually very good. I might just crack at the beach and enjoy a blue moon.  We'll see. We got a new patio set have spent a lot of time out there. We got it on sale from Target and it was well worth the $63.00 (which came close to $90 with shipping).

Surprising enough, I've already accomplished some things on my summer bucket list. I made three new recipes, two from Rachel Ray Chip & Dip Patties and Sweet Marmalade Corn on the Cob (both great) and the fajita steak above (so good, read the description in the recipe). Bought renter's insurance, slept in, went to the pool, began organizing the office, and spent time reading the word.

We're headed for the beach early Friday morning and its supposed to be 104 degrees. Wowza, it's going to be hot. See ya when we return!