Enchiladas

I started making enchiladas with my roommates during grad school. They are really easy and can last for a few days. This makes lunches and leftovers a snap. You can make them as healthy or as unhealthy as you like :-)

Start with 1 can of corn (you can use frozen corn if you prefer), 1 can of black beans and a can of green chilies (the green chilies come in a small can and we use 1...you can use more if you like). Then I add 2 heaping Tbs of sour cream and about 3/4-1C of shredded cheddar cheese. Mix well :-)

Then, butterfly 2 chicken breasts. You don't have to butterfly them, but they cook faster and are easier to shred. Then pull out your trusty George Forman grill. You know the one, the one that was banned from the dorms. Put some garlic salt and pepper on both sides, and grill until cooked.

Once all the chicken is grilled, it's time to make pulled chicken. Take 2 forks and pull the meat apart.

Add the chicken to the rest of the filling, stir and then start assembling the enchiladas. I use corn tortillas, but you can use flour. These are the mini tortillas and I ended up making about 10.

FIRST - pour a little enchilada sauce on the bottom of your glass baking dish (we forgot to buy the sauce, so I just sprayed some Pam). This will keep them from sticking.

Then start assembling! Put a heaping Tbs of the mix inside the tortilla, roll it up and put it in the pan. Continue until the pan is full or you run out of mix.

Pour the rest of our sauce over the finished rolls, sprinkle with some cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes at 350. Everything is already cooked, so you're really just warming it all up.

We serve it with sour cream and avocados. We also use light sour cream, but feel free to use the full fat stuff. We sometimes buy the mahatma saffron yellow rice to go along with it. It's sold in little baggies in the rice aisle.

I'm sure this is not authentic, but it does the trick and is pretty darn tasty. Enjoy!

I think it might have drugs in it

I'm not sure if I've blogged about these before, but it doesn't matter. They are way too good. Trader Joes White Cheddar Corn Puffs. I swear they are a drug. I can eat an entire bag by myself in one sitting. They are actually not that bad for you as far as calories are concerned. But I'm pretty sure that all goes out the window if you eat the entire bag over the course of a few hours.

Try them. You'll love them. Nick doesn't like them....but I think he's crazy.

Mochi and Pico?

While we were in Reno we amused ourselves by playing carnival games. I won a leopard print teddy bear racing against a bunch of kids and adults. You had to roll a ball and make it land in a colored hole. Depending on the color, your little horse would gallop further. In any case, I rocked it.

Then we played skee ball and realized that one of the prizes was a mini Pico. Pico is Mochi's best dog friend.

Here he is when Mochi was a puppy.

After 3 attempts at skee ball, we won Pico! We won the small prize twice and then traded up for Pico!

Smoking Ban

Having just spent the weekend in Reno, Nick and I realized how much we enjoyed the smoking bans in both WA and CA. In fact, many states are following suit. Wikipedia says:

As of February 2010, 25 states have enacted statewide bans on smoking in all enclosed public places, including bars and restaurants: Arizona, California, Colorado,Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (effective May 1, 2010), Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin (effective July 5, 2010).

It's so nice to leave a restaurant when your clothes don't smell like smoke.

Our little neighbor girls (5 and 3) have been taught that smoking is bad (as all children should be taught). We took them out to dinner and as we left the restaurant, we passed by a man smoking outside. While still in ear shot, our neighbor says "Smoking is bad, why is he smoking?" Love it. Nothing like the guilt from a 5 year old.

We have a gambling problem

Nick and I spent the weekend in Reno for Nick's AKPsi (business fraternity) conference.

There's not a ton to do in Reno. I killed a few hours by shopping at the outlets and getting my nails done. Nothing too exciting.

Nick finished early so we had even more time to kill before the alumni social thingy.

We aren't big gamblers. In fact, we rarely gamble on anything at all. However, we've developed a lovely method for passing the time while at a casino.

We each put $5 into a nickel poker machine. We ALWAYS bet the minimum and play until we're either up or out. In South Lake Tahoe a few weeks ago, we did this for over 1.5 hours and accumulated 9+ drinks between 3 of us. While in reno, we played for about an hour with 4 drinks between the 2 of us. And in the end, Nick was up $0.50.

Nick is hilarious when he gambles. He got a straight flush and declared that he was done. The machine was "done" in his opinion and would not be dispensing anymore good hands.

He was actually really close to a royal flush. Which, had he gotten it, netted him $12.50.

The cupcakes that almost weren't

So a guy at work did something nice for me, so I told him I'd make him some cupcakes. They were doomed. I don't know why I try and bake on Monday nights. But tonight (last night) just wasn't my night.

I was only going to make them for him - we don't need more sweets around the house. So I cut the recipe in half. Unfortunately I failed to cut the entire recipe in half. I didn't realize my mistake until I was about ready to scoop the batter into the cupcake papers and the batter felt like paste. I looked at the recipe and realized I'd halved everything except the flour.

Ugh.

I baked them anyways and ended up with bready cupcakes. They are REALLY heavy. But they taste ok :-) I would have made another batch but we were out of both butter and sugar. How did that happen?

So then it was on to the lemon frosting....CRAP....out of butter. Aha, but I had whipping cream and I remember from grade school that if you shake the whipping cream long enough, it turns into butter. Don't worry, I didn't shake it. I put it in the blender and it came out looking somewhat butter-like. I literally made butter. So domestic.

They came out OK. They need a healthy glass of milk. Next time I'll try not to screw it up.

Origami 103

After the success of chopstick wrapper origami, I thought I'd give it another try. Here are the successful cranes made by blog followers Judy and Jody.

This next origami demonstration is for an origami box. You can put paper clips in it.....or other things that go in small, paper boxes. You can start with a piece of 8.5" x 11" printer paper, or any square piece of paper. If you start out with printer paper, I'll show you how to turn it into a square.

A few notes: the video goes by kind of fast, so I'll try and do it slower next time. Also, Nick suggested I get actual origami paper. Real origami paper is colored on one side a white on the other. It is much easier to see the front/back contrast. So if let me know if this was too tough to follow and I'll do it again once I get better paper.

Good luck!