Fall Book: Mouse’s First Fall
Mouse’s First Fall by Lauren Thompson and Illustrated by Buket Erdogan is a cute book any kid would love. It is actually part of a series of Mouse’s First… Christmas, Spring, Day of School, etc.
There are not a lot of words on a page, which is perfect for preschoolers and I really like the illustrations in the book. The leaves are all shapes and sizes and the colors are great. It is a fun, quick read with vibrant pictures.
Favorite-ist Scrub Pads
There are SO many options for dish scrub pads, along with every other cleaning supply, and I have an absolute favorite. The SOS Tuffy Cleaning Pad. It is amazing! Tightly woven and made of nylon. So it is a champ at scrubbing off stuck on food but doesn’t scratch your cookware. And food chunks are easy to rise out of it to keep it clean.
When we moved I couldn’t find them anywhere. Thankfully I had brought along a few that we had stored, then we went back to visit my husband’s parents and I brought home 8 or so. They lasted over a year and when we went back to visit I completely forgot to buy more. Once again I searched the different stores in my area, wishing, hoping I would find them to no avail. I whined and hated doing the dishes (even more than I do normally) and my husband surprised me by finding them and buying an entire box for me to have. They will last us about 3 years.
I was, once again amazed at how well they worked compared to the intermediate scrubber I had bought. I wish I had kept it to take a picture, but I threw it away immediately after these came in the mail. A pan my husband had burned eggs in and I couldn’t get clean for over a week was on the counter, in 5 seconds flat I had gotten the burned egg off the pan with this scrubby. Ahhh, it so nice to have products that work like they are supposed to.
The thing that worries me though is that they were really hard for my husband to find! I’m trying to decide if I should buy a ton of boxes to (hopefully) last through my life! (But I’m not too worried because it is listed as a “Top Seller”) I know you might think, “Meagan, they aren’t that wonderful.” And I tell you yes, they really are. And since they are so hard to find I will give you the link to look at them. SOS Tuffy Nylon Scouring Pads It is $25 for a box of 24, and who can beat that price really? Just over a buck per scrubber? The lame scrubber I bought was $5!! I couldn’t believe it and it was so useless. restockit.com was one of two sites my husband found these scrubbers on, so feel free to browse, and if you like to stock up on items, they have great prices on bulk.
Taco Soup
This is my meatless Taco Soup but for those of you (my family) who think you can’t fill up without a heaping helping of meat think again! This soup really fills you up. This is also an amazingly yummy and extremely fast recipe, just come home, dump in the ingredients (all canned) and warm up.
Yes I do realize I opened the tomato sauce can upside down, but try and overlook that. All you need in your pantry for a quick meal is what you see here. This will feed about 5 people. My husband and I made quick work of it; both of us had seconds and each took a heaping helping for lunch today finishing it off.
1 can Hominy
1 can Pinto Beans
1 small can Corn
1 small can Green beans
1 small can of Tomato Sauce
Keep in mind you can switch out ingredients that you choose. I know a lot of people like stewed tomatoes, I prefer the sauce, so feel free to switch it up. When I do make this with meat, I brown half a pound of hamburger and add to the mixture along with a little more water.
I put the entire can of Hominy in a pot (liquid included), drained pinto beans, drained corn, drained green beans and the can of tomato sauce. I use the tomato sauce can to add another can of water to the mix.
*Note: When I do make this with meat, I brown half a pound of hamburger and add to the mixture along with a little more water.
Then I add a few shakes of these seasonings:
minced Onion
minced Garlic
Fiesta Brand Fajita Seasoning
Warm on medium-low heat until steamy, stir occasionally. Serve in bowls with chips and cheese. If you are planning on serving with tortilla chips don’t salt the soup, the chips will bring the salt into the dish. Eat up!
Awesome Baking Blog
Would you believe this cake is make out of zucchini?!? A woman in my ward (church) has a wonderful baking blog called: Baking and Boys and it is awesome. I have been wondering what to do with the huge zucchini I have growing in my garden and she has (mercifully) put up several recipes of what you can make with zucchini along with a zillion other wonderful recipes. Check her out!
Salmon, Rice and Veg Dinner
So yummy-looking isn’t it? And I didn’t even break the bank to do it. I stayed within my normal grocery budget for the week by using veggies we already buy and substituting the chicken I usually get for the week with frozen salmon. So how do you make this fantastic dish? Simple, first you need (this is a recipe for two):
2 pieces of salmon (I just bought the frozen, vacuum bagged salmon at Walmart. It only takes 8 minutes to thaw your fish in luke-warm water)
2 c rice
2 heads of broccoli
2 medium sized carrots
1 lemon
fresh parsley
First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Start water boiling for rice. Then I sprayed a cookie sheet with Pam, you can use olive oil to help make this a more heart healthy meal. I then shake a little salt over the oil, place the fish on the sheet and then salt and pepper the top. Place fish aside, wash, cut broccoli, place in large pot and fill with water until there is just enough to make the broccoli float. Peel, cut carrots, put in small pot to boil. Put rice in boiling water, and reduce heat to low. Put fish in oven for about 10 minutes or until cooked through. It will take about 10 minutes for broccoli to finish cooking and just a minute or two more for carrots. You can also steam broccoli and carrots if desired.
Once everything is done cooking, plate rice, then surround rice with broccoli, and carrots over the top. (I added some butter and salt and pepper to my veggies.) Place salmon fillet on top, with a generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Top with fresh parsley and a slice of lemon. I also put extra lemon on a small plate to add to salmon as I ate. Delicious!
Feeling the Spirit
of Christmas that is! I had a dream last night that I was Christmas shopping, so what am I doing now? Listening to Christmas music. Don’t roll your eyes! I’m not normally one who pulls out the Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but I’m channeling my desires for Christmas into a list of things to do for fall. And fall is probably one of my favorite seasons since we moved to the Midwest. I have never had a fall like the one here. I went to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, on a hay ride, and more last fall. Not to mention I didn’t have to worry about my son getting frostbite on Halloween.
So back to my Fall to do list… well where do I start? We have two big events coming up, our first Christmas at home, just our family. And welcoming a new baby soon after Christmas. So my to do list is as follows:
Clean out and organize garage – we have to have some where to put our first real-sized Christmas tree! And all the decorations that go with it
Clean out and organize the office – right now I’m sitting amongst clutter and random boxes that need to be put in a final destination.
Deep clean the entire house
Get carpets cleaned
Organize picture boxes into albums - Tammy you are an inspiration!
Get a dresser for the kid’s room
Can and dry apples from a trip to the orchard
Start stocking up on diapers, nursing pads, etc.
Get more Christmas music… Christmas Collection by the Carpenters, Let it Snow by Micheal Buble, The Christmas Collection by Amy Grant. (You know in case anyone decides to get me one of these… I thought I’d better include them!)
I know my list is fairly short, but I think it is a pretty tall order! So wish me luck, and check in on me and make sure I’m doing them!
Random Facts
Today, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products are sold in every country in the world, except North Korea.
In-N-Out Burger is one of the few fast food restaurants that actually slice each potato by hand shortly before it is placed in the deep fryer.
Smith, Andrew F. 2006. Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Random History
Oh How the Garden Grows!
For those of you who were expecting a huge garden full of corn, watermelon, zucchini, carrots, peas, etc let me just remind you this is my first gardening experience and I wanted to keep it small. (And my carrots and peas never came up.) So I tore out an overgrown flowerbed (as you can see) and planted my zucchini, watermelon and pumpkin starts. They are coming along quite nicely and thankfully I live in an area with a long growing season because they were planted in July! I was kind of losing hope that I would get any sort of fruit from my labor because well… it’s the middle-ish-end of August but LOOK!
That’s right, I have a good-sized zucchini growing! I think I should actually pick it. It’s the size of most zucchinis in the stores now. But I hate to pick it and not have anything in my garden! That’s silly I know, but that’s how I feel. There aren’t any more zucchinis growing on that plant, and as you can tell from my garden picture the watermelon and pumpkin and other zucchini plants are flowering, but no fruit as of yet. I do have to say that I feel awesome that I grew these plants and even better that I’ll have a zucchini to eat by the end of the week. I love to add zucchini in my shepard’s pie, so it looks like that’s what we’ll be having for dinner Sunday!
Chocolate Chip Cookies
These are my FAVORITE chocolate chip cookies. And I am going to share the recipe with you today, but before I do that I want to share why I love them so much. When they are fresh out of the oven they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They don’t dry out after they cool down. And they don’t cook out, so they are thicker. I got this recipe from a Western Family brand chocolate chip bag back when I was in college and it is so yummy!
2 1/4 c flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c butter
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar – packed
2 t vanilla
1 egg
1 bag chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In small mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt – set aside. In large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beat well. Add dry ingredients, mix well. Add chocolate chips, mix well. (Personally I add chocolate chips in with the dry ingredients.) Drop about 2″ apart from each other onto un-greased cookie sheets. Bake 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven, place on cooling rack.
