Monday, September 17, 2012

Make Ahead Party Dinner! (Enchilada Lasagna)

Happy Monday!
Hope you had a great weekend.  We've had a bit of a heat spell this last week and weekend, which has put a damper on some of the organizing projects I'd had planned.  Instead, we sweat through our soccer games and spent a lot of time indoors trying to stay cool! 

Friday was no exception...except that we've been planning a dinner party with a few couples from the neighborhood and their children.  Which meant that I had to cook something..which meant I had to turn on the oven or stove...or so I thought.  We have really great friends...so great, that when we have parties, everyone contributes and no one person is held totally responsible for all of the preparations.  I'd been planning on making an "enchilada lasagna" that I've adapted from multiple sources over the years, but the thought of turning the oven on made me want to cry just a little bit (we do not have air conditioning!)  So instead, I started a day early and then had the Teacher heat the "lasagna" on the barbecue the evening of.  This is what I did.  The recipe/method listed below will yield 2 full pans of "enchilada lasagna"...which was waaaay more than we needed for 8 adults...so I have a full one left in the fridge...its totally freezable too.

Thursday (day before the party):  I put 4 frozen chicken breasts in the crockpot and let them work all day.  I had the Teacher shred them while they were still hot (because I'm a wuss when it comes to hot things) and then I put it in the fridge overnight. 
Also Thursday:  I made the sauce on the stove (so technically yes, I did have to use the stove, but since I did it the night before, I didn't have to further heat my house the day/night of the party).  

Sauce:  
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced (I use the bottled kind..because I'm lazy)
2 t olive oil
2 16 oz cans of diced tomatoes with chilis
16 oz of tomato sauce (from my freezer)
1/2 C diced green chilis (I used the canned ones)
2 t sugar
2 t cumin
1 t salt (I use less since I used some canned products)
2 t Italian herb blend

Saute onions and garlic in the olive oil until a little soft.  Add the rest of the above ingredients, bring to a boil and let simmer 20 minutes or so.  Turn off heat.

At this point, I refrigerated the sauce (in its pot) for use the next day.


Friday:  (day of party)...its Assembly Time!!  Be sure to place your pot of sauce as close to your 9 x 13 baking pan for assembly...otherwise you get a lot of this:



What else you need:

8 large flour tortillas
4 C pepper jack cheese, shredded (or more, because more is better when it comes to cheese, right??)
3 C sour cream (24 oz tub)

Dip 2 tortillas into the sauce (both sides) and line the bottom of your pan, like this:

 Then layer 1/2 of your shredded chicken (equivalent to 2 breasts), like this:

 Followed by 1/4 of your shredded cheese:

 Next, dip just one side of 2 more tortillas and place on top with the saucy side down, like this:

 Next, add the sour cream to your sauce and use your handy dandy immersion blender to blend it all together (if you don't have one of these, do yourself a favor and put it on your Christmas list....its AMAZING...so versatile!!)

 Pour half the sauce over each "lasagna" and then sprinkle with the remaining shredded cheese, like this:

 This is where you can put the whole thing in the fridge for later or bake.  Bake at 350 until heated through...about 45 minutes.  I did mine covered on the bbq, but the oven is what I usually use.  If you wanted to, you could use little corn tortillas and fill them with chicken and cheese, roll and place seam side down in your pan, covering with sauce at the end.  I've done this too...actually, its what I used to do before I had kids and had time...this fake out, however, tastes exactly the same and is actually less carbohydrates because it uses less tortilla.  

It was a hit!  One family brought salad, one brought the most delicious beans and rice I've EVER had and the last family brought dessert!  I made sure to have plenty of beer and white sangria in the fridge and we had a great night!  

Does anyone else have tips for easy entertaining???  As far as I'm concerned, the less that has to be done on the actual day, the better.  This was a winner in my book!

Have a great week!
~Bean







Monday, September 10, 2012

Whoa...Stop the Presses!

Hi Again!
Yes, it is still Monday and YES!  I'm posting TWICE.IN.ONE.DAY!  Just in case you missed me.  ;)
Mondays are the days I work from home...which of course means I waste a lot of time messing around since it means that in addition to my paperwork, it is also bathroom cleaning, laundry and basically-try-to-fit-a-week's-worth-of-chores-into-one day.  Unfortunately, I'm a little ADHD and tend to bounce around from one task to the next.  

Today, while cleaning the bathroom, I found an old baby wipes box.  Also today, I used the last of one of my favorite teas and was left with a cute little tin.  I'm a bit of a hoarder of reusable containers so I often put random containers (like the plastic wipes container and cute little tin) away for future use. 

Here are said containers:


Since I was supposed to be doing either: paperwork, laundry or bathroom chores, I was naturally reorganizing a pantry shelf (makes sense, right??)  While wrestling with boxes and boxes of ziploc baggies, opened bags of straws and other random pantry items, I had an epiphany!  ding ding ding! 

Rather than actually getting back to the work I SHOULD have been doing, I quickly pulled out my paper cutter, scrap paper and modge-podge.  And I made these:


Here they are in their new home:

 What do you think of my new straw holder and ziploc bag dispenser?  These are quart size in this box...you can be sure I'll be hitting up all my friends with babies for a couple more of these puppies....I need one for snack and sandwich sized bags!  By the way..that is a cardboard magazine holder holding the plastic wrap, tin foil etc.  

I'm a happy girl.  I just love finding new uses for old things.....but can you guess what I should ACTUALLY be doing right now??  (I'll give you a hint:  I did NOT originally open my computer to write another post....oops!!)

Hope your Monday was more productive than mine!  

~Bean



Little Man's Closet Re-Do

Happy Monday!
I'd usually post a menu for Monday, but this week, we are trying to use up whatever is in the fridge/pantry without doing a whole lot of shopping, so I'm afraid its not too exciting.  Instead, I'm going to share with you the project that we've been working on FOREVER!  
You might remember that earlier this year, we redid the Nugget's room for his 5th Birthday.  Baby stuff out, Big Boy stuff in.  Except for the closet.  I just didn't have it in me to get in there and go through it all and paint etc. etc.  We always knew we were going to put in a closet organizer since the rooms are small and we need to use every inch of space we have!

Anyway, here is what it looked like "before":  




Ouch.  Check out the green...which looked AWESOME in the baby room, but HORRID with the new blue/grey color scheme. 

Step 1:  Pull out EVERYTHING...and I mean EVERYTHING...crappy carpet and all.




Step 2:  Enlist the Nugget and start painting:




Yes, we sometimes paint in our undies around here ;)  Before long, we had a lovely clean slate:




Step 3:  Install organizer.  We used the ClosetMaid system (16') from Home Depot. 




Eventually, we will install mirrored sliding doors because, let's be real...this is about the tidiest it will ever be.  The middle shelf unit is offset from center so that we can access the drawers once the doors are on.  The Teacher reminded me to take a picture (almost) before I started filling it!

Here are some shots of the finished product.  What is CRAZY to me, is that almost EVERYTHING that was in the BEFORE shot, went BACK IN.  This is testament to how much more space you can make using an organizer!! 





Here's a quick comparison shot of BEFORE and AFTER:






     What do you think???

Has anyone else tackled an organization project lately??

Thanks for stopping by!

             ~Bean








Sunday, September 2, 2012

Big Boy Bedroom: An Organized Study Space

Happy Labor Day, Everyone!
I hope you are all enjoying some much needed fun-time with your families and friends.  Today I thought I'd share with you what we ended up with for the Diddle's desk area in his new big-boy bedroom.  Diddle is, after all, a 3rd grader now so this study space coincides nicely with Back to School!  

You might remember that so far, we've done:  new paint, new flooring, superawesome storage bed and bedside wall storage.  This is how we last left the study space beside his bed:


I really am sorry for the photo quality...I took this at night, which I know is a no-no, but honestly, I'm soo not a photographer...I really need to learn more about lighting and staging!  Ah well.  Ok, so with the addition of a shelf, a metal peg board that I ordered from Home Depot (you know, the kind that dudes use in their garages), a cute paperclip wall unit and a dry erase board, we now have THIS: 

The top shelf used to sit above his old desk holds extra art/school supplies (in the orange boxes that we also used in his old room), as well as his shell/coral collection (glass vase on the right) and his rock collection (bell jar on the left) plus a really fun oversized Gobstopper box..that did, indeed, hold Gobstoppers once upon a time.  He loves it and I love the pop of color, so we kept it.  

Rather than a traditional cork or white board, I ordered this metal pegboard from Home Depot.  It was the perfect size, adds a bit of an industrial/manly vibe that can grow with him and provides endless combinations for above desk storage options.  So far, we are using magnets and hooks.  I don't imagine that this will stay this empty for long.  The hanging clipboard will house homework that isn't due until the end of the week (since he now has a homework folder that goes back and forth from school every night)...it may find itself hanging beside the green dry erase board rather than on the peg board itself...we'll see.  Its a work in progress.  BTW, the cute little soccer ball?  Its a STAPLER!  How adorable and perfect for my little soccer playing monkey!

 These cups and rod came from, my favorite store, IKEA...btw, did you get your 2013 catalog in the mail yet??? Drooooool worthy!  I have one more cup available just in case (the rod holds up to 4 cups)...hey, at $1.00 apiece?  Better safe than sorry!  

 This cute paperclip picture holder came from Bed, Bath and Beyond...and was only $10.00 after my coupon!  I thought it would be a cute place for him to place invitations, pictures etc.  The dry erase board (with the coolest marker ever) came from Wal-Mart.  I'm saving the space to the left of the board for either, a cute calendar OR his green clip board.  The jury is still out. 

Oh!  I forgot to tell you about the desk...we got the desk from (of course) IKEA for $59.  We actually had the green of the shelf paint matched at Lowe's so the stripe on the wall matches the desk drawer (not to mention the doors of the storage unit we got to house his books and toys...more on that in a future post).  How awesome is that??  Amazing what technology can do these days!  

So next on my list is to line the drawer and organize it with some little cheap-o baskets I got at Staples...but I'm not quite there yet.  Diddle's room is getting there.  Left to do on our To Do list??

paint
floor
storage bed
bedside storage
study space
book/toy storage
closet organization
window/floor covering
art

Slowly but surely, we will get them all checked off.  

Here it is one last time:



The trouble I have is that even when we are working on one project, my mind is already planning future projects...my poor poor Teacher, good thing he's a good sport!

Happy Labor Day!!!!!
~Bean