Miscellany Monday

I feel like my life is filled with constant randomness and blogging about it helps to make it make more sense. So welcome to Miscellany Monday. :)

ONE.
I have been trying out a few new recipes. When I had Micah my friend Jennifer brought over this delicious casserole, and we may or may not have eaten the entire thing the first night. Chad has been pestering me to make it and I finally gave in. Seriously, it looks harder than it is. And by "harder" I mean requiring more than 4 ingredients, because that is how I roll. Less is more. :)

It is Chicken Tamale Casserole:

Ingredients

• 1 cup (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided
• 1/3 cup fat-free milk
• 1/4 cup egg substitute
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (such as Martha White)
• 1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
• Cooking spray
• 1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso)
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
• 1/2 cup fat-free sour cream

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine 1/4 cup cheese and next 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

3. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken; sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces; top each serving with 1 tablespoon sour cream.

I am also into making homemade brown bag popcorn. I eat popcorn nearly every night as a snack and the store bought kind can get pricey. So I tried my hand at this and it super easy and cheap.

1 brown paper lunch sack
1/4 C popcorn kernels
1-2tsp of olive oil or popcorn oil (I recommend the popcorn oil for more flavor).
popcorn salt (not table salt---it doesn't stick as well)
or other seasoning combos you dream up. :)

dump everything into the sack
fold over twice
microwave on high for 2-3 minutes--just listen for the pops to slow down.
viola, yummy popcorn!

TWO.
Remember womb bear? Well, brace yourselves. Are you sitting down?


He died. ::tear::
I know very very sad. But don't cry too much because I returned him and got a sound machine.
Womb bear either has a defect or the batteries can't last longer than a week. Who knows, and I can't deal with a broken womb bear at 2a! So I decided this sound machine that plugs in was a much better idea and let's face it it does the same thing. :) So now this will be my go to gift. HA!


THREE.
Well, it finally happened. I got the call for a house showing and I was alone in getting two kids, two dogs, and the house spotless in 4 hours by myself. Sounds crazy but it is harder than you think and I was pretty proud of myself. The last 5 showings Chad has always been here to help!

FOUR.
Micah is pretty fussy. Borders on colic. :( But he is NOT as terrible as Lo was and he has a lot more health things going on than she did which I am pretty sure is a major contributor to said "colic" problem. Anyway I thought he might "enjoy" life better if he could sit up. So as much as I don't want one more thing to hide for house showings. I busted out the bumbo. He loves it.

Starting to get some real smiles!

Of course Lo had to try it out too!

I had to post this to compare.
This was Lo at 12 weeks when she first tried it out.
Micah is 11 weeks old now.

FIVE.
My shutterfly account is finally {almost} up-to-date. It took me literally forever and a day to upload to it. I have no idea what the deal is/was (since I haven't tried since), but family go nuts! :) I just hate when my "projects" that should take 5 minutes take 100x longer than that.

SIX.
Only in Kansas can it be 80* on Sunday and 56* on Monday. Come on Spring!

Well, that is pretty much it. We went to Sesame Street Live on Saturday and Lo loved it. But that will be a whole post unto itself.

Have a great Monday! Check out all the other Miscellany by clicking on the icon below.