Quick Pizza Casserole

This isn't actually something I found on Pinterest, but it's something that I make at my house whenever we are short on time and I thought you all might enjoy it.

I love pizza and I love pasta...so, putting the two together couldn't be anything short of pure tasty goodness. I have to give credit where credit is due - a co-worker from a job I had many moons ago gave me this recipe. It is one of my husband's favorites and it's quick, easy and tasty.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
1 green pepper
1 onion
2 cups noodles (any pasta of your choice)
1 jar of pizza sauce
1 cup of water
1 tsp of italian seasoning
1 can of mushrooms
Grated cheese for the top

You start out by browning your ground beef, green pepper and onion.

While that is cooking, you put all the rest of your ingredients into a microwave-safe deep dish (like a pyrex or a Pampered Chef covered baker - which is what I am using for this post) and mix it up.

I generally do more eyeballing than following the recipe exactly because I pretty much always put in more pasta than what it calls for in the recipe, but, following the recipe exactly the first couple of times helped me figure out the right amounts and how to adjust them.

After the meat is browned, put it on top of the noodle mixture - do not stir.

The rest is easy-peasy. Cover the dish and put it in the microwave for 5 minutes. Take it out and stir. This is where I add the mushrooms. You can certainly add it at the beginning, but since my husband doesn't like mushrooms, I wait until I've done the big stir and put mushrooms on only half of the pasta. That way I have my lovely mushrooms, but my husband doesn't have to worry about picking them out of his food as much. Yes, he is incredibly spoiled.  Cover the dish again and put it back in the microwave for 10 minutes. Once that's done, pull it out, add grated cheese on the top and cover again just until the cheese is melted.

Voila! A tasty meal ready in under 20 minutes. Plus, it is really good reheated as well!

Homemade Finger Paints Take 2

As many of you saw, the other day my nephew and I made homemade finger paints that both he and my son enjoyed using. If you missed that blog entry, you can find it here. In that post, you may have noticed something different with the canvas my son was painting on vs. what my nephew was painting on. Because my son is so young, and I'd still love to save his art, I tried out an idea that I saw on Pinterest; tape a word or design on a canvas and see a little masterpiece come to life. This worked brilliantly. Click here to read more about this idea.

Since my son wasn't overly enthusiastic the other day about trying out the paints and getting his hands all dirty, we tried it again today. He seemed to enjoy it a little more and, although the other paint that he had done on the canvas had already dried, it made no difference using the same canvas - he still enjoyed it and it still turned out wonderfully. 

All business

In follow up to my last finger paints post, I thought I'd fill you in on how well the paint worked after 3 days. It pretty much had solidified with a little bit of runniness, but it still worked - at least the parts that weren't like a sort of jello worked. The yellow, for some reason, wasn't as lumpy and I popped it in the microwave for 10 seconds to see if that would help and it did! I actually thought it painted even better than it had before! Popping the rest of the colors that didn't have as much liquid in them did not help, however. My guess is that if I had made them originally without allowing the base to get lumpy, the paint would've lasted longer. There's the lesson for me - don't let it boil and keep stirring the base until it thickens so as to not let it get lumpy. Either way, the paint still worked fairly well and Cade seemed to have fun. 

As you can see, the yellow (I used the same stirring spoon that I used for the green - hence the green dots) had the right consistency, but the purple was much harder to use as it was a little too lumpy. 

And, here is Cade's completed work of art before it was dry. It's not very pretty (which I blame on the ugly tan tape that was on there), but it worked for him and he had a good time. That is, of course, the goal in making this. 

 After the paint had dried, I peeled off the tape and was left with this gorgeous piece of art courtesy of my son. I'm quite happy with how it looks and look forward to doing this with him again.

 So, there you have it! Another Pinterest Test completed and worth doing again! I may even hang this one in our living room...until the next one is completed.

How To Pick Green Peppers

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This blog is not a scientific journal and is meant to be for entertainment and fun only. 

Photo from Pinterest

Gender Specific Green Peppers? Um...why? Those were my first questions when I saw this picture on Pinterest today. So, I looked into it a little bit more by going here.

I put this to the test today as I made Philly cheese steak sandwiches for dinner. Basically, the theory is that the peppers with three bumps are males (which have less seeds) and the peppers with 4 are female (and, have more feeds). My female green pepper may have been a little more gender neutral than what I should've aimed for considering the test I was conducting, but it still worked for the most part.

You can see below that there are definitely more seeds in the female green pepper vs. the male green pepper. We also got a significant amount more of the vegetable from the male green pepper.

Just for cuteness sake, I have to tell you - my son was so excited about the top of the green peppers, he kept putting it back on and saying "hat!!" Just adorable.

Anyway, you get the point. Next time you are shopping for green peppers, make sure you get the peppers with the 3 bumps and not the 4. You'll get more bang for your buck and won't have to deal with more seeds, or crazy green pepper girl hormones. (Where's my rimshot when I need it?)

Homemade Finger Paints

I was fortunate enough to watch my nephew again today. I love spending time with him. I treasure the time I get to spend with him. And, as usual, we jumped right into a project. Today, we decided, was a good day for making homemade finger paints. 

My nephew is 8 years old and my son is nearing on 2 years old, so finding something they both may enjoy can be a bit of a challenge, but we did it! 

The link for the blog with this picture is: http://sheridanfrench.blogspot.com/2012/01/homemade-finger-paints.html

Image via Pinterest

My nephew helped me put all of the ingredients into a pot and turned the burner on low. He thought it looked very much like milk...with a far saltier smell.

I heard (afterwards) that it is best to stir it continuously and probably with a whisk. However, since I didn't hear it until afterwards, I regrettably did not follow this rule. Rather, a song from the Muppets came on my Pandora radio station, so my boys and I just had to dance it out. Once our dance break was over, I came back to find my pot of paint base almost in a rolling boil (not what you want to have happen) and a bit lumpy. Thankfully, it still worked just fine. This shows you how lumpy it was, but it was still useable. Yay! 

After the base cooled pretty much completely, we put our food coloring into some tupperware and started mixing. I am ever-so grateful that this was safe if ingested finger paints, because when my son asked for a spoon, we (naturally) assumed he wanted to help mix up some of the paints. Wrong. He immediately took a giant bite out of the paint and had a beautiful yellow hue to his lovely red lips. He spit it out as quickly as he had taken it in and all is well. How silly of me to think that he'd like to stir it, especially when I give him one of his spoons. Lesson learned, dear son. Lesson learned. 

After we mixed all the ingredients, we went to work on the painting fun. 

The boys had a blast painting with their fingers. Well, Gabriel did. Cade didn't like getting "dirty" and kept wanting to wipe off the paint from his fingers. I think once he tries it out a little more, he'll probably really enjoy it.

The one thing I noticed was, because it was lumpy, the paint had some lumps in it that weren't drying very quickly, however, they do still dry...kind of like a 3D painting! Ooooh. It was so neat to see something so easy paint and dry on our lovely canvas. So fun! I'd highly recommend making your own paint for your little ones. Especially if they are like mine and eat anything that has a spoon in it. 

Beaded Foot Jewelry

Do you long for warmer weather, longer days and being barefoot without your feet feeling like you may get frostbite from walking around your kitchen? I certainly do. I am a warm weather gal. I thrive in sunshine. I love soaking in the sunshine and the restoration I feel after doing so. It rejuvenates me. I don't mind the cooler weather occasionally, especially if it snows or rains really hard, but the misty, foggy, gray weather is something I can do without. Obviously, I can't change the weather, but I can tell you about a project to get you ready for summer. One that you could easily complete (multiples of, in fact) before summer hits! You will be one stylin' lady on the beach, at the pool, in your yard or wherever with these little beauties. Let's get an early summer started for ourselves with a little bit of crafting prep, shall we?

Photo from Pinterest

You may have seen this on Pinterest. These are known as Beaded Foot Jewelry. My sister and I made them last summer with great success. I love the ones I made. We tried to make as close to a replica of the picture above as we could and we were quite pleased with the way they turned out. But, the nice thing is, they can be made however you want them and with whatever colors you may want!

My attempt

My sister was really good at this little project. You do have to be patient, and if you are good with beads, this will be no problem for you. But, if you are like me...you may struggle just a bit. I have fumble-y fingers. I tried to do another set of these on my own, but the beads kept slipping off of the string I was using. I gave up...or, shall we say "put it on hold for a while." I wanna complete it sometime. Having something decorative and blingy on your feet is just fun!

This picture looks weird with my son's little foot in it, but I like it anyway. He's got such a cute little foot! 

Next time I do this, though, I will have someone to do it with again. Doing it with my sister was just plain fun and if I'm gonna do something just to do it, it had better be a good time! So, I'd recommend this project. Especially as you are beating the winter blues.  It really wasn't very expensive either. I think, between the two of us we spent about $20. And, I'm certain you could get it even cheaper if you have a coupon for your favorite craft store. You just have to be a savvy shopper and this could cost you next to nothing. Plus, you will most certainly have beads and string leftover to make more if you wanted...maybe as gifts? Or to go with a favorite shirt? So, let's drink something tropical, turn on some oldies or Jimmy Buffett or whatever makes you feel like you could be on an island somewhere, turn up the heat and have some fun!

Shredding Chicken - The Easy Way

I like to make chicken enchiladas for dinner. The enchiladas I make are not a Pinterest recipe. Actually, it's a recipe from my cousin and it is very yummy. Maybe I'll post it sometime. The worst part about making chicken enchiladas? The shredding chicken process. It can be daunting and time consuming. And, let's face it - that is 10 minutes I could spend looking up more fun stuff on Pinterest!

However, I have learned a new trick! Did you know, there is a far easier way of shredding chicken then by using two forks and scraping? Indeed there is! To find out how, Pinterest told me to go to: http://simplyhealthyfam.blogspot.com/2010/05/shredded-chicken-bbq-sandwiches.html. This blog even has a recipe to go along with this great method of shredding chicken. For this blog, I'm just gonna focus on the shredding chicken part though.

So, anyway, I gave it a try the other day when I made my Crockpot Italian Chicken, for which I need shredded chicken. Here is a pic of my 4 cooked chicken breasts ready to be mixed.

Turn on the mixer and, as Simply Healthy Fam's blog recommends, you should turn your blender onto speed 4-6 and in just 20 seconds you'll have perfect restaurant-style chicken.

It did not turn out quite perfectly for me, but it still worked fairly well. I ended up running it for more like 40-60 seconds and, unless you are wanting chicken the consistency of chicken in a can, you will not want to mix it for that long. 

Either way, this is something I will be doing again. It worked really well, took no time and was worth the extra dirty dish that it created. I'm so excited to eat more meals with shredded chicken now! 

Crockpot Italian Chicken - The Popular Pinterest Post

I have seen almost all of my friends on Pinterest post about this recipe, and rightfully so. It really is a scrumptious dish. I have made this multiple times and it is on our home menu at least every month or so.

I had never actually gone to the blog for the Crockpot Italian Chicken because the directions are in the description of the pin - but for the sake of this blog, I did go to it when making the recipe this time. The picture actually doesn't look as good on the blog as it does on Pinterest either. Weird.

The only difference I noticed between the actual blog recipe and the Pinterest description was whether to combine the cream cheese & cream of chicken soup in a pot on low heat or just throw it into the crockpot. I generally just throw it in the crockpot. This time, I followed the recipe and didn't notice a difference, so next time I will just leave out the dirtying up of more dishes and put them directly in as I have done before.

I would also recommend, rather than leaving it to cook for 4 hours on low as recommended by the blog, is to cook it on high for 1 hour and then turn it down to low. I've been told by a professional chef that you always should cook meat on high for the first hour, if at all possible. So, if you can, cook it on high for an hour, turn it to low for at least 3 - but according to the blog, you can leave it in there on low for all day if you want! Sweet deal.

This picture actually doesn't look anything like the picture on Pinterest either. I'm not sure why that is though as it generally looks very similar to it. I'm not too concerned. I mean, as long as it tastes good, the picture isn't that big of a deal, right?

Last tip I have for this post: I generally do use the amount of ingredients as recommended, but it makes a rather large batch of sauce. What I would recommend doing is halving the sauce (after the chicken is shredded and put back into it), keeping half out for the pasta and putting the other half in a Ziplock, put a date on it, label it with "Crockpot Italian Chicken Sauce - just add noodles," and stick it in the freezer! There you have it ~ dinner for two occasions!  Easy, tasty, cheap and a set it & forget it meal. Could it get any better than that? Hope you enjoy it as much as my family does.