A whirldwind of activity

The last few days have been hectic. We've celebrated Darsie's third birthday with a trip to the zoo, a pizza/cupcake bash (6 dozen cupcakes later and I'm still ALIVE!) and yesterday Darsie started developmental preschool. Both events went well and will be presented with pictures but right now I have to run and get D ready for school this morning. All she talks about is how she wants to ride the bus with friends, so I guess on Thursday I will let her ride the *sniff* bus.

Jumping on the Internet Potluck Train

Wheeeee! We all know that I love to cook and love to eat. So, when Sarah at No Whey, Mama wants to have an Internet potluck, I'm there!


I made these last night and served with fresh guacamole and sour cream. OH YUM! I know it isn't lactose-free but it is sooooooo good. I bet you could sub out the cheese for some salsa or some other "wet" ingredient and just not serve it with sour cream. I'm not sure if tortillas are dairy free or not. Crap, I suck at dairy-free. I take our allergy-free household for granted sometimes.

Anyways, the recipe:

Southwestern Egg Rolls (from All Recipes)

INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast half
2 tablespoons minced green onion
2 tablespoons minced red bell pepper
1/3 cup frozen corn kernels
1/4 cup black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
2 tablespoons diced jalapeno peppers
1/2 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper
3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
5 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 quart oil for deep frying
DIRECTIONS:
1. Rub 1 tablespoon vegetable oil over chicken breast. In a medium
saucepan over medium heat, cook chicken approximately 5 minutes per
side, until meat is no longer pink and juices run clear. Remove from
heat and set aside.
2. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a medium saucepan
over medium heat. Stir in green onion and red pepper. Cook and stir 5
minutes, until tender.
3. Dice chicken and mix into the pan with onion and red pepper. Mix
in corn, black beans, spinach, jalapeno peppers, parsley, cumin, chili
powder, salt and cayenne pepper. Cook and stir 5 minutes, until well
blended and tender. Remove from heat and stir in Monterey Jack cheese
so that it melts.
4. Wrap tortillas with a clean, lightly moist cloth. Microwave on
high approximately 1 minute, or until hot and pliable.
5. Spoon even amounts of the mixture into each tortilla. Fold ends of
tortillas, then roll tightly around mixture. Secure with toothpicks.
Arrange in a medium dish, cover with plastic, and place in the
freezer. Freeze at least 4 hours.
6. In a large, deep skillet, heat oil for deep frying to 375 degrees
F (190 degrees C). Deep fry frozen, stuffed tortillas 10 minutes each,
or until dark golden brown. Drain on paper towels before serving.

We have one leftover...I'm off to eat it now. Typing this made my salivate.

King Size

They have made everything bigger but pudding cups.

Go figure.

Preemie Project

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/local/preemies.html

I posted the questionnaire I received via e-mail a few weeks ago, but here is the completed project. You have to sign up to received full access but it is a pretty interesting read.

Back to Reality

I miss vacation. However, I do NOT miss trying to cook on a boat that is not hooked up to shore power. You can only cook so many things for so many meals on a bbq. Let me caution you first and foremost that you should NOT try cooking bacon directly on a bbq. Bad things and upset husbands are the end results of said experiment.

Let me also preface this post by saying that I am multitasking at the moment. I am planning our meals for the week and eating Life cereal and drinking coffee and perusing my mom board and typing this post. It isn't that you all aren't important it is just that I only have so much time to get so much done. D is planted squarely in front of the TV (yay for awesome parenting) and Elise is sleeping (I think).

Anyways, here is our vaction summary:

Day 1: Left for Friday Harbor. Hit some major fog and kelp about 2 hours into trip. We got some kelp blocking our engine intake and our engine temp started rising, thought our boat was doomed while we were in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Thought to self, oh shit, here is where we call a Mayday call into the Coast Guard. Jeff and his dad figured out the issue quite quickly and calmed my frayed nerves. Darsie gets seasick and pukes on self and Elise's blanket. Got her settle and asleep, ditto for Elise. Got to Friday Harbor in approximately three hours. GPS rocks, next year we are adding radar. Friday Harbor was a ZOO. Three gazillion boats there for Labor Day weekend. We were the last boat to get a slip. Next morning in slip (why didn't I just use the aforementioned shore power and cook inside the boat on our electric stove???) is where the bacon vs. bbq event occurred.



Day 2: Leave Friday Harbor for Spencer Spit. Some nasty wind waves but nothing major, just a bumpy ride. Raft up to Jeff's dad's sailboat (basically tie our boats together) for the night. We took the dinghy to shore so D could play in the sand. She loves the sand.







Day 3: Leave Spencer Spit for Stuart Island. Learned how to anchor our boat. The guys made me drive the boat and I am getting much more comfortable with it but not comfortable enough to actully take it somewhere. Some rain but generally nice weather.

Day 4: /Leave Stuart Island for Roche Harbor (this is where Jeff and I were married). Got a slip, played in the park. Finally got to drink some coffee since leaving Friday Harbor (too lazy to heat up water on bbq).



Day 5: Leave Roche Harbor for Sucia Island. Grab a buoy in Echo Bay but change our minds and go to Fox Cove. Beautiful cove. It got very windy during the night. No coffee.



Day 6: Leave Sucia to return to Friday Harbor. Very windy with 3-5 foot wind waves, not so zesty. Once we got to the San Juan channel we were fine though, so that was nice. More ice cream but I am too lazy at this point to make coffee. Vacation has melted any willpower to do much besides take naps, eat ice cream, and take more naps. Plus, the Darsie-monster has been getting up every morning at 7am yelling for cereal in a baby bowl EVERY DAY OF THE DAMN VACATION. What happened to sleeping in? Oh yeah, children, I forgot.

Day 7: Uneventful trip home. Some nasty wind waves in the Strait of Juan de Fuca but not like Sucia.

Anyways, we are home and Jeff is back to work today. So sad the time is gone. I have a LOT of catching up to do here at home...like napping maybe (doubtful)?

Actually, Darsie starts preschool next Monday so I need to do some shopping. Plus, her third birthday is next week as well, so sad.

Return from Vacation

We took the boat up to the San Juans and have just returned. I have oodles of photos and a couple of stories but I want to type up a good post and not just a fly by. So, I'm going to eat Oreos and start composing.

I will leave you with this little nugget: