Back by Popular Demand!

Author's Note: This was even more delayed by someone who procrastinated. We're not naming names here... :)

Note #2: And even more delays. My bad.

Alright, sorry for the hiatus. I had 12 weeks of Student Teaching in the fall to which I owed my life to teenagers and Mercer. Then I just got lazy. So, since personally, 2010 ended on a crappy note and 2011 didn’t start much better, I am making February the start of 2011 and thus the start of my New Year’s resolutions. So what are these resolutions and why on earth am I talking about them? I tell you why. Here are my resolutions:

1. Talk to my friends more often (that is a work in progress as I’m horrible with communication)
2. Do more things with my family – that includes extended family.
3. Work out again.
4. Get a job.
5. Start back on the blog – hence the reason I’m talking about all of this.

So tonight we re-start this thing, and in honor of Groundhog Day, we once again are cooking Mexican. This time, though, instead of ground beef I made chicken in the crock pot. So here’s how it started:

At 5:30 this morning (February 2), I got a call from Norcross to sub, so I saidyes. That meant I had to get up immediately so I could start the crock pot. After feeding the animals, I took the chicken out of the fridge and gathered the rest of my ingredients:

• Salsa – 1 cup
• Taco Bell taco seasoning – about ¼ of the packet
• Water – about half a cup
• Chicken (obviously)

So I put everything in the crock pot, turned it on, and went to sub. When I came back, the house smelled super yummy! But it was only 3:30 and way too early to eat. Plus, I needed to get some ingredients for the Mexican Rice. I needed to get some tomato sauce and chicken broth, so after changing I headed back out to the store to pick those up. I came home and cleaned up the kitchen some so we would have a fresh tablet for the Mexican Rice and refried beans.

Finally, it was time to start the rest of the food so we could eat. The only problem was, I FORGOT TO BUY CHEESE!!!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that I cannot eat a taco without cheese. I mean, that’s about the only thing I put on a taco! Other than meat of course. So, as I said, today is Groundhog Day and I found myself retracing some steps and experiencing déjà vu. But we were hungry! And the rice takes about 30 minutes. So Jesse stepped in like the wonderful husband he is and started on the rice while I ran back out to Ingles.

The last time I made the rice, I said that it would have been easier to have already measured out all the different spices and such, so Jesse did just this – which is way smarter. So after the rice puffed in the oil and spices were added, he added the tomato sauce and broth and brought it to a boil.

Then we let it simmer for 20-ish minutes. If you need a reminder as to where you can find this recipe, here you go:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mexican-Rice-II/Detail.aspx

While the rice simmered, Jesse played some WoW before coming out to start on the refried beans. I forgot to pick up an onion at Ingles, but I was absolutely not going out again to Ingles, so tough luck! If you forgot how the refried beans are made, check out the entry we made for tacos back in July 2010.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, I was sitting at my computer and heard a noise. I thought itsounded like something boiling over, so I was like, “Oh noes! The rice and oil are boiling over!” So I turned and looked and everything was fine. Except I realized the pantry door was wide open. And there was a cat stretching into the second shelf to get something out of it. Catnip. In a plastic container. And it wasn’t our cat that is addicted to cat nip! So of course I had to get pictures because it was just too funny to see Mozart (who has lost a few pounds, btw) rolling around on the kitchen floor hugging the catnip. He even pawed at Yoda to get away from him once. No one was taking that catnip away from him. No one but his mama!

So anyways, Jesse heated up the refried beans in the skillet, and soon, our food was ready. We even had Mexican Cokes to round out our Mexican meal.

I piled everything onto my taco shell. I think I put a little too much on it. In fact, I ended up finishing it off with a knife and fork… Overall, a pretty decent re-start to our blog.

Oh, and to distract Yoda while we ate, we gave him a tortilla. Whenever he gets treats, he loves to take them to our bedroom and eat them...

But of course, there are the ever important ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation: 4 out of 5 – see last time we made the rice, that’s still a bit time consuming. But crock pot is easy cookin’!

Taste: I give this meal about a 4 out of 5. I always like tacos, and this was yummy. Especially since we crowned it with Mexican Coke. It was yummy, and we’d made it before so we knew what we were getting into – well, except the meat. But I really liked the chicken cooked like this. It is a really salty meal, though, so if you need to cut down on sodium in your diet, I wouldn’t recommend this. I do think we made too much rice. We’re really not going to have time for leftovers… I guess next time we should maybe experiment with cooking half the recipe.

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5 – super easy since Sarah did all the prep work!

Taste: 4 out of 5 – everything was really good…but no specific flavors that were “TO DIE FOR” – but the Chicken was a great change up to normal Mexican Ground Beef

Cost: 4 out of 5 – super cheap and inexpensive…and there are normally enough leftovers for lunch the next day!

Average Rating: 4.2!