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!

I Can Haz Wet Foodz?

Jesse and I had a lot of mileage off of the tacos, so there hasn’t been anything new in the last few days for our diet. But, our cats have had a HUGE change in theirs, and they asked me to include their food habits for a blog entry. So here we go:

As many of you may know, we have three cats:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wade
DOB 6/15/2006



George Weasley Wade
DOB 3/16/2007



Fred Weasley Wade
DOB 3/16/2007



So, we used to feed the cats all in the same room, twice a day, and the same food. They got 1 cup of dry food 2 times a day. Their food was Dick Von Pattens Low Calorie food, which for us can only be purchased at Petco, which fortunately isn’t too far away.

Sadly for the cats, we’ve had a few problems over the last few weeks. It started off with poor Fred getting very, very sick. We were told that if he recovered, he would need a dietary change for the rest of his life. Thankfully, our little one recovered after four and a half days in the animal hospital.

Because of Fred being sick, we took Mozart and Georgie into the vet to have some tests run on them because A) Georgie is from the same litter as Fred and could be more likely to have the same problems as Fred had and B) they all eat the same food and could be food related. Well, we were told something pretty obvious: Georgie and Mozart are FAT!!! In fact, Banfield says that Mozart is obese! So, feeling a bit embarrassed (I mean, they get low calorie food and such), we asked the vet for some advice. She said that we need to feed them in separate rooms, ¼ cup of food 2x/day, and for only 15 minutes each session. Yippie! Just what we needed, even more difficult cats. But we love our kitties and want them to be healthy, so we bit the bullet. We decided to start Tuesday night after we brought Fred home from the hospital. Here’s how it worked…

We started by rounding up each of the cats and shutting them inside a room. By virtue of our house being small, we only have three choices – both non-master bedrooms and the hall bathroom.

Then, we found 3 bowls and put them on the counter. We grabbed Fred’s super delicious wet food (at least that’s what all the animals think) and measured out ¼ cup. We then scooped some of the dry food into the two other bowls (of course measuring only ¼ cup). Then we shoved a bowl in each room before the cats could escape and Yoda could break through our defenses. We really need one of those openings that jail cells have. Hmm…



This went on for a few days and the cats barely ate anything. They don’t do well with being told they only have a certain amount of time to eat. In addition to that, Mozart and Georgie decided to go on hunger strike because Fred got wet food and they didn’t. I tried to tell them Fred also had four and a half days in the animal hospital and that was why he had wet food, but they didn’t care.

So by the time Friday rolled around, we had starving cats. I took Fred to the vet for a follow up and she informed me that Mozart also had crystals in his urine. She recommended that Mozart and Georgie go on the wet food diet for 30 days. She also recommended buying this powder stuff to mix into their food to help dissolve any crystals. My first thought? “Awesome, now all of the cats need to eat really expensive, prescription-only wet food…”



Of course that night for dinner, Mozart and Georgie were all like, “YIPPIE SKIPPY!!!!! WET FOOD!!!” They were so excited, that they slammed that food down. After 15 minutes I went to let Mozart out. He had licked his bowl clean and turned it over to prove how awesome his new food was. We’re pretty sure Georgie finished his in about 5 seconds since he spent most of the 15 minutes meowing to get out. Even Yoda got in on the fun. He likes to hang outside the rooms where the cats are eating and lick the floor, hoping for a little taste of super-awesome wet food.

Here is Mozart's bowl:



Here are all of the pets with their wet food:

Fred:

Mozart:


Georgie, who is saying: "I can has more?"


Yoda, who is thinking, "Mommy and Daddy are so nice by letting me make sure the cats licked this bowl clean!!!!"




Moral of this story: Pets (furry ones) really, really LOVE wet food.

But this wouldn’t be our food blog without ratings, so here we go:

Sarah:

Preparation: I give this a 2 out of 5. We used to just scoop food into a bowl and sometimes shut all 3 cats up. Now we have to get the three bowls, measure the food, mix in some powder, AND wrangle us some cats. All the while Yoda barks at us because HE doesn’t get wet food…

Taste for whole thing: The cats give this a 5 out of 5. They really, freaking love wet food. In case you haven’t figured this out.

Pickiness Factor: I give this a 5 out of 5!!! For pets… All 4 of ours dig this!

Jesse:

Preparation - i'll give this a 3 out of 5. It certainly takes a little longer to open a can, measure out the correct amount, and then smear it into the bowl instead of just using a measuring cup of dry food. And having to currently mix in powdered meds makes this even worse…not to mention having a swarm of cats as well as Yoda begging for its quick delivery. But then again, it's not like i'm cooking. Can ---> Bowl ---> Stomach ---> Win

Taste – 4 out of 5. As far as cat food goes, this stuff isn’t actually that bad. It’s loaded in fat, so you get a good flavor. They could do a little better job on the hummus-type consistency, but I guess that only means you don’t have to exert much effort swallowing. The subtle hint of a woodsy aftertaste puts this ahead of the rest.

Cost – 2 out of 5 – not being able to buy bulk amounts of this is a shame. And since it’s prescription, your places of purchase are limited (and it’s expensive). But I don't know if i would want to have a 5gal. bucket of this in the first place.

AVERAGE RATING: 3.5