Dinner in a Dash "Chicken and rice"

Here comes another easy, tasty, and fast dinner.

                                                     Chicken and Rice

You'll need:
2 cups prepared Minute Rice
1 small can cream of chicken soup
1 small can cream of broccoli, celery, or cheese soup, your choice
1 large can chunk chicken breast, undrained
salt and pepper to taste


  Start by preparing 2 cups of Minute Rice as directed on the package. While the rice is cooking, mix together the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the rice is cooked and fluffed, add the hot chicken soup mixture and mix well.

 That's it!

Reading Eggs Free 5-week trial!

As I was sitting in the doctor's office this morning reading Parenting magazine, I saw an ad for a new web site called Reading Eggs. It was colorful, very graphic-intense, and immediately caught my eye. You see, I have a child who is encountering some trouble reading this year, and the appeal of flashy game sites lures her in, whereas I want her to learn something from the games she's playing. So I am always willing to test a web site and see if she likes it and if she grows from it.

   Well, Reading Eggs tossed me the bait and reeled me right in! They are offering a free 5- week (yes, you read it right...5-WEEK) trial.  You can try this amazing offer at http://readingeggs.com/try . Let me also quote a bit from their website so you can get an idea of what they claim to provide:

A Breakthrough In Learning To Read!

Reading Eggs Will Teach Your Child To Read In Just Weeks! Register For Your FREE 5 Week Trial Now.

Reading Eggs provides a comprehensive range of online reading lessons, activities and ebooks that teach kids aged 3-13 the core literacy skills needed for reading success.

Featuring colorful animations, catchy music, sing-a-longs and heaps of exciting rewards, Reading Eggs makes learning to read fun and motivational for children. 

Take advantage of our FREE 5 week trial and see how your child’s reading improves with Reading Eggs!

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• Over 90% of parents have noticed an improvementin their child’s reading ability since using Reading Eggs
• Based on solid scientific research
• Used by over 2 million children (and counting!)
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Why Children Love Reading Eggs

• Over 512 interactive games, motivating rewards and songs
• Makes reading fun – kids want to learn
• One–on–one lessons match your child’s ability
• Detailed assessment reports show and recognize progress
• Suitable for children aged 3 – 13
•                                       
•  -from  www.readingeggs.com, Blake Elearning, 2013

I plan to give this site a try. If any of you test it in your home or classroom, please come back here to blog about your experiences.

Blessings,
Lynn

"Dinner in a Dash" Series

   It can be frustrating to try to whip up a fast and filling dinner on a weeknight (in between soccer and gymnastics and piano and church and scouts and homework and housework and baths and dog-walking...well, you get the picture). I love to eat and I am a big fan of comfort foods, but who has time to spend hours baking and layering and chopping? Maybe on a Saturday afternoon but definitely not Monday-Friday in my home.

 So this month's challenge is to find tasty dinners that can be made in a flash, and if they please children and husbands and are filling, that's an A+ in my book. With this in mind I'm starting a new series on No Place Like Home called "Dinner in a Dash". I'd love to have you share your best easy dinners on here, too. So feel free to post a recipe in the comments box. ;)

Hearty Nachos

**This filling is just as good as a burrito, served in a warmed flour tortilla.

1 pound ground beef, browned and drained

1 package dry taco seasoning

1 can Rotel, mild or hot, your preference

1 can re-fried beans

tortilla chips 

Toppings of choice: shredded cheddar or fiesta blend cheese, sliced olives, chopped jalapenos, sour cream, salsa, chopped green onions, diced tomato, etc. 

While ground beef is browning, chop any toppings needed (and warm flour tortillas, if making burritos instead of nachos). Brown beef until no pink remains, then drain ground beef. Stir in 1 can Rotel, 1 pack taco seasoning, and 1 can re-fried beans. Cover and simmer on low for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Spread tortilla chips on plates and call in the crowd. :) Start by spooning the hot ground beef mixture onto the chips, and then top with any veggies, cheeses, etc. that you like. 

From skillet to table in only ten minutes, feeds a hungry crowd, and can be personalized to please even the most picky eaters in your house, this take-off of Taco Bell's Nachos Bell Grande is a favorite in my kitchen.

photo credit: Tojosan via photopin cc

Meat and Potatoes Casserole

Tonight was one of those nights where I tried to whip together some fast dinner that was yummy, filling, and used items already in my freezer or pantry.  Since I live with three manly men, any meal involving "meat and taters", as we sometimes say in the south, is what they crave.  This my "main dish" take on a favorite tator tot casserole:

 Meat and Potatoes Casserole

1 pound ground beef or turkey, browned
1 bag tator tots, frozen
1 can cream mushroom soup
1 can cream chicken soup
1 can Progresso Recipe Starters garlic sauce
1 bag (2 cups) shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Spray a 9 X 13 baking pan with oil.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown the ground beef or turkey with the onion and pepper.
In a large bowl, mix together all the remaining ingredients with the browned meat/onion/pepper mixture. Spread the mixture into the casserole pan. Top with a dash or two of salt and pepper.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until tator tots are cooked through. Serves a crowd (or a hungry group of men).

What is YOUR favorite fast, easy, crowd-pleasing weeknight meal? Be sure to comment below. ;)

Blessings,
Lynn

Make your own body wash!

 I've been wanting to make my own body wash for weeks. I've read a lot of reviews for the stuff online and seen enough Pinterest posts to be very tempted to try it. The gist of it is that you melt a bar of your favorite soap with enough water to make it liquid and squeeze it onto a bath pouf for luxurious cleansing. Easy enough, I thought.

Those who have made it tend to like it because it's

1) fairly inexpensive to make (vs. buying bottles that run from $1-$5 each)
2) you control what goes in so it can be formulated to be just right for each user ( adding extra moisturizing agents or essential oils, for example)
3) it's just so much FUN to make something yourself  :P

  So I went through my crafting supplies, hit up my local Dollar Tree, and my kiddo (a.k.a. "Crafty Girl") and I got started.

 What we used :

(shown here: FO, Skin Milk soap grated, recycled squeeze bottles, Bubble Magic)

(coconut oil)

(oatmeal, milk, and honey FO)

(Bubble Magic)

• 1 seven-ounce bar of Skin Milk bar soap from Dollar Tree, grated (Crafty Girl grated and grated and grated). It has a nice, light vanilla scent.
• 1  TBS. coconut oil (doesn't everything need a bit of coconut?)
• 1 TBS. of Soap Wizards Bubble Magic (this is purely optional; I like BUBBLES. I feel cleaner with them--I can't get past it. I know it's a foaming agent and some of you might not want to add this to your soap but it was leftover from my soaping days)
• 21 oz. of water (I began with 14 oz. but as the mixture cooled it thickened)
• 1 TBS. honey (honey is good for your skin and is nice to add into beauty products)
• 20 drops of Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey FO (also leftover from my soaping days...why waste it?)
• squeeze or pump bottles (recycled from previous B&B products or you can buy picnic condiment bottles for around a dollar at Dollar Tree or Walmart)

(I have developed extremely itchy skin and new allergies over the past year, so if this batch works I plan to make a batch for sensitive skin without all the Fragrance oil and Bubble Magic):


Step 1: grate the bar of soap

Step 2: add your water to your pan and turn it on medium heat (start with about double the amount of soap used; if the mixture starts to harden/thicken as it cools, add more water and reheat it. This seems to happen to a lot of homemade body wash mixtures on other blogs and it looks as though it is just trial and error depending on the type of bar soap that was used)

Step 3: put your soap shreds in the pot and start the melting process

(adding in coconut oil)

(adding in the Bubble Magic)

Step 4: cook the mixture until it's melted, on medium heat, gently whisking it as you go. You can add in optional ingredients such as coconut oil, honey, etc. at this point. Hold off on the fragrance oils. Wait 'til the mixture cools to add those or the scent can evaporate right out).

Step 5: if you like you can use a hand-held mixer to mix the liquid. Crafty Girl tested this out. Leave it alone to cool for a while.

Step 6: Crafty Girl added the optional 20 drops of FO and gave the mixture one last stir before we left it to cool the rest of the way.

Step 7: pour your body wash into recycled pump or squeeze bottles to enjoy! Might need to shake it each time before using if it begins to separate.

You can just use the soap and water and nothing more and make the most simple, basic version of body wash. It can't get too much easier than this. And if you can't even stand the thought of grating all that soap, you can just cut your bar into tiny chunks instead. There you have it.

This was my first effort and I have my bottles ready to use. So far this one batch filled 4 recycled squeeze bottles, each one about the size of a picnic condiment bottle. So if it works then it was well worth the price. And if I had only used the bar soap and water, it would have been SUPER CHEAP. Almost ** free** even.

Try it yourself and be sure to let me know how it goes, how much water you used, what type of bar soap you started with, if it thickened in the bottle, and all that jazz. ;)

Blessings,
Lynn

Diet success (with a temporary hang-up)

    I started Fastin a few weeks ago just to aid me in controlling portion sizes and to fill fuller, faster. And it worked! Not only did I feel feel full and eat less but I craved lots of water (and I usually don't like water a whole whole lot). I have been trying to kick the cola habit for a long time and while on this pill, I drank one cola a day and just didn't feel satisfied without water. The only time I had any issue with this pill was the second day when I tried the recommended morning dosage and had a run-in with the jitters and a queasy stomach that lasted all day. Thankfully that incident was a one-time thing. My total weight lost in the time on the pill was 5 pounds! I wondered though, if this was water-weight, and wanted to go further in my quest for a skinnier me, but I had already run out of pills. I wasn't even taking the daily dosage suggested on the bottle and I ran out pretty fast. Therein lies the double-edged sword of this pill: it's expensive. But if it works, it works. I found out the company that makes Fastin has another pill that is reported to be just as good, if not better, than the regular Fastin, and that is Fastin XR.

      So I ordered a bottle of 45 for less money than the original Fastin (thanks to Ebay) and I start it tomorrow. One more thing about the regular Fastin: during the last 4 days without my diet aid, I immediately felt very very hungry. Like pig-ish. Oink, oink. Nothing filled me up. I was right back to the old portions and not only that, but the urge to snack was overwhelming.

         I was disappointed to see how quickly my body would return to its former ways, but also content knowing that the pills do give me a mind-over-matter advantage in the world of endless appetite and cravings.

  Tomorrow I step into the world of "XR"...keep ya posted.
Lynn

Sleeping Beauty

So I went to my allergy clinic for a checkup. I have been so hoarse for months that it's becoming hard to talk or call across the playground to my class or even sing at church sometimes. So the point of my checkup was to work on my throat issue. But in the middle of a health questionnaire my doctor asked me if I snore. Moi? Sleeping beauty snore? Ha! I don't snore....I sleep sweetly in a glowing state of dreamy bliss in all my radiant beauty......(yeah, and Prince Charming is on his way in his official government carriage with a a couple of bodyguards to take me to my own personal Taj Mahal). Shoot yes, I snore. I started that annoying mess about six months ago I told the doc. Doctor disagreed with me; he told me I have likely--get this---been snoring for a LOT LONGER. And his reasoning is this--how would I know anyway since I am usually asleep when I snore? You can't argue with that logic. *sigh*  So I have been snoring....quite loudly I admit...and yes Doc, I have been getting drowsy earlier at night, even falling asleep during Andy Griffith reruns....and yes Doc, I do get up to go to the bathroom frequently....and buy sleep aids...and wear an eye mask....and adjust my pillows (one allergenic, one memory foam, a regular one, and a neck/travel pillow because ---one type rarely will work for me all night long)....and I toss a lot...and find myself staring at the clock at odd times when  my eyes should be closed.... and sometimes awaken with headaches...and yes, I even snore myself awake with a snort and gasp (there, I confessed). The sound is so sudden and loud that it often startles me awake and I'm like, "What??? Huh??? What's that??" and I sit up to find my family all grinning at me from around the living room. Embarrassing and annoying. Now I can't even sleep on my back in bed because I feel like I am choking. The idea, doc says, is that he thinks I have sleep apnea and need to undergo a sleep test A*S*A*P. So when June rolls around and others are lying on the beach dozing in the sun, I will spend the night lying in a cozy bed in the hospital with a group of strangers watching me and studying my every move. Should be interesting. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, if you suspect that you or a loved one might have sleep apnea, here is a link that is helping me. Maybe it will help you as well.

http://www.helpguide.org/life/sleep_apnea.htm


Sleep apnea can be dangerous and causes lots of side issues so don't wait-check it out and if you feel there is a problem take your concerns to your doctor.

Blessings and zzzzzzzz's,

Lynn