Cowboy Caviar

We love Cowboy Caviar around here.


We had actually forgotten just how much.


I haven't made it since last summer.


What on earth was I thinking?


Pinterest and a link to here thankfully reminded me of this lovely dip.


We eat it with chips, as a sandwich with grilled chicken or on salads.


The little one wasn't too crazy about it unfortunately.


Mine today wasn't very pretty.


My avocados were just too ripe.


It made everything so creamy.


Just perfect for a sandwich or salad topper.

Ingredients:

1 can black eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can shoepeg corn, drained and rinsed
4-5 Roma tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
2-3 diced avocados, ripe but still firm
4 green onions, sliced thin (I used 1/2 purple onion diced finely because that's all I had)
around 1/2 to 3/4 cup Zesty Italian dressing
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped finely
1-2 limes
ground pepper and salt to taste

Drain and rinse the black eyed peas, black beans, and corn. Add to a large bowl. Dice the tomatoes, making sure the seeds and insides are removed. You want to do this to make sure that there isn't too much liquid in the dip. Add the diced tomatoes and cilantro to the bowl. Slice the green onions finely (or purple onion) and add to the bowl. Dice the avocado and squeeze a little of the lime juice over the avocados so they don't brown as quickly. Squeeze the rest of the lime juice into the bowl. Add the Italian dressing and stir to coat all the ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Chill in the refrigerator until cold and flavors have marinated together. This is best served the same day as prepared. Serve with tortilla chips

Wednesday & Oven fried Zucchini chips

Still trying to blog our weekend.

Just haven't found time to get the pictures on here.

Kalli has been here.

HG and Kalli
HG picked out flowers

And then arranged them around the house.

Three of my one size pocket diapers came in today.

Made my day.

These were so inexpensive so I was worried about them.

Perfect, brand new with a microfiber insert.

These one size fits from 8/10 pounds until 33-35 pounds.

It is harder to properly fit newborns since they are pretty skinny.

Give them a few weeks to thicken up, pass all that nasty first few weeks mess and they will be perfect.

Plus, they are SO easy.

So easy.

Something even the husband can handle.

This is what the little one is doing right now.

I tried to wake her up once I saw her asleep.

Mom, I'm sleepy so don't touch me.

Great.

I KNOW she is worn plum out.

I'm going to be worn plum out tomorrow if she doesn't wake her fancy pants up.

Oven Fried Zuchini

These were really good.

You really need the oven wire rack like it calls for.

Ours, yeah wouldn't have done well in the oven.

BUT they still had wonderful flavor.

Oven-Fried Parmesan Zucchini Chips
(from Cooking Light)
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, fresh grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup milk
2 small zucchini cut in 1/4-inch-thick slices
Cooking spray or vegetable/olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 425° F. Grease a large oven-proof wire rack set on a baking sheet.

2. Whisk together bread crumbs, Parmesan, salt, onion powder and pepper in a medium bowl. Place milk in a separate shallow bowl. Dip zucchini slices in milk then in breadcrumb mixture patting the crumbs on. Place slices on wire rack. Repeat until all are coated.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Feathers

Short blog.
It is late.
HG now has one of those feathers in her hair.
Miss Jessica came to the rescue tonight at dinner.
Kalli is staying with us and she had one.
So did Miss Jessica.
And everyone else at Daddy's work. Dinner with the 3 of us.
Terri, Riler and Kalli.
Jason.
Patrick, Dee, Kaitlyn, Joel and Nicholas.
Good times.

Look closely.

It is a feather on a bobby pin.

Brilliant idea for little ones.

She is SO proud.

Showing me their feathers.

HG was in love with Kalli's feather.

I wish I had taken my camera because the girls were too cute.

Good Morning

The husband was up bright and early getting things done.

Estate Sale, oil change, storage run.

It is only 10:45.

We were up until after 2 thanks to the kid elephants.

They woke HG twice, once being 12:15.

I was not a happy camper.

But everyone was extremely happy this morning when Daddy brought us donuts!

Have a great Saturday!

Dora Cupcakes

Trying to remain indoors in this terrible heat, we made Dora cupakes.

It was so fun and they were actually quite yummy.

How to make Dora Cupcakes




Ingredients:


1 1/2 cups dark-chocolate melting wafers

1 can (16 oz.) prepared vanilla frosting

Brown and red paste food coloring (we skipped this)

24 semi-sweet chocolate chips (eyes)

1 roll (3/4 oz.) strawberry or cherry fruit leather (such as Fruit by the Foot®) (we used sparkle pink writing gel)

1/2 cup dark-chocolate frosting

Ziploc bags

Dora template off of here






Bake 24 cupcakes, which ever your little heart desires.





Step 1

Line two cookie sheets with wax paper and place the Dora Cupcake template under the wax paper.

Step 2

Melt the chocolate wafers in a medium glass bowl in the microwave until smooth, about one to two minutes, stirring frequently. Spoon the melted chocolate into a resealable plastic bag. Snip a small corner from the bag, pipe the outline of Dora's hair, and fill in with the chocolate. Repeat to make 12. Place the cookie sheets in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes or until the chocolate has set.

Step 3

Spoon 1/3 cup of vanilla frosting into a resealable bag. Use the paste food coloring to tint the remaining frosting a light reddish brown. Remove two tablespoons of frosting and tint it a darker brown; spoon this into a resealable bag.

Step 4

Frost the tops of the cupcakes with reddish-brown frosting. Peel Dora's hair from the wax paper and arrange on top of each cupcake.

Step 5

Snip a small corner from all the bags of frosting. Pipe white eyes and light-brown centers freehand. Press a chocolate chip into the eyes, flat side up, as her pupils. Pipe a white dot on top of each chip.

Step 6

Cut a 1-inch triangle from the fruit leather for Dora's mouth. Outline her nose, mouth, and hair with the dark chocolate frosting.

Step 7

Refrigerate until ready to serve.









* We had to put our chocolate hair in the freezer, the fridge just wasn't cutting it.

Could have been the chocolate I used (Bakers).

* The hair does melt somewhat out of the fridge so do keep in fridge.

Groovy Smoothies

If you have toddler or preschool aged children around the house, I'm sure you have heard this term.

Groovy Smoothies

HG loves the Fresh Beat Band.

We don't mind it.

They are always singing and dancing.

Always so positive.

No fighting.

No language a toddler shouldn't be saying.

Over all, pretty safe in our opinion.

HG has been asking for a while to make the smoothies.

Finally, we slowed down enough to remember.

It is a great way to cool down on a hot summer day.

Or with breakfast in our case.

They are so easy.

We didn't follow their recipe, just printed off the gang from Nick Jr.

Here is the whole recipe.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Yummy Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients

1 C long-grain brown rice
4 large green bell peppers, bottom trimmed, cap end cut off and diced, and seeds removed
1 large onion, diced
2 tsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil
2 links turkey Sweet Italian Sausage ( I used sweet ground Italian turkey sausage)
1/2 tsp. ground fennel
1/2 tsp. dried Greek or Turkish oregano1
/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese


Here's what you do:

Cook rice according to package directions, or using a rice cooker. (Rice can be cooked ahead and used in this recipe later.)

Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Trim bottom of bell peppers so they have a flat surface to stand on. Cut off a fairly generous amount of the stem end of peppers, then remove seeds. Place hollowed-out peppers in a baking dish that you've sprayed with non-stick spray or olive oil. (A dish that's close in size to the peppers will work best.)

Remove stem part from the pepper caps and trim off any white membrane, then dice pepper caps and the onion into fairly small dice. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in a large skillet, then saute diced pepper and onion for 3-4 minutes, until they are starting to soften but aren't browned. Remove pepper-onion mixture to a bowl, add 1 tsp. more olive oil, then squeeze sausage out of the casing and cook until it's lightly browned, breaking apart with the back of the turner.

Put the onion-pepper mixture back into the pan with the sausage, add the dried spices, and saute 2-3 minutes to blend the flavors. Then add cooked rice and Parmesan cheese, season the mixture with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, and cook just long enough to warm, about 1-2 minutes.



Stuff the filling mixture into the hollowed-out peppers, using a spoon to press the mixture down so it's tightly packed into the pepper shell. (A few years ago I stopped pre-cooking the peppers before stuffing, and now I prefer peppers that are stuffed raw.) If you have any extra filling, you can put it in a small ramekin and bake along with the peppers. Bake peppers for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and put a generous pinch of grated mozzarella on top of each pepper. Put peppers back into the oven and bake about 10-15 minutes more, until cheese is melted and lightly browned. Serve hot.




You can freeze leftover peppers for a month or two, although the frozen peppers will be a little softer in texture (but still very tasty.) I cut them in half top-to-bottom before freezing and freeze two halves in a small baking dish with a snap-on lid.






*We did use Italian seasons instead of the ones listed in the ingredients. Also added a little bread crumbs to the mixture when we added the cheese.






These were great and super simple.

The little one loved helping me stuff the peppers.