Pillsbury Crescent Roll Taco Bake

I love Mexican food and certainly do not make it often enough.  I have made tacos, fajitas, and this tasty Beef Taco Bake.  I'm not sure where I came across this recipe, maybe on Pillsbury.com?  But, this will be our experimental Cinco de Mayo dinner this year!

Pillsbury's Crescent Roll Taco Bake Recipe

 

Ingredients:

• 2 crescent roll tubes
• 1 LB ground beef (or ground turkey)
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• ... Shredded lettuce
• 1 or 2 diced tomatoes
• 1/2 small can sliced olives (if desired)
• Sour cream, optional
• sliced avocado, optional

 

Directions:

1. Lay out the two tubes of crescent pastry, thick sides in. Use some of the left over crescent rolls to to make the center a bit thicker.
2. Brown beef and add taco seasoning.
3. Lay beef in a circle inside of the laid out crescent rolls
4. Add cheese to the top
5. Pull over crescent rolls and tuck in under meat and cheese.
6. Follow cook time on the pack of crescent rolls.
7. Add cheese, lettuce, tomato, black olives, sour cream or whatever toppings you like for your tacos, in the middle.

 

Happy Earth Day and Some Green Tips for Around the House

Happy Earth Day!  What are you doing today to celebrate?

Today I will begin mulching my yard with the leaf mulch that was kindly provided by my Township free of charge.  Talk about being thrifty!  But it is more than just that.  It is about using recycled materials that I know will be good for my garden and plants all summer.  Plus, I am not buying mulch in plastic bags that create more trash.  So this is really a win-win.

I hate weeds and I hate weeding.  I hate using chemicals in my garden, especially when plants are not off limits to my wandering toddler.  Here is a tip if you are going to be mulching soon and want to help decrease the amount of weeds in your garden.  My Mom and Aunt passed this great tip along to me and I have been using it for the last two years.

All you have to do is gather up old newspaper and place a layer or two down before you mulch for the season.  The newspaper will prevent the weeds from popping up, which is less work for you.  I found this article on ehow.com that explains using newspaper in the garden in a bit more detail and why it works.

"Newspaper inks aren't the heavy petroleum-based problem they used to be, but be warned that there is still some petroleum being used in printing ink along with canola oil. As a result, you may want to go lighter on the use of recycled newspapers in the vegetable garden. This one is still up for debate since most authorities think there is no reason to be concerned. Your choice. Here are a number of ways you can recycle those newspapers -- in the edible garden or elsewhere in the landscape.

Use a thick covering of newspapers to kill of weeds and lawn you want to remove. Cutting off light and much of the air with newspaper is a good alternative to herbicides. If you want the area to look better during the process, hide the newspapers with a layer of mulch.

Continuing on with the mulch idea, use a moist layer of newspapers -- maybe three to four pages thick around garden plants. This will keep the soil warmer in the cool weather and cooler in the warm. It will also slow down evaporation so you need to water less. Cover the newspaper with a layer of soil or mulch. In time, the newspaper will break down and return to the soil leaving no trace behind."

Read more: How to Use Recycled Newspapers in the Garden | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4503255_use-recycled-newspapers-garden.html#ixzz1KGiXLfhV

If you are looking for some eco -friendly household tips, check out these tips:

Homemade Granite Counter Top Cleaner

Homemade Glass Cleaner

Eco-Friendly JAWS Cleaning System

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Dip

I am totally guilty of eating raw cookie dough, despite the warnings against it.  I'm sure I'm not the only one, go ahead, admit it!

I found this dessert dip on Lynsey Lou's via Shugary Sweets that takes the guilt out of eating raw cookie dough.  I made this last week for Mason's birthday party and several people asked for the recipe before leaving. 

One the side, I served it with vanilla wafers, graham crackers, and pretzels.  Each combination was a winner!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 8 oz (1 bar) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 Cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 Cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
• 1/2 Cup brown sugar
• 3/4 Cup powdered sugar
• 1 Tsp vanilla
• 3/4 Cup mini chocolate chips
• 1 (8oz) bag mini Reese's peanut butter cups or 8 regular size peanut butter cups cup up in pieces

Directions:

1. Combine butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan and place over low-medium heat. Stir mixture occasionally until butter is completely melted. Once the butter has melted whisk to combine, until sugar is dissolved into the butter. Bring the mixture to a boil then immediately remove from heat. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and stir to combine. Set mixture aside and allow to cool.
2. Pour the heavy whipping cream in a small bowl and beat on high until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
3. Combine cream cheese and powdered sugar in a large bowl and beat until creamy, about 3-4 minutes. Reduce the mixing speed to low and slowly pour the peanut butter mixture into the cream cheese, mixing until completely incorporated.
4. Gently fold in the chocolate chips and peanut butter cups. Once the chocolate chips and peanut butter cups are mixed in, fold in the whipping cream.
5. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

 

What To Do With All The Leftover Plastic Easter Eggs

So, as I clean up after Easter and put all the decorations away for another year, I realize I have more and more of these plastic Easter eggs.  Someone has to tell the Easter Bunny to stop dropping so many eggs at my house. 

I wondered, what else can these little eggs be used for?  To my surprise, lots!  There are really so many fun games and crafts that you can choose from.  I wasn't crafty enough to come up with all of these good ideas, but here are some of my favorites that I have come across in my search. 

From the blog, Craft, Interrupted:

 

 

 

From the blog, Tip Junkie:

 

 

 

 

From raiseaboy.com:

 



Egg Spelling Game

Preparation: Choose words according to the age and development of your child.
If your child is in school, use the spelling words or vocabulary words that he needs to learn that week.
For young children the first words they should learn to read are CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) like mom, dad, cat, dog, hat, etc. You should also include their names and names of family members.
Type the words out on the computer in large print and cut the words apart. Include the letters for one word in one egg. Place the eggs in an egg carton, basket or other container.

The Game: Have your child take one egg, unscramble the letters and then go grab another egg until he has unscrambled all the words. Once he’s practiced a few times it can even become a race to see if he can beat his own time (but only if this helps his learning and doesn’t create stress).

Learning Tip: Do not place the egg container next to your child. Make this an active game because movement anchors learning! After unscrambling a word, your child should walk, hop, skip, march, or crawl to get to the next egg. Above all, make it active and fun and if it stops being fun, take a break!




Happy Easter!

Did you take your kids to visit the Easter Bunny?  Did you have hopes that your child would sit calmly smiling while the picture was being taken?   Then reality set in and this is what you really got!
Happy Easter!!!!!

How to Hard Boil Eggs in 12 Minutes

Ok, so I am thirty-something years old and I have never hard-boiled an egg.  I don't eat eggs ever, but do enjoy the occasional quiche.  I know, it doesn't make sense. 

Mason's school had sign-ups for helping in the classroom in September and I thought bringing hard-boiled eggs in for the class to decorate would be easy.  Again, I really don't know what I was thinking since I never did this. 

So, off to Google I went and found these super easy directions from simplyrecipes.com.  It worked like a charm and I had perfect eggs to send in with Mason!

How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

• Cook time: 12 minutes

 

Hints:

• If you want hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel, make sure they are several days old. If this is Easter time, and everyone is buying their eggs at the last minute, buy your eggs 5 days in advance of boiling.  Hard boiling farm fresh eggs will invariably lead to eggs that are difficult to peel. If you have boiled a batch that are difficult to peel, try putting them in the refrigerator for a few days; they should be easier to peel then. If you need to hard cook fresh eggs, and want them easy to peel, steaming the eggs works well. Even fresh eggs steamed for 20 minutes will be easy to peel.
• I also find that it is very hard to overcook eggs using this method. I can let the eggs sit, covered, for up to 15-20 minutes without the eggs getting overcooked.

Method

1. Put the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, covered by at least an inch or two of cold water. Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil will help keep them from cracking. Adding a tablespoon of vinegar to the water will help keep the egg whites from running out of any eggs that happen to crack while cooking, but some people find that the vinegar affects the taste.  Adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. Put the burner on high and bring the eggs to a boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, remove the pan from the heat for a few seconds.
2. Reduce the heat to low, return the pan to the burner. Let simmer for one minute. (Note: If you are using an electric stove with a coil element, you can just turn off the heat. There is enough residual heat in the coil to keep the eggs simmering for a minute.)
3. After a minute, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes. If you are doing a large batch of eggs, after 10 minutes you can check for doneness by sacrificing one egg, removing it with a slotted spoon, running it under cold water, and cutting it open. If it isn't done, cook the other eggs a minute or two longer. The eggs should be done perfectly at 10 minutes, but sometimes, depending on the shape of the pan, the size of the eggs, the number of eggs compared to the amount of water, and how cooked you like them, it can take a few minutes more. When you find the right time that works for you given your pan, the size of eggs you usually buy, the type of stove top you have, stick with it.
4. Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water (this is if you have a lot of eggs) OR strain out the water from the pan, fill the pan with cold water, strain again, fill again, until the eggs cool down a bit. Once cooled, strain the water from the eggs. Store the eggs in a covered container (eggs can release odors) in the refrigerator. They should be eaten within 5 days.

Boo-boo Bunnies

Looking for a basket stuffer for Easter instead of candy?  Here is a super cute bunny idea to help your child feel better when they are down and out or have a boo-boo.

 

Materials:

• small towel or washcloth
• rubber band (or use clear plastic ponytail holders)
• thin ribbon
• google eyes
• small pom-pom (for the nose)
• craft glue

 Directions:

1. Fold the washcloth in half to form a triangle, then roll it from the top point to the long side and fold in half. 
2. Fold washcloth in half again so that the loose ends point back toward the original fold.  Place a rubber band around the washcloth about 2 inches from the fold. 
3. Cover the rubber band with ribbon and make a bow. 
4. Glue the eyes and pom-pom nose onto the bunny. 
5. When the glue is dry, either insert a small ice pack or small plastic bag (snack size) inside the bunny's tummy section, with instructions to add ice to the bag or place a frozen ice pack inside the boo-boo bunny.
6. Place in your child's Easter basket and you will be ready to give to your toddler to help get rid of ouchies when needed.