Taco Week - Day Two

Well for the second day in our week of tacos, I made a Tomato, Avocado and Black Bean Taco from the Weight Watchers in 20 Minutes cookbook, along with Knorr Mexican Rice mix. The kids were okay tending towards meh on the tacos, but they really liked the rice. I thought the tacos were pretty good, with the main bonus being that they were really quick to make. I'm not sure on the size of the tortillas. The recipe called for 6-inch tortillas, but there was way more bean filling than would fill 6 tortillas of that size. But, the extra will be good on a salad, I'll bet!

Tomato, Avocado, and Black Bean Taco

1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 Tablespoon taco seasoning (like that from Penzey's)
1 (15 1/2-oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 plum tomatoes (I used 2 regular ones from the garden!)
6 (6-inch) corn tortillas, warmed
2 cups finely chopped romaine lettuce
1/2 small Hass avocado, pitted, peeled, and diced
6 Tablespoons prepared salsa
1/4 cup light sour cream

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and taco seasoning and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the beans and the tomatoes, toss to combine.

Sprinkle the center of each tortilla with 1/3 cup of lettuce, 1/3 cup of beans, 1/6 of the avocado, 1 tablespoon of salsa, and 2 teaspoons of sour cream. Fold the tortilla to enclose the filling.

Serves 6

Taco Week - Day One

Tonight's taco was technically a casserole, but with lots of yummy taco flavors.

The kids really like this one, Deuce and Three ate nearly half of it on their own, they kept going back for seconds until I reminded them that we still had apple cider donuts for dessert.

Taco Crescent Bake

1 (8-oz) tube refrigerated reduced-fat crescent roll dough
2 cups crushed corn chips, divided
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 can tomato sauce
1 pk. taco seasoning (or use 1/4 cup taco seasoning from Penzeys)
1 cup light sour cream
1 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese

Unroll crescent dough into a rectangle; press onto the bottom and 1 in. up the sides of a greased 13x9 in. pan. Seal seams and perforations. Sprinkle with 1 cup of chips, set aside.

In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Stir in tomato sauce and seasonings; bring to a boil (I added some water as well.) Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Spoon over chips. Top with sour cream, cheese, and remaining chips. Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

Yield: in theory 8 servings, but probably less, if they had their way.

Adapted from 2005 Taste of Home Quick Cooking Annual Recipe book.

Apple Fest!

The lovely town of Long Grove, Illinois has an apple fest every year. With the kids at home wanting to do something different, we ventured out to Apple Fest.

One "must" at Apple Fest is eating apple cider donuts. The lines for the donuts are long, long, but worth the wait, because they are so yummy. Here Three and Jack O'Hearts are keeping themselves busy playing "Miss Mary Mack" on the wall while waiting for the line to move.


Little Four wants to play too, but she would rather dance to the music being sung at the nearby pavilion. We could hear the music everywhere we went, luckily the band was a generic cover band, and not playing something weird.

Nice Hair!

AT LAST!! Apple cider donuts. Yum! We found a sunny spot out of the wind, and enjoyed our treat.

They are covered in messy cinnamon-sugar, but no one minded.

We walked around a bit, stopping in some of the cute little stores, but decided it was time to go. Before we got to our car, it began to rain lightly, and we were treated to a beautiful double rainbow.


Deuce gave Four a pony ride back to the car, since she was a little sad that I didn't pony out the cash for the real pony rides!

Maybe next time.

Taco Week

This week is going to be Taco Week. Chicken tacos, Steak tacos, vegetarian tacos, pork tacos, bean tacos, and so on. Stay tuned, I'll even try (try - sigh) to post a picture and recipe or two.

Taco Week - Day One - Taco Crescent Casserole
Taco Week - Day Two - Tomato, Avocado and Black Bean Tacos
Taco Week - Day Three - Steak Tacos
Taco Week - Day Four - Tasty Turkey Tacos
Taco Week - Day Five - Must Have Mushroom & Cheese Tacos

So Long Friend...

I've been dreading writing this post - Our newest Heart - Astro - Passed away from suspected heat stroke a couple of weeks ago. Ace and Deuce were in New York visiting relatives when it happened. Not the best telephone call I've ever made.

I still feel guilty about it, he was struck down while I was taking him for a walk. I miss him too. The King of Hearts and I have been discussing a new dog, but I think it will have to wait for a while. The summer is getting too busy for me to try to get a new dog assimilated to our routines. So for now, we are enjoying Carmen. It is hard to tell if she misses Astro or not. She is clingier, and more affectionate for sure, but that could also be because Ace, Deuce, and Three are off at camp right now. The house is very empty with them gone.

So the summer ticks by.

The Great Ugly Knit Upcycle

Lil Blue Boo and Dharma Trading Co., are having an upcycle challenge to see how people can transform their UGLY knits into something lovely. My problem: I have two seriously ugly knits, and I just can't decide which one is the ugliest. This is where I'm counting on both of you to help me out. Here are the contenders:

Ugly knit #1 is an odd stamped looking pattern of - cuneiform? maybe? It's a little hard to tell. The colors are dark blue, navy blue, off white and white. It is really ghastly. The pros: There's a lot of this fabric, so I can make a dress in a larger size. Maybe. But maybe a little will go a long way.

Ugly knit fabric is an odd composition of brown fall... flowers. Yeah, because when I think of flowers, naturally the color BROWN comes to mind. Even I'm a better gardener that this! I'd like to know what the designer was thinking when they came up with this pattern. Seriously, brown flowers? The colors here are brown, dark brown, light brown, tan and white.

So folks these are the competing knits. Which one do you think takes the (boobie) prize as the ugliest? You can vote in the poll.

Getting my act together.

I spent the day sorting, filing, pitching and winnowing the books that fill my basement homeschool library. Partially because I CANT STAND the mess anymore, and also, to start pulling resources for our upcoming units. Mary Potter Kenyon states that "A personal home library is as important as access to a public library," and I totally agree. I love, love, love the fact that for (pretty much) any topic that strikes my kids' fancy (or mine, let's be honest here), I can jog down to the basement and pull at least one book that has something to do with the subject.

So while I'm on the subject of getting stuff ready, I'm also organizing my computer stuff as well. Our upcoming history unit is pre-history. Since most homeschool books on it are pretty sketchy on the subject, here is my growing website list. I'm making this list, in part, so that I can find these again as well.

1. Nova Evolution - Actually this might be all I need. There's loads here! There's an Evolution video series too. "Becoming Human" which our library has - score!

2. Becoming Human - This one is by the Institute of Human Origins (who knew there was such a thing??) It has lots of interactive things, plus lesson plans.

3. Human Origins - A really neat looking site by the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History. Pretty cool.

We'll also be doing a literature study of Boy of the Painted Cave. We've read this book before, and it is really a great read aloud. It gives lots of information of what life during that time before written history was like.