Ants weren't Gone

I've been busy eating crow and freaking out the last few days.  My last entry said my ants were gone. Yippee!  NO!  NEIT! NEIN! NOPE! NADA! H.E. TO THE DOUBLE L NO! 

My last post about the ants saying they were gone was a big fat lie.  Yes, I super cleaned my kitchen.  I used all the natural ingredients on Google & Pinterest I could read about. 

*I cleaned...and cleaned, and cleaned

*Bleached

*Squirted lemons since they don't like the smell 

*Used Dawn dish soap for the film it leaves behind. 

*I rubbed bay leaves all over my kitchen

*I chalked my kitchen until it looked like a crack house 

*I even put out Raid ant traps...  Misgrudgingly of course.  Hubby insisted these traps are all the same.  Ooooohhhhhh no! They most definitely aren't. 

Screaming and yelling at my hubby (poor hubby, I was hysterical) to get what I asked for and nothing else. He finally got the Terro Ant Liquid Baits.  I don't drive.  Sorry Hubby!

Gross!  Yes!  But, at least I'm not waking up to ants all over my kitchen but just around the 2 baits out of the 8 put around the kitchen.  

The Raid baits did nothing.  They are now getting more action than they did throughout the past 3 days. 

I'll keep you posted, but the take-a-way  is don't use the o'natural way.  Get the baits!

Argh! Why do colored pencils ALWAYS break!

I mean we invent computers, cure diseases, and are able to make soufflés.  Why can't we invent a pencil that won't break while it's sharpened!!!!!

Tastes like Mom's Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I've tried all the gourmet and expensive kinds of sauces from Batali's to Lidia's and Rao's but this has been my favorite go to sauce.  Nostalgic.  It reminds me of my youth and dinners with my family growing up.  Plus, I don't have to be stuck over a saucepan all day. Yeah!

Ants on the Kitchen Counter... Oh No!

This morning I awoke to a swarm of ants on my kitchen counter.  Yikes!  What to do?  My family doesn't like to use harsh chemicals if we don't have to... Hence, the photo of a lemon, chalk, and bay leaves.  I'm not a extremist, though.  If this doesn't work then the bleach and spray can of chemicals needs to come out!

Today, the first day, I washed the counters down well.  I also washed the walls and kitchen floor, too.   Then I used a damp paper towel and covered it with lemon juice.  Ants supposedly hate lemons & bay leaves.  Well, then I strategically placed bits of bay leaves around the counter.  Next will be chalk rubbed into all the edges and crevices. 

So, stay in touch and see how my journey to get rid of these horrid ants goes.  Oh my!

Pesky Mosquito Bites

    If you're like me and you are plagued with mosquito bites during the summer. You'll want to consider reading this post.  The constant itching and red splotches over your body make summer very uncomfortable.  I go through a tube of After Bite every 3 weeks or so to help relieve the itching.  

   The other week I thought if an aspirin helps the redness in zits it may help these bites.  So, I dissolved one tablet in a couple of drops of water and placed the granules on the bite.  But this left too much leftover aspirin. 

   Instead, I found it works best to run water over the aspirin and then rub it on the bite.

My red and itchy mosquito bite.

Aspirin granules on bite.  Continue to rub aspirin onto bite with a wet finger until it is dissolved.

My bite an hour later.  I haven't had to reapply the aspirin to any of my bites. 

I'm doing a happy dance now that I can enjoy the summer!

Summer Nectarine Breakfast

So, looking for something new to eat for breakfast?  I guess there's a reason why they say necessity is the mother of invention.  

Having only these few ingredients at hand, I think I found a new special breakfast treat.  Fruit "pie" for breakfast.  No pie crust.  Use your leftover bread as the crust instead.

Broil it one knotch down from broiler with:

Fruit which is sprinkled with brown sugar and a tiny pat of butter. 

Bread with butter 

Broil 2 minutes 

Then sprinkle bread & fruit with cinnamon and put bread on plate.  I didn't want the cinnamon to burn so this is why I put the cinnamon on both bread and fruit in the middle of making it. Now put the fruit back into the broiler and finish until soft.  My nectarine took 4 more minutes. 

Little Cutie-Pie likes cream cheese so why not? 

Mine was classic and I dipped the bread in the fruit juice before assembling the "pie."

As you can see, it turned out beautiful and it also tastes great.  The extra bonus is that it smells like fruit pie in your house.  Yum!

Mommy' finished breakfast

Little Cutie-Pie's fruit "pie" breakfast

Lightly broil one knotch down from top for two minutes then sprinkle with cinnamon and take rolls/bread and plate them.  Place fruit back under broiler. 

After 2 minutes under broiler

Fruit broiled for 6 minutes

Yummy fruit juice from broiler

Ingredients:

Fruit

Brown Sugar

Butter

Bread/Rolls

Cinnamon

**Optional, Cream Cheese

Broiler

Prep & Broil Time: approximately 10 minutes

Leftover Ground Beef Tacos made into Taco Pasta

I'm writing this from my phone app for the first time, so I apologize if there are a lot of mistakes.  I'm, also, making dinner as I type.  

So, you're here because you're curious about how I used my taco leftovers.  Perhaps a taco omelette?  No. Maybe tacos part deux?  No.  Well, I'll tell you... Taco Pasta!  Two of my favorite dishes mashed together to make one yummy leftover dinner.  I hope it ends up as tasty as it sounds!

Here's a lovely picture of my cold beef taco.  My gourmet version from your normal fast 30 minute dinner.  You know, when we just dump the pre-pack mix and sauce and throw on the toppings. Yesterday's late afternoon was used to cut up red, green, and jalapeño peppers, a white onion, plum tomatoes, cilantro, and a juicy lime.  All to accomplish the above picture.  The beef taco and homemade salsa/ pico de gallo. Yum!

To my chagrin, the avocados weren't ripe enough to use so I bought the closest to homemade I could.  It was tasty. It didn't have too much garlic which ruins most "freshly" packaged Mexican items. This guacamole had all the promise of homemade, but it had that chemical citrus taste of the asorbic acid. Boo!  Cutie-pie enjoyed it so that was good. 

1.   On goes the water for the pasta.  We like it al dente. 

2. Warm up the taco mixture in microwave

4. Chop the fresh cilantro. It's optional to use lettuce so chop that now if you'd like.

5.  Crush some Toritilla chips and/or tacos. 

6.  As you can see, the meat, fresh veggies, and tomatoes make a nice broth.  If I had bought chicken broth I'd use a little of it in this recipe and I'd warm it up in with the meat in the microwave. 

7.  Let my pasta (mixed with taco mixture) sit a bit.  I do around 5-10 minutes.  My logic is the same as cooked meat. It lets all the juices and flavor settle into to pasta dish. 

Yummy if I do say so myself. My tab for these two dinners was around $30. This did not include the chicken broth or the jarred salsa ( to add to the meat and fresh veggies & fresh pico de gallo.).   Yes a bit pricy but for a 3 person family with 2 lbs of ground beef but the fresh taste is worth it and 

Little  Cutie-pie loves to help out in the kitchen more and more. He's 6 so this is a great dinner for him "make."  He builds his tacos and now he can "build" his pasta, too

Of course, The Little One does not take the cilantro. Oh well, maybe next time?  He says, "my plate, your plate, Mommy."  LOL!

Enjoy!

Easter Eggs & Fun Pancakes

Oliver's Super Hero

"Spark"

Rainbow Jello Cups Birthday Treat

Rainbow Jello Cups

So what does one do when you have a classroom of peanut allergy kids… How about a cup of whipped cream and jello?  Who doesn't like the colorful sugary treat?  Looks beautiful but be warned,  it'll shimmy away a whole day to create this bright and cheery treat.  It took me from 9:30am -6:00pm without a break.

Items needed:

29 Cups = 9 fl oz plastic cups

Jello in rainbow colors

3 (3oz boxes) Cherry Red = 4 cups both cream layer and jello layer

3 (3oz boxes) Orange 4 cups both cream layer and jello layer

3 (3oz boxes) Lemon Yellow = 4 cups both cream layer and jello layer

3 (3oz boxes) Lime Green = 3 cups both cream layer and jello layer

3 (3oz boxes) Berry Blue =3 cups both cream layer and jello layer

3 (3oz boxes) Berry Blue + Black Cherry = Purple =3 cups both cream layer and jello layer

 2 Quarts Heavy Cream

Powder Sugar

Patience & 9 hours

*Optional*

Vanilla Pudding Jello Mix

Granulated Sugar

Viola.  Yum.

I made my cups for my little kindergartener.  He needed 24 cups so I made extra just in case of a mess.  29 total rainbow cups were made in 8-1/2 hours.  To say it was time consuming is an understatement.  However, it went over well and the kids with peanut allergies could eat them, too.  That made the Cutie-Pie happy and me.  It was nice and a privilege that the peanut allergy kids' parents allowed their kids to enjoy the treat.

1.  In a bowl mix the 2 boxes Blue Berry + 2 boxes Black Cherry jello to make the color PURPLE.  Separate 3 heaping TBLS of the mix into a smaller bowl.  Then put 2 heaping TBLS into a bag for a rainy day.  (Each 3 oz jello box = 6 TBLS of mix) This makes the PURPLE layers equal to the other bottom colors in flavor.

2.  Boil 2/3 Cup water and then add 3 TBLS Jello (from small bowl)  Mix and set aside for 20 minutes.

3.  Make homemade whip cream.   (1 pint heavy cream =  2 TBLS of powder sugar)  I normally make my whip cream with a 1/2 pint cream + 1 tbls powder sugar + 1 capful vanilla  + 1 tbls white sugar.  This recipe was too sweet.    With a classroom of kids I did not use vanilla extract.  THE POWDER SUGAR IS TO KEEP THE WHIP CREAM STABLE.  You can also add 1 tsp of vanilla pudding if you want to keep the vanilla flavor.  Not a problem if you don't want to make homemade whip cream, the original recipe uses cool whip.  Crazy me, I used a hand mixer since mine broke at Christmas time making cookies.  It took me 20 minutes to whip each quart of heavy cream.  If you whip 2 quarts of cream together, use an extra large bowl.

4.  Pour cooled PURPLE JELLO liquid into 4 C measuring cup.  Add 1/3 cup tap water.  Mix thoroughly then add whipped cream until you reach 3 cups.  Mixture should be slightly runny to pour into your cups.

5.  Refrigerate cream for 30 minutes

6.  Rinse out measuring cups.  Make PURPLE jello mixture.  Boil 2 cups water and pour into large bowl with jello.  Stir.  Let cool for 40 min.  Pour into 4 C measuring cup.  Add enough tap water to make 3 cups jello mixture.  Stir.  The tap water cools down the liquid enough to pour into cups.  DO NOT RUSH THE COOLING PART.  You'll have a layer of the cream mixture sitting on top of your jello layer… won't be pretty!

7.  Refrigerate jello layer 20 minutes

8.  Repeat steps 2-5 for all colors.

9.  Rinse out measuring cups and start BLUE whipped cream layer.   Boil 2/3 C water add 3 TBLS cool 20 min.  Add 1/3 C tap water stir.  Move to larger measuring cup (I do this because mine's plastic) add whipped cream.  Continue until you reach the color YELLOW and then make 4 cups.  (1/3 C water +1 TBLS jello = 1 Cup tinted cream mix)

10.  I realize the jello mix does not increase with the increase amount of water for colors: YELLOW, ORANGE, AND RED which use 4 cups of the jello liquid.  This is fine.  Boil 2 cups water pour into bowl with jello mix.  Cool for 40 minutes.  Add tap water until it measures 4 cups.  If you want, add an extra box to these colors.  I did not taste a difference in flavor with the same 3 boxes.

11.  Keep refrigerated and covered after all the layers have cooled.  I used mine the next day.  

12.  I also cleaned out fridge and put fresh baking soda boxes into fridge the day before I made the cups.  I didn't want the cups to smell of anything except yummy fruit flavors.  It worked.  Also, I made sure the bottom of refrigerator was level by testing water a few cups before I put all 29 cups in.

Good luck and enjoy!  

Christmas Cookie Life Saver

My Favorite Item of the Week:

During Christmas I made a ton of cookies for the family and for hubby's work.  These pre-cut parchment baking sheets saved me so much time.  No more guessing how big to cut each sheet.  Yes, the sheets were a tad big but all I needed to do is keep them folded in quarters (as packaged) and then cut 3/8 off along the edges.  Viola!  Genius.  Thank you Reynolds for making my holiday baking marathon less stressful than it already was!