Cookies for a Cause

How would you feel if you received a box of fresh cookies at your doorstep?

You can be a part of a great cause by asking Kenmore to send a dozen cookies to a soldier away from home.  What’s the cost to you? It’s free.  Yep, FREE!

Here’s how it’s done:
1. Log on to Facebook.com/Kenmore and "Like" them
2. Click on the button that says SEND A DOZEN COOKIES FOR ME
3. Pick a message to go with your dozen.
4. Feel good that you are saying thanks in a unique way.
5. Tell as many people as you can that giving back is as simple as a few clicks! And did I mention it's FREE?

The Un-Sloppiest Joe

Have I mentioned how 90’s Radio on Pandora ROCKS?

For years I’ve been craving Sloppy Joes; and the reason why I hadn’t made them before is that MigL doesn’t like them…get this…because they’re messy.  I just about died laughing the first time I heard this.  Seriously?! But you’re taking out all of the fun from eating a Sloppy Joe!  I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but he is the neatest eater I’ve ever met.  I’d bet he’d eat out of a divided plate if I gave him one and it’d have to be a green one, of course, because it’s his favorite color.  Except this one is too lime green and I’m sure he’d prefer one that was more of a hunter green or forest green.

I was raking my brain tonight trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  Lately I’ve been trying to use up the ingredients that I already have in my house to save money as opposed to finding a recipe a few days in advance and going to the grocery store specifically to buy those ingredients on the recipe – not that that’s a bad thing to do, I just some how don’t use up all of the extra ingredients, especially if I overbuy veggies, and then I’m left with an handful of untouched veggies.  OR I’ll buy the ingredients for my recipe and then completely forget that I ever had said recipe.  Poor spoiled veggies; and then I have to look for another recipe to use the ingredients I’ve just bought.

So tonight, I wanted to find a recipe for which I already had my ingredients.  Ground beef, carrots and celery.  What’s a girl to do?  I found recipes but none really caught my eye until I fell upon this Sloppy Joes recipe.  It’s A-mazing.  You should DEFINITELY try this one.  What a lifesaver!  I definitely plan making this one more often!

The reason why I call this the un-sloppiest Joe is that I didn’t have any bread.  What? No bread?  How do you have a Sloppy Joe without bread?  Yes, I know, it’s preposterous and I should probably be banned from the kitchen forevermore for even saying this. 

You see, I ran out of sliced bread yesterday as I sadly cherished the last of the Thanksgiving turkey sandwich I’d had for dinner (leftover turkey sandwiches is probably one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving).  So, because I hadn’t planned ahead, I was left without bread.  In looking at the recipe below, I thought about pairing it with some tortillas and make some sort of taco style Sloppy Joe burritos.  But I nixed that idea almost immediately.  Wait a minute – I have potatoes!  I’d seen a Shepard’s pie recipe in my quest to find tonight’s dinner and thought I could mesh those ideas together.  I figured potatoes are fairly filling and the last I remember eating Sloppy Joes they were pretty filling as well.  So why not pair these two filling foods together?

So off I went, merrily skipping my way through the kitchen.  A little of this, a little of that.  When there were 10 minutes left of cooking, I scrubbed two large potatoes, poked holes in them, wrapped them in Saran wrap and popped them in the microwave for 7 minutes (a great timesaver I’ll always remember from my awesome mother-in-law) – and voila, semi-instant baked potato!  Add some Sloppy Joe mix to your potato and you’ve got a somewhat messy-less dinner!  No messy hands or plops of Joe anywhere!

Sloppy Joes

Yield: 12 servings
Serving size: 1 sandwich
WW PointsPlus: 5

Ingredients
3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
3/4 pound ground round
2 cups no-salt-added tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
12 (1 1/2-ounce) rolls, split

Directions
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add first 3 ingredients; cook until beef is browned, stirring to crumble. Stir in tomato sauce and next 8 ingredients (tomato sauce through black pepper); reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Spoon 1/4 cup beef mixture over bottom half of each bun. Cover with top halves.

Latin Cook’s notes:
I didn’t have any bell peppers, tomato paste or bread and used Ragu sauce instead of the tomato sauce.  It still turned out incredibly amazing.  I’m sure it would turn out equally as great if you chose to use soy crumbles instead of ground beef.  Aww, what the heck – I dare ya!

On a different note, I went to visit a my co-worker in the hospital tonight.  It broke my heart when she told me this afternoon she’d been in the hospital since Friday night with some serious health issues.  I’ve been worried about her for a while – so I ask that you please pray for her and her family.

What Thanksgiving Means to Me

Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, I decided to jot down some of the things I’m thankful for:

• Having a place to come home to that keeps me warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
• Being able to put food on the table even if it’s as simple as possible.
• I can keep in touch with family even through means of Facebook
• Being able to deepen my friendships with people I care most about
• I can spend some time with my friends and enjoy each others company
• Living in a beautiful place in which I don’t have to deal with terrible city traffic, just tourists
• Learning skills that will help me and my family live a healthful eating lifestyle
• Peace and comfort from God even though life has thrown lots of curve balls
• Growing older with my hubby

I hope you have a incredible Thanksgiving Day spending time with those you love the most and eating to your heart’s content!

Stuffed Peppers with Wild Rice

When I came home from work I was in a complete mood for crispy oven-baked breaded chicken drumsticks.  Ha, that’s a mouthful!  I’ve never made it before, but out of nowhere I just felt the urge for some good finger-lickin’ food.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any chicken at all – I was totally bummed about that.  I didn’t want to leave the house for the rest of the evening because it was too cold!  Why would I leave my warm, comfy home for windy 50 degree weather?  No thanks.  I thought about making fajitas, but I only had ground beef; and the thought of having ground beef with fajitas was completely unappealing.  Then MigL came up with the bright idea which resulted in tonight’s dinner.  “How about stuffed peppers?”  I haven’t made these in at least three years, so I decided, why not?  I had all of the ingredients I needed.  These turned out way better than when I made them the first time!

Now I’m looking forward to some much needed rest and a day off tomorrow and then it’s Thanksgiving time!

 

 

Stuffed Peppers with Wild Rice

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 cup diced tomatoes (or 1 can of Rotel)
2 cups tomato sauce
1 tablespoon cumin
1 cup wild rice
1 cup white rice
4 green bell peppers, large
1 1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated

Directions
Cook the wild rice.  Cook the white rice.  Set aside.  Brown the beef in a skillet.  Drain off any excess fat.  Add the onion and garlic.  Cook until just soft.  Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce and cumin.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 15-20 minutes.  Cut the tops off the peppers.  Remove any seeds.  Place in boiling water for 3 minutes.  Drain.  Add the two rices to the meat mixture.  Fill the peppers with the mix.  Place the peppers in a baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Top with the cheese and bake for 15 minutes longer.  Serve warm.

Latin Cook’s note
I didn’t add any garlic or cumin this time around since I felt kind of lazy;  however the dish still turned out pretty well despite the omitted step.  I mixed the tomato sauce in the mix right before I added the cheese and it turned out nice and moist.

Que Frio! (So Cold!)

I know it’s going to be a chilly night because my nose gets unusually cold whenever we have cold weather.  I hear it’s supposed to snow in Angwin, about 30 minutes from Napa.  I suppose my nose knows.  It reminds me of my mom’s nose, partly because I have her nose, but also because every time it got cold at our house (we didn’t have heating or AC) she was always very cold mostly during the winter and her nose was extremely cold, like ice.  My dad and I used to joke around with her saying “está nevando” (it’s snowing) only because we never got as cold as she did and she’d have to put on several layers of clothes, a big winter coat and warm socks just to get warm.  At home, in Southern California, I remember that my nose and feet got cold – and whenever my feet stayed incredibly cold throughout the night, even if I had thick socks on, there was frost the next morning.  It never failed.
Don’t you think somebody should invent a “nose warmer”?  Perhaps it should be me!

This is probably my worst rendition ever of what I’m envisioning, but it’d be like a mask, except it’d be fuzzy solely to keep your nose warm!  It’d have holes at the bottom so that your nose wouldn’t get nose claustrophobia (as I sometimes get when I’m underneath the covers and feel like I can’t breathe and have to instantly break for air).  And just like a mask, you’d have individual adjustable strings to wrap around your ears.  Genius, eh?  I could call it, “Nuzzie”, the warm fuzzy for your nose!  I can see the infomercials now..”but wait, THERE’S MORE!  If you order within the next 15 minutes, you’ll get a second Nuzzie for half off!  We’ll even throw in a fuzzy hat!”
I really enjoy listening to the rain at night with the window slightly cracked to bring in a bit of fresh rainy air.  It really does feel like November.  Just this week we had 85 degree weather and now it’s about 48 degrees.  Welcome to California. 
I’m off to make some hot chocolate and take a bite out of some brownies that I made last night while listening to the trickles of rain.  Happy Friday!