Ohhh, Louisiana…How I Love Ya…

I had to make a too long road trip today from my home in northern Louisiana to the very south end of Louisiana for a work function. Despite the fact that driving six hours is sheer torture, I always get a kick out of the incredibly weird stuff I see on the highways and back-roads of my home state. Today, I observed the following:

  • An elderly man rollerblading down I-49
  • A sign warning drivers: “Prison in Area: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers!” Because, of course, we Louisianans need reminding that some hitchhikers may be dangerous…like for real, ya’ll.
  • At least six different roadside stands called “House of Meat, ” half of which offered fresh turtle meat! Yummers.
  • A hand-painted (poorly) sandwich board manifesto that started with “Every village has an idiot…;” I could not read the rest, or I would have probably run off the road. This six-foot tall manifesto was propped against a pole outside a service station, next to a hound dog also tied to the pole.

Yep, I love living in the weird capitol of the nation.

My Kids are a Science Experiment

I have a theory about my kids and germs.

My kids always manage to contract some type of bizarre, hyper-intelligent germs that lie in wait until the most inconvenient moment possible. For example, I swear that every ear infection they’ve ever had presented itself right about 5:05 p.m. on a Friday night. What better time to realize we need to see the doctor than right after his office closes?

Right before my very first, big business trip, they both came down with swine flu…which was also not one hour after my husband left on a week-long business trip of his own.

This year, they got the regular flu on the first day of Christmas break, and that lasted through every last day of our vacation.

The past week has been a flurry of activity, and work has been kicking my rear up one side and down the other. My poor husband has plenty of his own work stuff going on, and I have to go out of town for business tomorrow.

You know what that means, right? Yes-sir-ee-bob. My youngest came down with the cough, sniffles and fever last night.

I’d bang my head on the keyboard, but I don’t need to add a broken laptop to mix.

Good Weather + Ambitious Husband = Victory for ME!!!!

My husband has been busy this weekend. In an effort to stop me and the kids from slipping and sliding in the mud between our deck and the cars, he decided to recycle some paving stones the previous owners of our house left behind.

As you can see, this is a work in progress. He laid out a path from the driveway to the deck, and then another from the deck to the detached garage. He has been hard at work, digging out the squares, sinking the pavers, and leveling the whole mess off.

I helped too…that is, I kept him supplied with cocktails and tried to look far too delicate to do any heavy lifting.

Hopefully, he’ll finish this section soon, but in the meantime, I can get to my car now without my heels sinking into two inches of mud. For these small things, I am grateful.

Alarm Clocks are Not Necessarily the Spawn of Satan

It doesn’t matter how early I go to bed, how much sleep I get, or how good the sleep in question was.

I still take it as a deeply personal and intentional insult when I wake up to an alarm clock. At 6:01 a.m., I firmly believe that the alarm clock is a self-righteous, annoying  spawn of Satan, who lives and breathes to tick me off.

I am seriously not a morning person. I thought I would outgrow this after high school. Then I hoped I’d out grow it after college. I REALLY hoped it would get better once Demon Baby slept through the night. I REALLY, REALLY hoped I’d get used to it when I went back to work.

But, alas, I now have to chalk this one up to genetics, nature or some voodoo hex I’ve yet to discover.

In the meantime, my family will just have to maintain the morning safety perimeter until I’ve had my Diet Coke, lest they ask for breakfast too soon and draw back a nub.

Spaghetti Casserole for a Faux Snow Day

Today is yet another Louisiana “snow day.” Unlike last week, when we had an actual real snow day, today was once again a day when school was cancelled under a threat of mythical snow that never materialized. I guess the real snow we had on Friday made everyone a little overly optimistic. I am not complaining, however. I’ve managed to tackle my sentient laundry pile, bake some bread and brownies from scratch, and talk to my mom for longer than five minutes at a time.

Work has been so busy lately that our meals, though homemade, have been the thrown-together variety. Yes, I am the mom who served her family French toast and sausage for dinner last night…sue me.

When I do actually have longer than thirty minutes to feed the heathens, I try and make food we all can agree on, and Spaghetti Casserole certainly fits the bill. Want to satisfy three hungry, excessively picky guys? Here’s what you need:

Spaghetti Casserole

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Servings: 0
Notes

Notes

-1 pound lean ground beef
-1-1/2 cups of your favorite pasta/spaghetti sauce
-a small onion
-8 ounces of spaghetti noodles
-1 can cream of mushroom soup
-2 cloves garlic
-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (yes, I cheated and used the Velveeta crumbles…I was feeling especially lazy)
-1/2 cup water
-2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
-wine of your choice
To get started, pour yourself a glass of wine…and celebrate the fact that it's Tuesday, five o-clock, sunny outside, the Mardi Gras season or whatever other reason you can think up:
While you are at it, get a large pot of water boiling to cook the spaghetti noodles in. Next, chop up the onion:
In a large skillet over med-high heat, brown the ground beef and onion together, stirring occasionally:
While the meat is browning, chop up the garlic cloves, have a sip of wine, and crank up the music:
Once the ground beef is browned, add the garlic to the skillet and cook for a minute or two:
In the meantime, cook the spaghetti noodles according to the package directions:
While the noodles are cooking, add the cream of mushroom soup, ½ cup of water and 1-1/2 cups of the pasta sauce to meat mixture:
Reduce the heat to low, stir and simmer until the beef mixture is well-combined and looks like this:
By now, the spaghetti noodles should be about done. Drain them and add them to the skillet with the beef mixture, stirring gently to combine:
Pour the spaghetti mixture into a lightly greased 9x13-inch casserole dish, and spread it around evenly. Sprinkle casserole with both the cheddar and parmesan cheeses:
Bake the casserole at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until bubbly.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
As you can see from the top picture, I just served it with green beans, garlic bread and called it a done deal. Sure, the heathens complained about the green beans, but I did get super-mom credit for the casserole.

That’s about all a girl can ask for, I guess.

Recycling K-Cups and Plywood into Seed-Starting Trays

A few days ago, I posted about how my husband figured our coffee K-Cups were the perfect size for starting seeds. In an effort to recycle these plastic cups, as well as the plywood scraps from our Halloween decorations, he created some impromptu trays for starting seeds. I was really impressed with what he was able to throw together, using only materials he recycled from other projects…and it gave me a good excuse to drink more coffee while I ogled him with the power tools. All we needed for this project were the K-Cups, plywood scraps, a pencil, an electric drill and a jigsaw or circular saw. We also ended up using some screws we had leftover from Halloween as well.

To get started, my husband first laid out some of our empty K-cups onto a plywood scrap in order to try and see what the best way to arrange the cups was. We wanted to maximize the use of the plywood scraps, while still giving enough room for plants to actually grow. Also, he wanted the trays to be smaller and more maneuverable, so that we could easily move them around as needed:

Once he had the design, I traced the base of the cups onto the plywood, and he drilled holes using his 1-1/2 inch drill bit:

Next, he used his jigsaw (though admittedly a circular saw would have worked too), and trimmed down the plywood scrap into a rectangle:

We used this first rectangle as a template, and quickly traced it repeatedly over our larger plywood scraps, so that we could speed up the process:

Once he had cut out the rectangles, my husband free-handed a design for legs, so that the trays would be supported and allow the K-Cups to drain well when watered. We cut out two for every rectangle:

In the meantime, I put my oldest heathen to work cleaning out all our collected K-cups and punching drainage holes in the bottom…because why have kids if you can’t make them do a little manual labor every once in a while?

Finally, my husband screwed the legs onto the rectangle, and the kids dropped in the K-Cups:

Overall, we made nearly a dozen trays in a very short amount of time, while using only materials we had on-hand. In our slow efforts to be more environmentally conscious, we’ve accomplished two goals with this project: we found a way to recycle and repurpose some things, and we are even more motivated to get our garden going this year.

As long as I keep my green-thumb-of-death contained, this should be a good year…

Whimpering Under My Desk

Work is so busy lately that I am amazed my brain has not degraded into Swiss cheese. By the time I get home at night, I am ready to fall down.

Laundry is threatening to overtake my office, dinner needs cooking and my home in general could benefit from a good wipe-down.

I know this too shall pass, but I need to get my second wind soon…otherwise the few functioning brain cells I have left may decide to go on strike.

Experimentation, Whiskey and Wednesday Nights

I think I may have negotiated a peace treaty between my family and sweet potatoes.

As you may have read, I live in a land of picky eaters, and while my heathens will never touch sweet potatoes anyway, my husband also avoids them at all costs…unless they are coated in enough sugar, butter and spices to trick his picky palate.

Last week, J came over for a little mid-week get-together. We planned to hang out, toss some food on the grill and celebrate…even if we were just celebrating the fact that it was Wednesday and we hadn’t lost our minds yet. J brought the whiskey, and I brought the food. Unfortunately, I realized far too late that I was lacking in side dishes. When I got home from work, I discovered that I at least had two forgotten sweet potatoes hanging out in my pantry; subsequently, I was determined to fashion something out of them in one hour or less. I fell back on my classic strategy, and assumed that roasting any type of vegetable is my best bet. Thus, roasted sweet potatoes became reality. This idea was an experiment and a risk, and both my husband and J looked at me like I had lost my dang mind, while secretly planning to poison them both.

Here is how it started:

I simply had two large sweet potatoes, some extra virgin olive oil and some kosher salt. I peeled the potatoes, then diced them to what my cocktail-laden mind considered uniform size:

Did I mention spatial reasoning is not my strong suit? Anyway, I tossed these potatoes in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil:

And liberally sprinkled them with kosher salt:

I hear your skepticism. This is Louisiana, sugar. Salt is a food group. Moving on…I put these potatoes in a 375 degree oven, and tossed them about every 20 minutes or so. I kept a careful watch, because I was aiming for this:

See that golden-browned section of happiness? I kept at it until my whole pan of potatoes resembled this little nugget for perfection. This probably took 45 minutes to 1 hour, but the end result was absolutely beautiful. Though J and my husband looked absolutely pained when they tried these potatoes, they both exclaimed with surprise that this experiment was a shocking and unexpected success. Basically, we accomplished the flavor and texture of sweet potato fries, without the resultant deep-fried, health disaster.

Even if you have disliked sweet potatoes up to this point, I urge you to try them this way. I promise, it’s dang tasty.

And nothing beats rubbing in a little, “see, I was right” on occasion.