Slow Cooker Taco Soup

Slow Cooker Taco Soup 

I modified this slightly from a recipe I found years ago somewhere on the Interwebz. Unfortunately I don't have the original source, but I thank whomever it was... we make this soup OFTEN! It freezes really well in either Ziploc bags or plastic bowls. It is a GREAT make-ahead meal for camping as well!

    * 1 lb ground beef 

    * 1 onion, roughly chopped  

    * 1 pkg ranch-style dressing mix  (or equivalent amount of homemade mix)

    * 1 pkg taco seasoning mix  (or equivalent amount of homemade mix)

    * 2 cans diced tomatoes w/ green chilies (undrained)

    * 1 can pinto beans 

    * 1 can black beans 

    * 1 can kidney beans - or another can of either pinto or black beans (I don't like kidney beans!)

    * 1 can corn (regular or cream style) OR 2 cups frozen corn 

    * 2 cans of water (use the bean cans; equal to 4 cups)

    * grated cheese, sour cream, and/or cilantro for garnish 

    * tortilla chips 

Brown the ground beef and drain as much fat as possible. Return it to the pan with the chopped onion over medium low heat. Stir in the two seasoning packets. Cook just a little longer until the onion is softened.

Transfer the beef mixture to a slow cooker and add the beans, corn, tomatoes/green chilies, and water. Cook on LOW for 4 - 6 hours (depending on your slow cooker).

Garnish as desired when serving.

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Meal Plan 7/28 - 8/3, 2014

Monday: Grilled sticky coconut chicken, rice, green salad.  This is a new recipe. I am using Costco frozen boneless/skinless breasts and started marinating them Sunday morning. I am going to cook the rice with the leftover canned coconut milk (about 1 cup) along with my usual homemade chicken broth. There should be some leftovers to make a couple of school day lunches for the freezer.

Tuesday: Cream cheese chicken enchiladas, Mexican rice, green salad. Half of the enchiladas will go in the freezer for a later meal.

Wednesday: I have an Association board meeting (I'm now Vice President, ye gads) and we will have dinner at the meeting. Mr. Mamie and GrandmaT will have baked spaghetti that was portioned off from an earlier meal this summer, put in a  casserole dish, and frozen just for an evening like this!

Thursday: Either eat out or get a pizza from the Costco food court to bring home. We have a lot of errands and appointments on this day.

Friday: Vicki's turkey burgers (my stepmama's recipe, yum!) and oven fries. Just put all the burger  recipe ingredients in a bowl and mix together with your hands (Mr. Mamie does that for me). For the burgers, we use ground turkey from Costco, which is usually packaged in around 1.25 pound portions. We follow the recipe and just use whatever the amount of ground turkey is in one package, and we make SIX patties. Make sure to put a divot in the middle of the patty so it doesn't turn into a ball on the grill! Then FREEZE the patties on parchment paper, and once frozen completely put them into a gallon Ziploc.  We just take out the patties and grill from frozen - works GREAT.

Saturday: Goulash and green salad. Half of the goulash will be frozen as a casserole for a later meal.

Sunday: Breakfast for dinner, specifics yet to be determined. That is the usual procedure here on Sundays.

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Meal Plan 7/21 - 7/27, 2014

More than one person has asked if I would ever blog again, especially meal plans.  I'll try to get back in the habit!

Here was last week's plan:

Monday: Refrigerated cheese tortellini and marinara sauce from Costco. Their jarred marinara sauce is GOOD! Green salad on the side.

Tuesday: Tacos using a "soft taco kit" I got as a present from a kid during Teacher Appreciation Week in May (my love of tacos is well-known in my classroom).

Wednesday: Frozen chicken patties (from Costco) as sandwiches on Kaiser rolls with Annie's Organic Shells and Cheese and green salad on the side.

Thursday: Spicy garlic lime chicken on the grill, lime rice, corn/black bean/Ro-tel [drain/rinse one can black beans, drain one can corn, dump into pan with one can Ro-tel tomatoes and heat], green salad. We used Costco frozen boneless/skinless chicken breasts. Mr. Mamie and I ate ours with the chicken chopped up and combined with the other stuff in corn tortillas as tacos.  I put several small containers of chopped chicken/rice/beans-corn-toms in the freezer to use on big green salads as school lunches.

Friday: Haunani's French bread pizza, green salad. I've known Haunani since I was 12 years old... I love that we can trade blog recipes in our 40s! ;)

Saturday: Swedish meatballs using frozen Costco meatballs and a sauce I have modified from a few different recipes, served over egg noodles; green salad on the side.

Sunday: Sausage biscuits and Mamie's skillet potatoes.  The leftover sausage biscuits are being put in the freezer for school day breakfasts.  We are out of both lettuce and most fruit, so there wasn't much of a "healthy" element to this dinner! Time to go grocery chopping, clearly.

 ~Mamie
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Swedish Meatballs

I hate the process of making meatballs - it's so gross, and then I never want to eat the meatballs after going through the ickiness of making them. So I buy the big bag of Italian seasoned frozen meatballs at Costco and use them for anything meatball-related. This seems to work fine, so I see no reason to change! ;)

I've tried a few different recipes for Swedish meatballs, and finally came up with this:

Meatballs: Just use the Costco ones! About 20 - 24 oz of meatballs by weight. Bake them in the oven as directed while you're making the sauce.

Noodles: 8 oz of dry egg noodles, cooked. Boil noodles once you have added the meatballs to the sauce. The meatball and sauce  flavors will "marry" while the noodles are cooking.

Sauce:

• 2 cups beef broth
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 Tbl soy sauce
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground dried rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1-1/2 tsp basil

1. Whisk flour into milk, creating a slurry
2. Combine flour/milk mixture, soy sauce, and beef broth in a large saucepan, whisk together.
3. Add the sour cream to saucepan, whisk and cook on medium for a couple of minutes.
4. Add all spices to saucepan, whisk to combine.
5. Cook sauce on low-medium until thickened, whack/stir occasionally.
6. Add meatballs to sauce and let them simmer while noodles are boiling.
7. Drain noodles and return to pot; poor sauce/meatballs on noodles and stir gently to combine.

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Mamie's Skillet Potatoes

Back in about 1991 I lived in an apartment located on the corner of Genesee Avenue and Fez Street in the "Golden Triangle" area near UC San Diego. My roommate was a delightful young man from my social group with whom I am still in touch with via Facebook. Since his ascension to membership in the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles he is now referred to jokingly as "Local Celebrity ___________ ___________ " which cracks me up every time.

ANYWAY, Local Celebrity as we'll call him, made delicious breakfast potatoes.  I have continued making the same basic style of potatoes for the last 20+ years. This is how I do it:

Scrub several potatoes russet potatoes and pierce with a fork a couple of times. bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or so. Remove from oven and cut in half length-wise to cool.

Once cool, cut potatoes into largish chunks. Finely dice a small onion and a couple of cloves of garlic.

I use a large cast iron skillet (yes, on my glass cook top!) and some bacon grease (which I save in the fridge); you can use whatever skillet and oil you have/prefer. Sauté the onion and garlic lightly in the hot grease/oil.

Add potatoes; stir by "flipping" so you don't mash up the potatoes a whole bunch. Get the onion/garlic distributed through the potatoes.  Season with fresh-ground salt and pepper, then sprinkle  some ground cumin on the potatoes to taste.  Flip the potatoes around and season again.

Let cook on low for 10 minutes or so, then sprinkle with grated sharp cheddar cheese.  Let the cheese just melt down into the potatoes for a few minutes, and then devour the deliciousness!


~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Review - The Circle (Dave Eggars)

The Circle by Dave Eggers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So glad I'm finished with this one, because it has invaded my dreams every night for over a week. In describing it to my husband when I was about 1/4 of the through I used the phrase "totalitarian utopia" - a phrase which is seemingly oxymoronic but in reality os totally accurate. Later in the book almost the very same combination of words is used to describe what will occur upon "completion" of The Circle, a time in which the "criminality of privacy" will become the norm. The book is neither subtle nor even terribly clever in presenting its views, and the writing itself isn't necessarily stellar (Eggars is certainly capable of better), but - BUT, the novel's reflection of the direction in which our society is moving, and its prescience in drawing a picture of the future should Google, I mean THE CIRCLE, achieve "completion" is terrifying.

View all my reviews ~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Easter Sunday Hike 2013

On Easter Sunday morning we hiked the Confluence View trail from the lava cliffs down to the Virgin River. Part of the trail goes through the old city dump, which was interesting! We checked the iPhone for nearby geocaches but didn't really hunt for any. The weather was perfect - low 70s, sunny, the lightest of breezes.  The dogs were able to be off-leash and were sooooooo happy! They got in the river, got dirty and muddy, climbed rocks, chased lizards, and generally had a great time.

Mr. Mamie and Copper along the trail.

Mamie and Peanut at the trailhead.

 Doggies on the shore of the river - they both ended up wet and muddy!

See the little mountain goat? That's 'lil Peanut - she's a great rock scrambler!

HAPPY EASTER!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Geocaching 3/15/13

I'm still miserable with sinus stuff... UGH.  We did manage to load up the car with recycling and dogs this morning and head into the BigTown. Recyclables got dropped off and then we took the dogs to "their" park. BIG DAY for Peanut - she actually got in the little pond!  A "yoot" who's often there with his mom and dogs is always happy to throw the ball for Peanut, and today he tricked her into the pond by - yes, tossing her ball into it! Why didn't we ever think of that?!  For the rest of the time we were there Peanut was willing to put her paws in and take a few little drinks, and she went after the ball in the middle of the (tiny) pond a second time.  We're pretty happy about this development, as the warm (hot!) months are arriving and it will be much better for Peanut if she's willing to get in the cool water at the park.

Most of the day was spent doing laundry, reorganizing some stuff in our bedroom closet, and completing other random tasks.  Niece was here for a good part of the day, and when we took her home around 6:30 p.m. we decided to check out some nearby caches.  There is a fishing pond between our neighborhood and that of the Igors', so we stalked around there a bit - lots of "muggles," so we decided to return another time (and besides, I was only wearing purple Crocs on my feet and wasn't up for any real tromping around).

Mr. Mamie located another possibility near the intersection with the highway, so we went the extra tenth of a mile to check it out.  It turned out to be close to this sign, which is slightly nostalgic for me because before Wombat and GolfDad officially moved here, they parked their 42 foot "house car" (as Nephew used to call it) here on a couple of occasions while visiting.  We had some fun times at the picnic table when Niece was barely a year old and Nephew was a kindergartener!  Anyway, here's the sign:

Isn't the sky pretty?

The cache, called Locate, was a quick and easy find.  From the cache site I turned to the northeast and got this photo:

I love the light at this time of day!

Only two more days left of Spring Break.... :(

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

3.14159265359

Happy Pi Day! I spent it moping around with a head like a lead balloon - truly the worst sinus pressure/headache I think I've had since moving here from California. The Wombat and I both used to suffer terribly during "Santa Ana season" in Southern California.  I thought I had mostly rid myself of that business, but apparently not. UGH.

So, no hiking or geocaching or adventuring for us today. :(  Instead I stayed home and read, dozed, and puttered in the kitchen.  In celebration of "Pi Day" I baked an apple pie - recipe straight out of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, including crust. I did modify it by using two Granny Smith and two Gala apples, and did a crumb topping instead of a top crust.

Our yummy, if not beautiful, apple pie.

With St. Patrick's Day coming up it was also time to think about Irish Soda Bread. We combined the two holidays and had our soda bread today, using this recipe. I skipped the caraway seeds and raisins and subbed one cup of dried cranberries. Also, I made my own sour milk as we didn't have buttermilk and there was no way I was going out of the house to buy any. The recipe called for sour cream, which I have never used in soda bread... but I will henceforth, as this is my new go-to recipe. It is WONDERFUL! We ate wedges sliced off while the bread was still warm from the oven, just plain, and mmmmmm! I think it will also be delicious for breakfast tomorrow toasted with butter and jam.

Fantastic Irish Soda Bread!

Dinner itself was this beef stew, made with two good-sized leeks instead of the onion, no rutabaga (!), and no green beans, but EXTRA carrots. YUM! 

The stew beef I took out of the freezer was in a two-pound package, so since I only used one pound for the stew I'm going to turn the rest of it into Szechaun Beef tomorrow and add it to our left-over sesame noodles from last night (to which we added steamed carrots and toasted sesame seeds). I'm already looking forward to it....

Here's hoping that everyone's Pi Day was pie-tastic!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Geocaching 3/12/13

Yesterday wasn't very exciting. Mr. Mamie spent most of the day at the office, and I had a big assignment to work on for one of my classes.  We didn't head out for any fun until 4:00 p.m.

After doing a couple of work errands for Mr. Mamie, we decided to just try one "virtual" cache before taking the GeoPups to the dog park.  The Washington City History Lesson  is close to Mr. Mamie's offfice, so we checked it out - very interesting! I've driven by it hundreds of times but never stopped to look at the statues and read the information.

 Getting a history lesson while geocaching.

I saw this video on the Geocaching.com blog the other day and thought it was really cool.

That about sums up the day... here's what the doggies did while Dad was gone and Mom was glued to the computer:

And now it's time for me to get back to work on my assignments, otherwise there will be NO MORE FUN during this break!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Geocaching 3/11/13

It's Spring Break, so we are able to fit in a little weekday geocaching! We are hoping to hit up some local sites every day this week.  We started yesterday by heading into the desert less than a mile from our house to find Somewhere - Even Here. Mr. Mamie's brother Insamity was with us, enjoying a few last hours of sunshine and family time before heading back to Texas. We put the iPhone in Insamity's hands, hoping he'd get "hooked" on the fun and then get his wife and daughters into the game too. 

The cache site was in open desert, and the terrain was FULL of stickers - we ended up having to carry the GeoPups most of the way! Peanut didn't mind, as she is a tender baby, but I think Copper felt a little like his manhood was being insulted. Better than paws full of stickers, though.

Insamity did a great job locating the cache, and we signed the log and left our card. We then followed a conveniently located dirt road back to the RAV, sparing the doggies' paws (and self-esteem).

Geocaching brothers and pups.

We headed to the dog park then (after a stop at Maverik for sustenance, of course) and once again tried to locate a cache that is hidden there, to no avail. Somehow we're just missing it! Part of the challenge is that there are so many two- and four-legged "muggles" around, and we don't want to be too conspicuous as we poke around in bushes and under sprinkler valve covers. Perhaps another time....

After some doggie playtime and a quick trip to Mr. Mamie's office, we dropped the dogs off at home and picked up Insamity's luggage. Then it was time for the drive to Las Vegas, which for me meant making a nest in the back seat consisting of snacks (almonds and Smarties, weird combo I know), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on my iPod, my awesome camping/travel pillow, and the iPhone so I wouldn't miss a single Twitter/Facebook/Instagram update during the two hour drive. Insamity was delivered to his flight back to Dallas in a timely manner, and we proceeded on in search of geocaches and food.

After locating a convenient Roberto's, we ordered dinner and plotted some caches. We first tried a microcache close to the restaurant called HorzonAZ, but could not find it. Our previous luck with urban microcaches has not been good (The Wheels on the Bus and Sportsman's Paradise being prime examples), so we accepted defeat and moved on.

A picture of my delicious rolled taco dinner!

Next we tried the nearby Sun in the City and had success without much trouble. No photo because there was no way to do it without revealing the cache location.  

 

At this point it was 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time (though only 5:00 in Vegas), so we decided that we had better start heading north.   Along the way we used the Geocaching app on the iPhone to see what was around us, and it is AMAZING how many caches are located along the I-15 corridor in the middle of NOWHERE! At Moapa we drove into the desert on Piute Nation land to see if it would be possible to make a grab, but it was getting too dark.  We continued on home and saved several future possibilities on the app as we drove through the Virgin River Gorge - there are a ton of caches around Cedar Pocket, and that's an area neither of us has ever explored, so we're pretty excited.

Even with only two actual finds, it was a fun day of geocaching and adventuring!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Geocaching 3/10/13

Being out of town for three days (Mr. Mamie's stepdad's funeral and a tech conference) combined with the time change did not make for a very early get-up-and-go today.  We finally hit the dog park around 1:00 p.m., and played fetch with Peanut for over an hour while Copper patrolled the perimeter and splashed in the pond.

Please throw the ball for me, pleasepleaseplease!

After the park we headed to the south side of The Big Town, and hunted a cache called Happy Birthday Jeffrey.

We found it!

This turned out to be not a very difficult find, and it happened to be right next to the Pilot truck stop, where we randomly ran into...

Mr. Igor!  On his way to work in his Great Big Rig.

We then headed down a very rough dirt road in search of a couple of caches way out in the sagebrush. These turned out to be the puzzle-type caches, and required more brain power than we possessed at the time. We hiked around and let the dogs run through the desert off-leash, and then got back in the car.

It was getting to be late afternoon, and Mr. Mamie's mom, brother (Insamity), and nephew were headed down from Tiny Town. Dinner was already in the crockpot but we still needed to put together salad and dessert, so we pointed the RAV toward home. On the way we found both Earthbender and Pine Valley Pipes .

Mr. Mamie and the GeoPups

Once we got home, SOMEBODY was vewy, vewy tired....

Copper says "I had a busy day!"

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Yet another meme....

Lil' Peanut at the dog park today, asking to play.

This came from Sunday Stealing, of course.

Be honest, who texted you last?


My friend TS, who is also Mr. Mamie's boss. He sent this link with the follow-up "Need. Tin. Foil. Hat." GoogleGlass freakin' terrifies me, and it seems like I am forced (in a class, at a conference, etc.) to watch their stinkin' video about once a month... argh!

Do you sleep with the bedroom door open or closed?

About half-closed... Copper and Icarus tend to come and go through the night.

Do you drink tea?

Absolutely! We have about 20 different kinds in the house. For the warm months, I LOVE iced tea made with equal parts Tazo Zen and Tazo Refresh. Mmmmmm, just made some a little while ago and it's in two glass jars chillin' in the fridge.

Do you have plans for tomorrow?

It's Spring Break, yaaaaaaaay! We will be taking Mr. Mamie's brother "Insamity" back to the Las Vegas airport so he can return to Texas. His flight isn't until late afternoon, so we're planning to leave early and do some geocaching along the way.

What’s worse: dry skin or chapped lips?

UGH, dry lips! I ALWAYS have one of these in my pocket: Badger organic lip balm, Burt's Bees classic peppermint oil lib balm, or Natural Ice mentholated lip balm in cherry.

Would you be surprised if Facebook started charging?

Nope, not at all. I'm sure it's in the works.

Would you rather go to Canada or California on vacation?

Canada - I've seen pretty much all of California. I've only been to Victoria Island in British Columbia, so that leaves A LOT of Canada still to explore!

How many social media sites are you registered with?

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.  

Are you wearing jeans, shorts, sweatpants or pajama pants?

Light brown cargo pants. Still dressed after a day at the dog park/hiking/geocaching.

So, what if you changed lives for one day with the last person you texted?

I'd be 10 years younger, the opposite gender, parent to two children under the age of 5, and almost have a PhD. Whew, that makes me tired!

Last person you told a secret to?

Ummmmmm... no idea. At the conference I was just at three colleagues and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. the first night blabbing and gabbing in a hotel room... no doubt secrets were told, but we all were too tired the next day to remember them!

What are you listening to at the moment?

Dishwasher; Mr. Mamie and Insamity talking geekiness; Copper squeaking and whining because he thinks there's not enough room on the couch for him.

Where was the last place you fell asleep other than your bed?

Bed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Sandy, UT, night before last.

Is there someone that you believe you will always be attached to?

Of course, several people: My family, the Littlest Mermaid, some very specific friends.

Are you going to any concerts this year?

Not that I have planned, but you never know. But we really want to make it to the Utah Shakespeare Festival this summer, particularly The Tempest.

Do you believe in Karma?

For the most part.

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Recent Reads

It's been a while since I updated my recent reads... TOO MUCH reading and writing going on for my math and tech classes; not much time to read for fun!

Amy's bookshelf: read

The Prisoner of Cell 25

by Richard Paul Evans

I didn't really love it... I wanted to, as the premise was interesting, but there was some gratuitous violence that almost felt sadistic to me, and I didn;t love that in a young-adult book.

The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades

by Gail Boushey

Deeper Than the Dead

by Tami Hoag

Deadly Stakes

by J.A. Jance

A decent story - I like the Ali Reynolds character and her story lines, but I felt like this book could have had more depth. Too short!

The Buzzard Table

by Margaret Maron

Another good outing from Maron; I love the Deborah Knott mysteries!

The Summons

by John Grisham

This one does;t always get great reviews, but I really enjoyed it! I listened to it as an audiobook driving back and forth to work, so I got it in pretty small chunks. It hooked me enough to make me anxious for more each time I got in th...

Hannah's List

by Debbie Macomber

Typical gloppy Macomber. I read it in bed in a hotel room while at a conference. That's about the right level of importance such books receive from me!

And When She Was Good

by Laura Lippman

I love Laura Lippman, and enjoy her "other" books just as much as the Tess Monaghan series. This one had some things in it that I found a bit implausible, but it was an entertaining read nonetheless.

Call Me Princess

by Sara Blaedel

IT DRAGGED! I didn't finish it; it didn't hook me in well enough. Disappointing!

Last to Die

by Tess Gerritsen

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Geocaching 3/3/13

We spent a fun morning searching for some local geocaches! We started out by heading into BLM land on the edge of Zion to find Canyon Overlook.

This was the view to the west as we drive up a very steep, rocky dirt road.

We went in one direction, only to discover that the GPS on the iPhone was confused, and the cache was most likely on the OTHER side of that canyon behind me. Oooops.

Got going in the right direction and passed some dinosaur toes along the way.

At the cache - Mr. Mamie and the doggies are facing it, so the hide location isn't revealed.

Put the pack down on a rock along with the cache container in order to write in the log, and...

...a couple of GeoPups thought it was time to nose around for snacks!

After visiting with a pair of mountain bikers and sharing some cookies with their nice doggie, we headed back down the rocky road.

The sky was so blue and beautiful today!

Back on the highway, we turned east toward the main entrance of Zion NP to look for Tunnel or Shuttle. This was a micro cache; not our favorite kind but it ended up being a pretty easy find.

Mr. Mamie and the GeoPups headed back up the hill after finding Tunnel or Shuttle.

We turned toward home after that and stopped to look for Tomy's Cache, which was a no-find for us. According to the Geocaching App, no logs had been recorded for it since October 2012. It looks like there was quite a lot of road work in the area during the winter, so the cache may have been moved or destroyed.

Continuing on, we stopped and found PODUMP and Wal-nut 1 before calling it a day and heading home for all the mundane chores that were waiting.

All in all, a successful start to the spring season of geocaching!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)