Leftover that don't suck! Chicken Nachos

Being single means getting over the cooking for 1 AND not getting sick of leftovers hurdle. I'm getting closer.....

Last week I made dinner for my Mom and her husband Larry. I baked 6 chicken breasts, green beans, rice, and homemade bbq sauce. I would have normally put the bbq sauce on the chicken in the oven but knew I didn't want to eat that meal for a week no matter how good it was. I left 1 breast in the frig for bbq the next day and put the rest in the freezer.

Last night I decided to pull them out to thaw. I didn't feel like cooking last night(rare but it does happen) so I made sure to use them today.

First I grabbed my large frying pan and added some peppers and onions. I like using the red/yellow peppers for color but the are so expensive I use green ones. I grow the colorful ones in the summer!

When they cook down I took 3 chicken breasts and shredded them into the frying pan. I then added 3/4 C water and a packed of taco seasoning. I plan on figuring out my own taco seasoning mix though. I boil this for 5 min or until the water has reduced and is now more of a sauce.

While its boiling I grabbed my PC stonewear and put a plate on it. I put tortilla chips on the plate. I make sure to spread them out. When the taco mix was done I put it over the chips enough to have chicken on each chip. Then I liberally topped with cheese. I get the taco-mix cheeses. (Tip: put some cheese on the edges so that your chips don't go sliding off.)

I slip this into the oven at about 400 for 6-7 min or until the cheese is good and melted.

When you pull it out of the oven slide another plate underneath it so you don't burn yourself. Eat with salsa, sour cream, guacamole, or any variation you prefer.

Yard Work

I know it has finally started getting cold around here but I got my Burpee seed catalog last week and now all I can think about is spring and planting a garden. I finally have all the plans for the vegetable garden.

I'm planting:
-Potatoes
-Tomatoes(slicing and grape)
-Yellow Squash
-Cucumbers
-Edamame
-Snap beans (pole and bush)
-Leaf Lettuce
-Strawberrys(ground cover in the flower beds up front around the Gardenia bushes)


When I moved to this house I hated the outside.There were no plants, flowers, anything that made it look lived in. I worked really hard last year to turn the front into something pretty and I think I've accomplished that. Now I need to work on the area under all my bird feeders. Its partial shade, well drained acidic soil. I've been doing a lot of research and have decided on azaleas, rhodies, and blueberry bushes. I can't wait to get them in the ground in the next few weeks!!

This is the area that is getting the major renovation:

The coolest thing I get to do this year by far is keep bees. My sister's neighbor has many many hives and sells her honey. We are pretty good friends with her and when I asked her about how to get my own hive, bees, equipment, etc she kindly offered to just bring one of her hives over and let her bees live at my house. I'll get my garden pollinated and I'll get paid in honey for the space being used. I will have to feed them sometimes and she is going to bring extra equipment and start showing me how to keep them so I can decide if I want to start my own hives. I can't wait!!!

Smoothies!!

I have been trying to find a good way to add healthy foods to my diet while being convenient. When I work its so easy to grab some fast food because we are out on the road, tired, and who knows when we will get a break again.

My GOAL is to add smoothies to my diet to replace breakfast and part of lunch/snack. The challenge is to make them tasty without having more calories than what I would have been eating anyway.

The first one I made today included:
-Frozen Strawberries
-Frozen Blueberries
-2 Kiwi
-2 heaping TBsp on nonfat greek yogurt
-Splash of milk
-Handful of Spinach
-1 tsp of honey


Its a lot better than I expected it to be. The spinach gets hidden very well...I kinda feel like I'm hiding them in a kid's food but it works. I don't have to add ice because the berries are frozen and there are no artificial sugar/flavors. The honey smooths out the sharp yogurt taste.

Its kinda pretty too!

I bought lots of fruit and plan on playing with combinations to figure out what works!

Welcome to the "New Blog"

I'm not sold on the name yet but this is my attempt at writing/cataloging more than I have been. I realize I'm way too ADD and have so many irons in the fire its difficult to write about one subject alone.

Horse Life: I own 2 horses right now. Apple, my heart and soul, is a 13yr old retired fat pasture puff and Emmett is a 4yr old TB prospect.

I currently work a FT job with EMS and have a PT EMS job. I just started school again and try to cook at home as much as possible trying new recipes as often as possible.

I raise chickens for meat/eggs and love this project!

My GOAL for this blog is at least 2 posts a week. Cross your fingers I can keep up with it.

Time to start posting again

I have been slack about writing and I need to get better about it especially since I will be getting a AWESOME horse soon.

The current project I have is a cute sorrel QH gelding that is 6yrs old and super sweet. I don't think he will be here long.....

Pie - Chapter 3

So after 3 weeks of attitude adjustments, rule changes, plenty of food, cribbing collar, and all he can eat hay.....Pie was starting to look good! He was filling out faster than I had anticipated.....of course all this did was make me angry because if all it took was 3 weeks there was no excuse for letting him get this bad.

What drove me nuts about him was the bobbing and weaving! He was neurotic about it and I hate neurotic horses. He would only do it in his stall and it was normally only when other horses were being moved around. I set out to fix this! I put him slap dab in the middle of everything, I moved his stall, if we were going to be doing a lot with the other horses I would get him out and just tie him up. I have never met/seen a horse that ever had too much time being tied. At first he was very interested, curious, engaging......then it got old. I love it when a horse gets bored with something....it means we can move on.

I made sure to leave him tied when we were getting lesson horses out, other people were riding, during chores, he spent almost more time tied than he did in his stall. Eventually we would lead him out, tie him up...he would proceed to remove anything from the post he was tied to(never broke him of that....it was too funny) then rest his forehead on the post and sleep. When he was tied like this I didn't hang a hay bag or give him anything distracting....his job was to stand.

He got to the point where he wasn't worried about everyone else because when they started moving....he got ignored and slept tied up. I started leaving him in his stall for longer periods of time before bringing him out to tie. Eventually I only brought him out if HE was going to be used......he never bobbed or weaved again.

3 weeks after arriving at the barn!

Easy - Chapter 4

Easy is doing great. Her ulcers have cleared up, she is eager to meet new people with a friendly attitude and we have started riding her some. I kept it short and slow for a long time because her history wasn't clear and I knew she hadn't been ridden in at LEAST 2 years. She took to it like a duck to water. She LOVED the attention, exercise, and learning new things.

I started letting some of my barn rats ride her a little to make sure she behaved as well for them and she loved carting them around. She never did get over her discomfort at the canter but because of her age I never pushed the issue.

She was putting on weight FAST and starting to look like a real horse, I couldn't wait for her to shed out in the spring!

This picture was taken in February.....just 3 months after I got her!