Month: June 2012
On the road again…
Sarah & Michael sitting in a tree…
My littlest sister is getting married.
She asked me to be her maid of honor.
I accepted. Obviously.
I thought it was fun to plan my own wedding.
Helping someone else spend their money should prove to be even more enjoyable!
You Capture | Pretty
Vacation
Kitty Kitty & Tomatillo Shrimp Enchiladas (I know, they don’t really go together.)
I swear, I only turned around for one second and Finn was feeding Kitty Kitty at the table. I don’t even know how Kitty Kitty made it to the table without me seeing her (toys stay away from the table at dinner time – too much of a distraction), much less how she got her fluffy, stuffy face shoved in some corn and ketchup. And Finn kept saying things like: “Go ahead.” and, “Kitty Kitty eat? Yum!” and, “Eat it up!” We seem to have tipped over the precipice into full-on toddler mode. His thoughts connect and his sentences have 3-4 words in them and I swear, one of these days I’m going to look up and see sparks shooting out of his ears because he’s thinking so hard.
In other food-related news, we had these shrimp enchiladas the other week, mostly because I had some frozen shrimp in the freezer and also because I needed something that seemed relatively easy to make for dinner. I’m all about ease, these days and I have been scouring my recipe box and bin of magazines for new things to try. I’m also all about lighter fare. I make some wicked chicken enchiladas, but they tend to be a little heavy on the red sauce and cheese, so I’m saving them for cooler days. Tomatillo Shrimp Enchiladas, however, scream summertime and eating outside and these were a very easy-on-the-WW-points meal.
What are your summer dinner staples?
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 medium-sized red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1/2 medium-sized green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
- 1 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined, cut in half
- 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 8 tortillas*
- 1 bottle (16 oz) tomatillo salsa
- 3 tablespoons half-and-half
- 1 cup shredded reduced-fat Monterey Jack cheese
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and pepper; cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add shrimp; cook an additional 3 minutes until shrimp is opaque. Stir in corn, 1/4 cup water, chili powder and cumin. Heat through.
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a 13″x9″ baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Wrap four tortillas in damp paper towel, and microwave for 30 seconds. Brush one side of each tortilla with salsa, spoon 1/2 cup shrimp mixture on each. Roll up and place seam side down in pepared dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling. Top with any extra filling.
Mix remaining salsa and half-and-half. Spoon over enchiladas. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 375 degrees, uncovered, for about 15 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle with chopped, fresh cilantro to serve.
*The recipe called for corn tortillas, but I used Mission brand fajita sized tortillas for the best points value.
**Recipe adapted from Family Circle, April 2010.
Funny naked baby.
Uriah told me I’m not that funny anymore. And my question to him was this: Was I ever funny? Immediately followed by: Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
It’ll be a big hit with the pre-school crowd, I’m sure.
Summer reading.
Last summer, between Abby and myself, we read 8,752 pages. This summer we’ve challenged ourselves to read more than we did last summer, we don’t have a set number, we just agreed to try to read more than we did last summer, but maybe we’ll shoot for 10,000 pages this summer, just to make it interesting.
The rules are the same:
- It has to be an actual book (although this year Abby can use her Kindle); magazines do not count.
- You can re-read a book you’ve read before (I try to read the Little House series every summer) but you have to be honest and actually re-read the book, not just skim it.
- Audio books still do not count (side eye to Abby, who tried to get them to count last year. No.)
- We will pull out our list of classics again this year and continue to read through the books on it.