Yummmo!!!...and the Squirrel Battle Continues!!!

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.  ~Alfred E. Newman


I came home today and announced to my Hubby that he was going to be a guinea pig once again at dinner....most of the time that is a good thing, but I suspect he might get a little nervous when he hears that...I love to try recipes!!  A co-worker of mine gave me some homemade tomatillo sauce that his wife had canned and I have never had a sauce like that, so he told me it was used on enchiladas and burritos... so I thought Okay, I'm game!! 


Hubby wanted to know a little more about what to expect, so the conversation went something like this: 


I told him I was going to make some burritos...
he said "that sounds good"...
and I followed it with "*coworker* gave me some Tomatillo sauce today, and I want to try it,"... 
"what's that?" he says 
I followed with "it's a green sauce"
.....you should have seen his face, he scrunched up his nose and obviously was now much more nervous!!  He says "I'm not too fond of GREEN sauce!" but quickly followed it with, "but I guess I can try it." 


Later, when he came into the kitchen, I took off the lid and let him smell it (BTW it smelled wonderful!) , and he says "it smells like pickles!!".....so I guess green means pickles!! :) 


So here we go....this has to be the World's easiest recipe!!  (I took pictures this time...I still feel silly doing that!!)


As I mentioned before, we try to stick to veggies for meals during the week, at least for supper, it is healthy, and hopefully it will cut down on some of the weight gain that has been happening around here!!...(Sorry, I digressed!)


I got a can of fat free refried beans, low fat sour cream, shredded mild cheddar cheese, flour tortillas and medium salsa and a sweet onion at the store on the way home from work....oh and spanish rice mix.


I mixed about 1/4 cup of medium chunky salsa with the refried beans....

I then added 1/4 of the mixture into the center of one Medium size flour tortilla and topped it with about 1 Tbsp of the cheese...

Then I rolled it up (this takes practice, believe me!) and put it in a glass pan sprayed with nonstick spray, flap down...

I did this with 4 tortillas..... (I got better at it as I went along)

I then poured the Tomatillo sauce over the top, and added the rest of the cheese from the package....~1/2 to 1 cup or so I would guess....

Cover tightly with aluminum foil sprayed with nonstick spray....

and put into an oven preheated to 425 degrees for about 20 minutes....

While that is cooking....thinly slice 1/2 the sweet onion, and saute in butter or olive oil (I use low fat margarine) until transparent...

after 20 minutes, remove foil....(be careful not to burn yourself on the steam!!) put back into oven for about 5 minutes or until tortillas begin to turn slightly golden.

Put onto plate and top with sour cream and sautéed onions, serve with spanish rice on the side!!

It was REALLY, REALLY good!!!...and So easy, it even looked sorta fancy!!  This was the final result for both of us.... Hubby thought it was good too!! :)

I made 4 of them, but one each was more than enough!! so I froze the other 2 for another time!! You can spice it up as much as you like, maybe garnish with peppers, or even roll them in the filling....I wanted to make sure not to overpower the sauce so we could taste it!! It was great!! Thanks Deb....of course you know now I want the recipe!! :)  

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Meanwhile......Outside the kitchen window

While I was playing in the kitchen, I kept one eye out of the window on the new setup of bird feeders....the squirrel ruined feeder number 3, so I regrouped and decided to try something different!! I got a new feeder on Monday....

I also strung a thin cord across  about 6-1/2 feet high and hung the finch sock and the new feeder on the string. Obviously the feeder is still too close to the shed, but that is an easy fix!! (and I think a little grease on the 'hat' to the right will be a help too!! )

I know, it looks a little bit like West Virginia, but I am determined to feed my birds, and not the squirrel....at least from the bird feeders!!

While I was cooking....I saw his silhouette on the shed!!

...Cue Theme Song "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly"

..... I grabbed my camera, and this is what I got!!

                              

I think I won the battle this time!! Yahoooo!!! I'm going to 'tweek' things, and we'll see how it goes!!

::Hugs::

Cheri

The competition is on!!

A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn.  ~Author Unknown


I know you all remember my buddy mr. squirrel, well he has one the battle....but mind you, not the war!!  


For now we will say Squirrel 1, Shelllady 0!!  


He has completely destroyed the finch socks by eating holes in them, I repeatedly darned them until the 'darn' things aren't worth fixing!! So I took down that feeder, and we truly miss our gold finches!! 


Now he has figured out how to get to the new (#3) bird feeder!!  I happened to be looking out today and decided to grab my camera to film him.....just in case....this is what I saw!!

So Mr. Squirrel, you have given me a challenge....tomorrow is another day, and we will regroup and I have a new plan!!  


Stay tuned!!


::Hugs::


Cheri

Wacky Wednesday

Life is like riding a bicycle – in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving ~ Albert Einstein


In the spirit of eating healthy I decided to try something for dinner, grilled veggies...sound good? I thought so! When we were in Sanibel, we decided to do a little shopping in Periwinkle Place.  For those of you that don't know, it is sort of a strip mall that is set back into beautiful tropical foliage. Several of our favorite stores had closed, which was very sad, but there was a new store there that Jess and Brad found...it is called Sanibel Olive Oil Company.  It's a small store with nothing but flavored oils, spices and balsamic vinegars.  They have little cups by each one where you can sample the different flavors!  Jess had me try the Cilantro Garlic Balsamic vinegar and I loved it, so of course I had to buy a bottle, she and Brad did too....(and another flavor also)!  They even offered chocolate flavored...not sure how I felt about it, it did taste like Chocolate...but was strange since it was a balsamic!!....Anyways...I've been thinking about how to use it so I came up with this idea to keep it healthy and we would have grilled veggies! Well I must say, it was amazing and very easy!....(and I got to use Hubby's Father's Day Grill from Jess!)  I did take a couple of pictures this time, though I felt rather silly....guess I shoulda taken pictures cutting up veggies etc...but remember I'm a newbie at all this blog stuff!! :)  Here goes.....


The recipe:  Grilled Summer Veggies


The seasonings:
1/2 to 2/3 Cup Balsamic Vinegar (of course I used the Cilantro Garlic Balsamic)
1/3 Cup EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
1/4-1/2 cup water
Garlic Grinder Spice (you decide how much!)
Sea Salt Grinder        "             "


The Veggies:
1 Zucchini-Halved longways and sliced fairly thin
1 Yellow Squash-Halved longways and sliced fairly thin
1 medium sized Sweet Onion-Halved and sliced thin
1 Green Bell Pepper, sliced thin
1/2 package fresh mushrooms (Buttons or Baby Bellas) sliced ~ 1/4 " thick
10-12 Baby carrots sliced into 1/4 " thick 'coins'


Slice all veggies, put into casserole with lid or ziplock bag. 

Mix all seasonings, pour over veggies 

Let marinate for 4-5 hours stirring or shaking fairly often, you will notice veggies absorbing the dark balsamic and begin to soften. Grill in foil or on a grill pan @ ~ 350 degrees, stirring often to cook evenly for 30-40 minutes or to desired veggie doneness (how about that for verbiage!) 

Really bad picture...sorry!

Serve over steamed rice!!

I think I need to work on my plating! :)

It was Yumm-o!! We had applesauce as a side, and it was great!! 


We will definitely have this again!! And so healthy!! :)






Prior to our mini cookout, many of the animals around here entertained us.... between and during the thunderstorms!! The squirrels have been driving us nuts hanging on the goldfinch feeder socks, and the 'squirrel-proof' feeder!  We had to move the feeder from the deck up high on the front of our shed, with hopes that they wouldn't get to it....They will actually eat the plastic on the feeder so that it will no longer slide down and cover the holes!! Today I actually 'darned' the finch socks to close up the holes!! (does anyone know where I can buy finch socks made out of stainless steel?) 


While I was at the store buying feeder #3 (since spring) I was looking for, what we call a 'hat' to put over the feeder, well I bought the wrong thing, but out of frustration we decided to put it over the feeder anyway, and leave it loose, so it would move around, hopefully making it a little more difficult for him to reach the feeder.  We enjoyed watching this squirrel try to get to it twice....and I actually got to video it!!  (I played with youtube video editing on this one!) 

This guy was hilarious to watch!

Then he just stood upside down on the roof....still trying to figure out how to get to that seed!!

After watching this for a while, I went out front to the porch and was 'greeted' by the duck 'teenagers', obviously looking for food...and I have NEVER fed them, but this time I couldn't resist!! 

Notice there are 5 brunettes and 1 blonde!! They are so sweet....if you listen closely you can hear them 'beeping'!! 


Unfortunately no Mama Duck yet on the eggs in the garden :(


We also had many finches on the socks today!!

Hubby's favorite Goldfinch and a House finch.....Notice the rubber-band on the back sock...too many holes!!

More Glads are coming in, they are so pretty!!

I hope you enjoyed our Wacky Wednesday!! We did!!


::Hugs::


Cheri