Quesadillas with a Friend

My friend, Stephanie, and I got together again to cook. Last time I taught her to make Instant Pot Honey Garlic Chicken. This time we tried a couple new recipes together, Black Bean Quesadillas and Easy Peasy Spanish Rice, both from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4, from Jordan Page. Oh, there was also a recipe for a zesty quesadilla dipping sauce that we made.

We had fun again and both had meals to eat. That helped me a lot because that afternoon/evening was so busy it was nice to already have food ready that just needed to be reheated.

 

This is the picture she sent me later that day. 

Her husband told me that he really enjoyed the food, too.

A Few More Celebrations and Shelf Cooking

February 21 was the Anniversary of when the first Legend of Zelda video game came out. Jeremy and I celebrated it observed earlier in the month when we watched a special concert online of Zelda music.

 

February 22 was National Chili Day. I made chili and garlic bread. Yumm.

February 23 was National Banana Bread Day. When I went shopping earlier in the week, I bought bananas and hid them when I got home. Bananas don't last very long when Jet knows where they are. I was able to make them last long enough on this occasion so I was able to make Cinnamon Crumb Banana Bread for the holiday. The recipe came from "A Season of Family Meal Plans volume 1."

With the banana bread we also had Pizza Pinwheels and Seven Layer Salad also both from that book. That salad is not something I would normally make (it had peas in it and I don't like peas) but it actually tasted really good.

Speaking of that book, we're still enjoying trying out new tastes. And I'm learning better about adapting, substituting, and repurposing leftovers. Yay, shelf cooking. 

For example, I made Thai Peanut Lettuce Wraps. The recipe called for ground turkey but I used rotisserie chicken. We had Classic Fried Rice on the side.

Later, I used some corn tortillas and a bit of cheese, the leftover Thai peanut chicken, and made quesadillas. Jet and I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer for quick lunches or whatever.

 

Here are some other things we tried.

Hawaiian Pork Sandwiches with leftover Seven Layer Salad.

Sheet Pan Greek Chicken with Lemony Greek Rice. 

Easy Broccoli Pasta. The other recipe for that meal was Tomato Basil Salad. Since I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes, I used canned tomatoes and cooked it all up to make a sauce that we ate on toasted baguettes. #shelfcooking

I already talked about Leap Day but February 29 was also National Toast Day. So for dinner we had BBQ Pork Quesadillas with rice and toast and Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa (that last recipe came from the Fablehaven Cookbook).

Family Home Evening

One night for Family Home Evening, Jr. gave us a great lesson about avoiding sin. He referenced a talk by President Monson called "True to the Faith," from April 2006 General Conference.

In the talk it talks about fishermen using octopus lures called maka-fekes. They're made from seashells attached to a round rock. The octopus grabs onto the lure and won't let go so it's easy to just flip it into the canoe. We have to be wary of evil maka-fekes, things that look good to us at the time but if we don't stay away or let go once we grab on, we are in serious trouble.

Jr. had us make our own maka-fekes with paper shells and rocks and yarn to attach them to each other. Awesome job on your lesson, Jr.

 

Speaking of how awesome my son is, he's also been trying out recipes from his school food class. One day he made me a "food group" quesadilla.

Yummy. Thanks, son.

National Creativity Day 2020

May 30 was National Creativity Day. It was also the day SpaceX launched astronauts into space for the first time. We watched the launch. It was reminiscent of watching the Apollo Mission footage last year of the launch of astronauts going to walk on the moon 50 years after it happened. Of course then we knew for sure the outcome and knew everything was going to be okay. The SpaceX launch was live during our generation, my children's generation. None of us watching from our living room were alive 51 years ago when the astronauts walked on the moon. I kept thinking during the SpaceX launch, I hope nothing goes wrong. And nothing did.

Now onto creativity.
Jr. made a face with his quesadillas and later placed his chips in the shape of a skeleton to copy what was happening in a show we were watching.

Nichole was knitting socks which she later gave me as a belated birthday present. Aww, thanks, Nichole.

The day after National Creativity Day, Nichole asked to make cheeseball. I told her it was National Creativity Day yesterday. She replied, "I'm doing it observed." So she made a cheeseball and everyone guessed what shape it was. Nichole finally told us what it was. "It's a lizard thing with a rock."

Creativity.
P.S. Lucky has already put in a request that the next time Nichole makes cheeseball she does it in the shape of a penguin.

Pi Day

March 14 was Pi Day.
Jeremy got out a few packages of tortillas to make quesadillas (circles, you know, for Pi Day).  He thought he'd be funny so while I was doing dishes and yammering on about something, he just kept filling those tortillas with cheese and stacking them up.  He thought he'd continue doing it until I noticed and said something.  I often do when he's being "funny."  I totally didn't say anything.  I noticed him starting to stack, but then I didn't pay much attention after that.  Apparently what I was jabbering about must have been so important that I wasn't thinking of anything else.  He made it through all the packages of tortillas before he had to say something to me.  Sigh.
Well, we had a very round tall stack by the end for Pi Day.

 As often happens, the littlest kids got creative with making faces out of their food.  I love those kids.