Santa Fe Chicken

This recipe is from my friend Shanda, who is the ultimate stay-at-home mom. She soars with Fly Lady (I sort of flop with Fly Lady) and is an expert meal planner. When I got married, one of the best gifts she gave me was a girl-to-girl talk on how to meal plan cheaply and easily. One recipe she gave me I still go to regularly (at least once or twice a month). There are two versions, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I'll give you the vegetarian one that I made up and then mention how to change it for meat eaters....

Ingredients:
2 cans of black beans
1 can corn
1 cup salsa
1 bag of Morningstar chic'n strips (fake chicken, really yummy)
1 block of cream cheese

Directions:
Put all of ingredients except creme cheese in a crock pot. Cook for 1-2 hours on low (or since it is fake chicken, just until everything is heated through). Add a block of cream cheese and heat on low for an hour more.

Serve over brown rice, in tortillas or as a nacho topper. Delicious. I usually serve with a green salad or raw pepper strips to round out the Mexican theme. Jason loves this and it will feed the two of us at least two dinners and two lunches for the week, usually even more. It is cheap and goes a LONG way!

Carnivore Version:
Omit ONE can of beans and add four chicken breasts (better thawed but I have done it frozen and it works great! Anything that requires as little forethought as possible is my kind of meal!)

Put beans, corn, and 1/2 cup of the salsa in crock pot. Mix together. Arrange chicken on top and cover with other 1/2 cup salsa (sometimes I add more salsa to either version because I love salsa). Cook on low for FOUR hours. Add cream cheese and cook for another hour. Ta da! You are now a cook!

What is nice about this is that it is done in a crock pot. Set your timer and take off for work. The real chicken will shred into tiny pieces (you can help it along with a fork if needed).

Enjoy and let me know if you make it and how you like it!

Goodbye day, I hope to never see you again.

Today has been a wretched day. It started off well. I had training all day at my school - the first training being on how to meet the needs of children with autism, which was very applicable in that I will have a child with autism (two actually) in my class this year. We also had a creative movement training, which was a good workout for the body and the brain. My co-teacher and I did some awesome planning and took a trip to JoAnn's fabrics to gather classroom decorations (OMG - did I mention that I LOVE sparkly, shiny, luscious fabric?). I found out some weird, disconcerting news about work, but I also found out that my hours were going to be waaay better than I thought, so I was also happy about that. In general, a good Tuesday. The day was supposed to get better, as Jason and I are semi-remodeling our master bath and I was excited to do some painting.

Then, I check Facebook. A friend of my parents and I had gotten into it over the video I posted on MY page (the really gross one). She freaked out because she thought her business associates were going to see the video and be offended, even though this obviously was not the case, because her friends cannot see anything on my profile as it is set to private. However, she did comment on my video, which did link the video to her page. To make a very long story short, we got into it. I basically told her that SORRY, I can post what I want, when I want, and she didn't have to watch OR comment on the video. She somehow got the idiotic idea in her head that the guy in the video had some sort of blood born disease and was moaning about how it was inappropriate to post a video of someone with a blood born disease. WHAT? You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. It was a zit. At the WORST, a boil. My brother-in-law had the same thing, and pretty sure he ain't dead from no blood born disease. WTH? She went on and on about how employers could see my fb page, which they can't, because I blocked it from google and they have to be approved to see my account, blah blah blah. She basically went on and on rambling nonsense. End of story: I unfriended her. I don't want no crazies perusing my precious page. By the way: this is the same woman that got wasted at my wedding, and she is OFFENDED by a zit video that she never had to view in the FIRST PLACE? Please. I hate dumb people.

So TODAY the drama continued. I don't really want to discuss what happened on this blog, but it had to do with the aforementioned incident and my feelings were extremely hurt. So the day went downhill. I painted the bathroom, trying not to cry the entire freaking time, but fell onto the sharp metal part of the shower, got nagged at by Jason for missing spots, and clogged the bathtub trying to clean the brushes.

In addition, I am pretty sure I am ovulating, but the ovulation strips say NOTHING so I am very confused.



Whatever. Tomorrow will be a better day.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. I had to write it somewhere before I explode. Also, sorry for the abbreviated cuss words. The situation warrants every single one of them.