Wow, time sure has a way of marching on. My last post was done just before Aaron was to leave for college. Now here I am writing again and Brett's almost to graduate. All of the old ladies of days gone by were right, it'll be gone before you know it. We had a major snowstorm here yesterday, and when the flakes cleared we had about 18 inches of beautiful white pennies from heaven. I say that because in my husband's line of work - snow is included - but not budgeted, so it's like a little bonus. It is decidedly an earned bonus though. Not some cheapened AIG-type bonus. Greg and Brett will work their buns off today moving that heavy white stuff and hopefully bring home a little extra green when it said and done.That leaves me to answer the phone here on the home front and do a little cleaning. But now that I'm bored with that, I thought I'd do a little updating. Have my main course for lunch all prepared. It's actually kind of fun to cook when you haven't worked all day. But as usual, I didn't really have anything in mind when I went to the store so in order to make a real dish, I will have to be creative. Well, by golly, I am creative and I can do this - so let's do an inventory of the cabinet.
The only meat I seem to have is chicken breasts or meatballs. I'll save the meatballs for when I'm really in a pinch. Chicken.... some sort of casserole would be good. It will have to be something that can be reheated tomorrow (or tonight if the guys are hungry when they come in). I have a few egg noodles but probably not enough for anything. I have rice but I made jambalya last week, I don't want rice. Spaghetti.... ummm, cheesy chicken spaghetti - or as my friend Bob likes to call it
- Bobalinos Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti. OK - Chicken, spaghetti, velveeta, onion, and then the recipe falls apart - no Rotel, no cream of chicken soup. That's ok, we're big kids let's make it up.I am going to boil the spaghetti while I am cooking the chicken. First I put about 1/4 butter in a pan and dice up about 1/4 - 1/2 c onion and saute. I had (about 4) boneless skinless chicken breasts so I just cut them in small pieces and tossed in with the onion. I sprinkled with salt, pepper and little cumin, a bit of a cajun spice I
had and a little Lipton onion soup mix. While that is cooking I will melt a large block of velveeta in the microwave. While all of this is happening I am going to find substitutes for the rotel tomatoes and the cream of chicken soup. What I found was a new jar of Pace black bean and corn salsa and some sour cream - however I also had a sour cream based dip that was a tex mex. Sounded interesting so I pulled it out of the fridge. After the cheese was melted, I added about 2/3 of the jar of salsa, a can of black beans and a can of white corn (both drained). Stirred in about 1/2 - 1 cup of the dip and stirred well, added the chicken and onion mixture and poured it over the cooked, drained spaghetti in an 11x15 baking dish. I gave the whole thing a few pokes to make sure it got down into the spaghetti and baked it for 25 minutes at 350. UM,UM, I like it just as well as the other recipe.I'm going to call it TexMex Spaghetti Casserole
