It’s amazing how a $1.00 package of play dough can make a toddler so happy.

Unfortunately, toddlers like to put everything in their mouths. Then I ran across a recipe for edible play dough. Luckily, my little dude isn’t allergic to peanuts, because this stuff has quite a bit of them in it.

Here’s what I used to make edible play dough…

1 cup peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tbls of soft butter, then mix together

The kiddo loved mashing and banging around with the stuff. Oh yeah, and eating it too. You can even make no-bake cookies out of the stuff too. Just put it on wax paper for a few hours to dry out. Playtime in the AM, and a fun snack for after nap. I like to call that a win-win situation.

If you do plan to make cookies out of the stuff I would set part of the dough aside and not let the kids get their grubby little fingers in that portion. There’s nothing like a big fat booger to ruin your appetite.

Gray seemed to think the dogs needed a taste of our delicious concoction. They very much enjoyed the  treat.

I’m going to share a little secret with you. I don’t like to cook. What? You already knew that? Oh! My bad. Well, since you already knew my allergy to cooking then you must know that when I have to cook I like to make it easy on myself. You knew that too? Cool. Then there won’t be any of those getting to know you akward silences in our convos. Eeeeeeexcept for…..this one.

Anywho, getting back to what we were chatting about. Food. And how I hate to cook.

Here’s a little recipe that is super simple and super yummy. It’s called Cheesy Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Quesadillas. I found it on KevinandAmanda.com, and had to try it. I did however change the recipe around a bit to suit my taste a little more. (They add scallions, and cook their bacon in the oven…odd) Click here to check out their version.

You can make this dish a few different ways, but today I’m gonna show you my slacker way of making it.

First, in a skillet we are gonna fry up 8 pieces of bacon to the point of crispy. Let them cool and then crumble up all that bacon-y goodness and set aside. I’ve used microwave bacon before, and although not quite as crispy as the real thing it works in a pinch. Or if you are just cruising on my level of lazy.

Now we need to dispose of the bacon grease (never down the sink…always into a glass jar or plastic tub). Now don’t rinse the skillet out. Just put it back on the stove and use the remaining grease coating the skillet to help flavor the chicken we’re about to cook. Take the chicken that we just cut into bite sized pieces, and cook in the skillet we just cooked the bacon in.

I also like to add my favorite seasoning to the chicken while cooking it. It’s from a local burger joint here in Memphis called Huey’s. Adding your own seasoning to the chicken helps add flavor to the dish if you when the microwaved bacon route. Go Team Lazy!

Once you’re done cooking the chicken rinse out the skillet and wipe out the inside. We will use it again in just a sec.

Cut up one ripe avocado into bite sized pieces. Make sure you have a ripe avocado, because it adds this perfectly smooth texture to the quesadilla. It’s actually my favorite part of the meal.

* It’s very important that everything is in bite sized pieces so that when you add them to the quesadilla it all fits inside. Also, it helps you get all the flavors in your quesadilla in every bite.  

** To find the perfect avocado do the squeeze test. You want it to be just a little bit squishy or soft. If it’s still hard take it home and let it hang out on the counter for a couple of days to let it ripen up. To remove the pit I stab my knife into the pit and wriggle it out. Depending upon the ripeness of the avocado this may be a little more difficult at times.

I honestly never really cared for avocado before I tried this dish, and now if it’s offered with a meal I’m all, “BRING IT ON! I LOVE ME SOME PRE-GUAC.”

Then you’re gonna need some cheese. I just use regular mild cheddar.

Plop a tab of butter into the skillet we just rinsed and wiped out, and place it back on the burner to let it melt. Don’t turn that burner up to high. We don’t want to burn anything. A nice low-medium heat should do the trick.

Now, grap that bag or tortillas over there…

*** Depending upon the size my local grocery store has in stock I sometimes use large tortillas when the recipe only calls for medium. Oh well.

Place one of the tortillas in our buttered skillet and swirl it around so that it gets coated by the butter.

On just one half of the tortilla add your chicken, bacon, avocado, and cheese. Using tongs or your utensil of choice, fold your tortilla in half so that it covers all those goodies you just placed on top. Let the food and tortilla sit there for a moment or two until the bottom side of the tortilla is a nice golden brown.

And this is why I like using tongs….FLIP THAT BAD BOY! Now let the other side reach a nice golden brown and then slide that glorious piece of deliciousness onto a plate and dig in!

Okay, so you might want to cut it into more manageable sized pieces. I like using a pizza cutter. It works like a charm.

And there you go! A delicious lazy person’s dinner.

And if you are like my husband then make sure you have a gallon of sour cream to dip your quesadillas in. Because for some reason, he thinks everything taste better with a pound of sour cream on top.

Cheesy Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Quesadillas

4 medium-sized flour tortilla shells
1 lb chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and pepper or favorite seasoning
8 strips of bacon, cooked & crumbled
1 avocado, diced
mild cheddar cheese, shredded
2 tbsp butter

Cook 8 pieces of bacon to the point of crispy. Let them cool and then crumble and set aside. Dispose of bacon grease and put back on the stove. Use the remaining grease coating the skillet to help flavor the chicken we’re about to cook. Over medium heat add the chicken, season to taste, and cook for about 5 mins or until chicken is golden and cooked through. Remove the chicken and rinse out the skillet.

Add about 1/2 tbsp butter to the skillet over medium heat. When foamy, add a tortilla and swirl it around to get it nice and buttery. Layer one side of the tortilla with chicken, bacon, avocado, and a little cheese. Use tongs to flip the other half of the tortilla over and press down. Cook the tortilla for about 1-2 mins on each side or until golden brown and crispy.

Repeat with the rest of the tortillas, adding a little more butter for each tortilla as needed.

Makes 4 quesadillas

Grayson spent the night with his grandparents last night so Derek and I could go out for our 3 year anniversary. He’s a great sleeper at home but fights sleep when not in his crib. All that to say he didnt give up the fight until about 10pm last night and woke up at 5:45 this morning and didnt want to go back to sleep. (he typically sleeps from 6:30pm till 8:30am every night…straight through. Yeah I know…we are really lucky. . )

My MIL dropped him off around 10am this morning, and said he had been playing outside almost non-stop since the sun rose. Lets just say, when I put him down for a nap around 10:30 this morning he was a bit cranky. I was baking during his nap and had to finely chop up some ginger snap cookies. To do this I was going to use the food processor. I have found from previous attempts at using the food processor during naptime that it is just too loud and wakes the G-man from his nap. Our house is not very large, and noise carries like nobody’s business. (wood floors and plaster walls) The ginger snaps were for the crust of a cheesecake I was baking, and needed to have baked and cooled  by this evening. That meant I couldn’t waste time waiting for the kiddo to wake from his nap. And there was no way in H-E-double hockey sticks (that was for all the children that read this blog…that’s a bad word) I was going to chance it and wake the kid from his much needed sleep.

Enter My New Level…..

…of crazy, that is.

I plugged in an extension cord, ran the extension cord out to the porch, brought the food processor out to the porch, and chopped those babies up! That’s right. I used my entire house (siding and all) as a sound buffer. I’m sure my neighbors thought I had totally lost it.

I have officially made it to the don’t-even-breathe-loud-cuz-the-baby-is-sleeping level of crazy.

If you are laughing at my level of crazy after reading that I bet you won’t laugh when you read…he napped 4.5 hours today. BOOM! I finished the massive amount of cooking that I needed to get done and more. All thanks to my sweet, sweet improvisation skills.

Every fall I always find one pumpin recipe that I cannot wait to make, and this year the award goes to….Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes! 

source: Not So Simple Housewife via Tip Junkie

As many people already know (*cough*Meghan*cough*), I’m pretty serious when it comes to Pumpkin Spice Lattes. I mean, once, I almost attacked a barista’s face because she wasn’t going to give me one. When I say serious, I mean serious. 

When I saw this recipe on Tip Junkie I almost peed my pants. Okay, so maybe I did just a bit. Give me a break, I gave birth and it messes things up in the control area…so lay off! I cannot wait to try this delicious looking “drink” out. I’ll keep ya posted. If you want to try this recipe too just hop on over to Not So Simple Housewife for deets.

My little guy doesn’t turn the big O-N-E for another 6 days. Time is flying by, and flying fast. Oh, and did I mention that his party is tomorrow? Uh Oh!

I’m just about done getting ready for the big day, but I can’t stop coming up with new things to make and/or do in preparation for the big event.

For example, this garland…

I made this long small circle one and multiple larger circle ones. And I decided that I needed these all of two days ago.

And this bad boy, I decided to try my had and him yesterday.

And my dining room table…HA! This is it’s state currently. And it’s after I cleaned a few thing off. My poor boys have been living and working around piles and piles of party decor. Sorry guys.

Yesterday, I began cooking. Cooking and cooking and cooking. I was standing in my kitchen from 1pm until midnight. With random trips to take care of the baby and such. All this standing comes at a really bad time considering I can barely walk. The other day I must have stepped on one of Gray’s toys and bruised the bottom of my left heel. I can’t put pressure on my heel unless I am wearing foam flip flops and even then it’s not 100% okay. I also have noticed that it feels like there is a bubble of fluid in my heel that you can’t see. I can only feel it. When I put pressure on it, I can feel the fluid shift. Oh and it is waking me up at night throbbing. It’s also numb on the surface. I’m really hoping that this goes away soon. I have been walking on only the ball of my left foot. That means that my right leg is supporting most of my weight which makes for very achy knees. Ugh!

Here are my 1st attempts at royal icing. Not my best work, but don’t worry I got better as time passed.

I colored and cooked about a zillion mini cupcakes only to cut 1/2 of the cupcake off and make them into poppers. As you can tell the color got a little green on me. Which is weird, because I used the exact same coloring for the icing and I nailed the icing.

Dipped pretzels were my easiest project yesterday. Just dip and sprinkle.

I also made all of the printables and invites. Let’s just say I bit off a bit more than I could chew, but it’s worth it. My kid is awesome, and throwing him this party is just one way I can show him.

I’ve still got a million and two more things to get done so I better go, but at least we’ll have pretzels!

Oh my gosh! I made these bad boys when we had friends over for a movie night during the holidays, and they were a huge hit. I found these on Plain Chicken. Love that blog. Especially, Meow Monday. Seriously, these things are addictive. They are so gooey with cheese that it will take your cheddar loving breath away. They reheat well too.

Sausage Cheese Puffs

1/2 pound sausage
1 1/2 cups biscuit/baking mix
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
6-7 Tbps buttermilk

In a skillet, cook and crumble sausage until no longer pink; drain.  In a bowl, combine biscuit mix and cheese; stir in sausage. Add buttermilk and toss with a fork until just moistened. Shape into 1-1/2-in. balls. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 400 degrees F for 12-15 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

Baked puffs may be frozen; reheat at 400 degrees F for 7-9 minutes or until heated through (they do not need to thawed first).

I mentioned a few weeks back that we are starting a new tradition here at the Davenport house. Beginning the weekend after Thanksgiving we will watch a different Christmas movie each week leading up to Baby Jesus’ birthday, and on occasion we might even invite over friends and family. Well, this week we did just that. We invited over 10 friends and 2 babies for chili and a movie. Home Alone to be exact. Uhhh…I love Home Alone.

In our teeny tiny house we squeezed 12 adults and 3 babies (including the 3 of us).

While Derek was at work I started whipping up two batches of chili, cookies, cheese and sausage puffs, and croissants. I started around 1pm and cooked right up until 6pm. Just before the crowd arrived.

The chili was a huge hit. I got the recipe from an old boyfriend. At least I got something good from that breakup. Actually, I broke up with him, but that’s not the point. The point of this post is CHILI. AMAZING CHILI. Since I’m not entering any chili cook-offs anytime soon, and I don’t think it’s any kind of secret family recipe I thought I would share this amazing recipe with y’all.

Here’s what you start with…

2 lbs of ground beef

1 onion (chopped)

1 can of whole tomatos

2 cans of Bush’s chili beans (mild, medium, or hot…your choice)

2 packets of Chili-o (original, medium, or hot…your choice)

1/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of water

salt & pepper

Directions:

First mash the whole tomatoes, with your hands, into your pot/dutch oven. Be sure to pour the remaining juices from the can into your pot.

Add two cans of Bush’s Chili Beans to the pot. I like to use one can of mild and one can of medium. You can use mild, medium or hot beans. It’s your chili make it the kinda spicy you like.

Pour the 2 packets of Chili-o into the pot. Again, it doesn’t matter the level of spice you choose. Flavor to your liking.

Add a 1/2 cup of water. A 1/4 cup of sugar, and salt and pepper to your liking.

Brown 2 lbs of ground beef, then drain. Once drained, add your chopped onion (frozen onions work just fine). Cook meat and onion together for about 5 minutes. Side note: my pan has 4 lbs of meat and 2 chopped onions, because I was making 2 batches since we were having such a huge crowd over. I didn’t want y’all thinking that you would need this much meat.

Add meat and onion mixture to pot, stir, and cook on low for about 2 hours. You can speed up the recipe and let it cook for about 30 minutes, but the flavor really comes out if you let it cook longer.

Spoon into bowl and add your fixins.

I just like cheese in mine, but Derek loads his down with Frito’s, cheese, and sour cream. That’s one full bowl. I don’t see how there is any room left for the chili, but he always seems to fit it in there.

I hope y’all give this recipe a try. It’s super easy, and is unbelievably yummy. Let me know if you try it and how it turns out. I would love to see if others love it as much as I do.

Chili

2 lbs of ground beef

1 onion (chopped)

1 can of whole tomatos

2 cans of Bush’s chili beans (mild, medium, or hot…your choice)

2 packets of Chili-o (original, medium, or hot…your choice)

1/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of water

salt & pepper

Directions:

First mash the whole tomatoes, with your hands, into your pot/dutch oven. Be sure to pour the remaining juices from the can into your pot. Add two cans of Bush’s Chili Beans to the pot. Pour the 2 packets of Chili-o into the pot. Add a 1/2 cup of water. A 1/4 cup of sugar, and salt and pepper to your liking. Brown 2 lbs of ground beef, then drain. Once drained, add your chopped onion (frozen onions work just fine). Cook meat and onion together for about 5 minutes. Add meat and onion mixture to pot, stir, and cook on low for about 2 hours.

Makes 6-8 servings