Too become an expert...

I've heard more than one that trading half an hour a day on your chosen subject Errol make you an expert. I want to see if that is true! Do far I've finished the total money makeover. I'm starting Mary Kay Ash's autobiography. I guess we'll see if I become a expert! !

Here lay I...

So, it's 1 AM. I'm awake! Whoops! I am not really sure how that happened, since I started bedtime around 10. But it happened none the less.

My husband is sleeping. My baby is sleeping. Even my puppy is sleeping. And here lay I. Smack in the middle. The baby is snuggling, and I feel warm. Toasty. I already tried scooting him over... he woke up. So now we cuddle. :-) I love my little family!

Chicken and Rice Casserole

Made this delicious meal last night! It can be found on tasteofhome.com. It turned out amazing! I had to make a lot of changes and to work with what we had. I also did an experiment!!! 

Things I did differently:

While making my shopping list, I use an app called Food on the Table for convenience, I did not note that the kind of cheese called for was Velvita. So instead I purchased a whole bage full of mozzarella. When I made the meal, I said "oh well!" And just went for it anyway! 

I also hadn't realized I was almost out of rice. So we only had about 1 cup of rice instead of 4. 

One more thing to note, I used a KitchenAid mixer to shred 3 lbs of chicken earlier in the day. So instead of using cubed chicken, I used shredded.

My Experiment:

I cooked the casserole in the microwave! That's right! The microwave! It's been very hot lately, and especially living on the third floor, with a westward facing home, my kitchen gets VERY hot! I've been trying not to cook until the sun goes down, but it doesn't help much. I had thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if I could cook this without using the oven? ... Wait... Maybe I CAN!!! After purchasing a microwave for Christmas, I did something I don't normally do. And that is: read the instruction manual. I remember there being recipes for casseroles in there... So I quickly found the manual again, found the pages with casserole recipes on it, and reviewed the cooking instructions! They all said the same thing: cook for 16-18 minutes on power level 6. So I tried it! And it worked! Dinner was a big hit!