Stuffed Zucchini

Tonight I made myself some stuffed zucchini for dinner. It's a very tasty and filling meal packed with veggies and meat. Have it with a side salad or a slice of bread.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a VERY large zucchini
• 1 jar of you favorite pasta sauce

Stuffed Zucchini

Meat Filling:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup diced tomato
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tbsp granulated garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

Cheese Topping:

• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Prep:

Prepping the zucchini.

I peeled and cut my zucchini in half at the middle and then split the half down the middle length wise. Then cleaned out the insides so I would have a nice bowl. With zucchinis this size they can get a woody flavor and the seeds are the size of ones you would find in a pumpkin. So peeling them and taking out the seeds is the best idea.

After I finished prepping the zucchini, I chopped the peppers, onion and tomato into bite sized pieces and set them aside so they could go into the meat filling. 

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Boil Zucchini:

After prepping your zucchini boil the halves that you cleaned out for about 10 minutes or until a fork just barely goes into them. This will take the bake time down to about half.

Meat filling in the making.

Making the meat filling: 

While the zucchini is boiling it's time to make the meat filling. Add your ground beef to a skillet, break it into small chunks and cook that for about 5 minutes on medium heat. You can now either pour out the grease or leave it. I chose to just leave it. Now add the bell peppers, onion and dried spices. Let those cook for another 3-4 minutes and then add the minced garlic and tomato. If you want you can add about a 1/4 of the pasta sauce to the pan. Cook this another 3 minutes or until the onions start turning soft. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. 

Assembly:

Pour another 1/4 of the pasta sauce into the bottom of your baking pan. This will help keep the bottom of the zucchini moist and make a nice sauce. Then add the boiled zucchini. Now spoon your meat mixture inside your zucchini and some along the edges of the pan.

Sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese over the top. Then add the rest of your pasta sauce. Be sure to cover the whole zucchini. Top it all off with the rest or more of the Parmesan cheese and the shredded cheese.

To keep your oven clean place the baking pan on a foil lined cookie sheet and place everything in the oven. Bake it for about 20 minutes or until the sauce on the bottom of the pan starts to bubble. You can now either take it out or put the oven on broil to get the cheese a little crispy. If you do the broil make sure to watch it because it could burn. It shouldn't take more than a 2 minutes on broil to crisp the cheese.

Once it's done take it out of the oven and let it cool.

After it's cooled, cut it and enjoy. No knifes needed with this meal because pre-cooking the zucchini made it nice and soft. Plus cooking the meat filling before adding it to the zucchini ensures that it's cooked fully.

Time to eat!

Stuffed Jalapenos

So earlier this week my boyfriend sent me a link to this stuffed jalapenos recipe that his co-worker sent him. Knowing him and how he likes spicy food I asked if he wanted me to make this. He of course said yes.

Well we picked up the ingredients from the market that night and tonight I made them.

I did have to make a few adjustments to the ingredients since my boyfriend didn't like what the recipe called for, but he still liked what I made. Unfortunately they are to spicy for me, but they still tasted really good!

Ingredients for my recipe:

• 12 medium jalapenos

Meat mixture:

• 1/2 - 1lb chorizo
• 2 tbsp minced garlic

Cheese Mixture:

• 1 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 6 oz of the shredded mexican cheese blend
• 1/2 tsp dried cilantro
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp lime zest
• 1/2 tbsp ground garlic
• salt to taste

Layer Topping: 

•   ~2 oz of the shredded mexican cheese blend

The Prep:

For the jalapenos just rinse them and cut them length wise. Then clean them really good to get rid of the seeds and anything else. Pat them dry with a paper towel and set them aside.

In a skillet I heated up the chorizo and add the minced garlic. I cooked that for just a few minutes until it started to just crisp and would stir it about every minute or so, so it wouldn't stick. I then took it off the heat and set it aside.

For the cheese mixture just toss everything in a bowl and mix it well so that everything is incorporated. Make sure to taste it because some people may want more or less of the seasonings.

The Assembly:

Line a cookie sheet with foil and place the sliced jalapenos on it. Fill each jalapeno half with some of the cheese mixture. Once they are all filled add a little of the left over shredded cheese to each half.

Before and after the meat mixture was added.

Once that is done carefully spoon a little of the chorizo meat mixture onto each jalapeno half. After that top with a little more of that shredded cheese.
 

After the meat and final layer of cheese was added. Time for the oven!

Cook Time:

Pop the tray in the oven on broil for about 8-10 minutes or until the shredded cheese on top turns brown and the meat starts to bubble. Pull the try out and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes and serve.

Stuffed jalapeno goodness. MMM!

Google Kills Super Poke! Pets

So a few days ago I found out that Google will be killing Slide. A company they bought for almost $200 million last year. Along with them killing pretty much all their products they are killing the 1 game I truly love and play religiously. That would be Super Poke! Pets or SPP for short.

I have been playing SPP since 9/21/09. That is when I made my first pet. My beloved dragon Telden. With him I have been able to let my imagination soar. Telden got to do things I could never do. He got to be a vampire, a TV and movie character, got to swim with mermaids and had birthday parties. Plus I have had to take care of him by feeding, bathing and playing with him.

Screenshot of my character in Super Poke Pets in the environment I decorated

If you set all that aside I also met some incredible people. I joined a club called SPP Rockstars. Well to be honest most of us moved from a different club that had failed. Either way we have become friends. We call ourselves a SPP family because we truly are. If I've had a bad day I can go to our forums and and just let it all out and someone will have the words I need to hear. Or if I have something to celebrate like a birthday, graduation, what ever they are there to cheer you on and congratulate you. 

Sure I could use Facebook to tell all of this stuff, but it's not as personal. Sometimes I don't want a billion people reading what I said. Using the club wall let's me talk to my friends without the world knowing everything.

With google shutting this game down in about 6 months I don't know what to do. The SPP community is reaching out to who ever will listen and trying to get Google to not kill our game.We've started a petition, called and emailed CNN, posted comments, tweeted, etc.

Here are a few of the links to sites reporting about google killing SPP:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/27/superpoke-pets-outrage/

http://www.webpronews.com/super-poke-pets-slide-2011-08

http://www.businessinsider.com/slide-users-are-furious-google-is-shutting-down-the-company-2011-8

http://blog.games.com/2011/08/25/google-slide-facebook-game-closure/

http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1599&News=Google+Kills+Slide+SuperPoke+Pets+Angers+Gamers

I have no doubt there are more, but I think these will get the point across.

I'm hoping there will be a lot more site reporting about this because you don't want to piss off the community on SPP. Most of us are women in our 20's - 50's. A lot have brought up the idea of a law-suit because we were lied to in June about the game continuing and taking more money from its players. Most are already ditching all google products. And if you don't know what a woman can do when she's pissed then you will soon find out.

As you can see I haven't been as drastic as some about ditching everything Google, but I'm still peeved. I'm trying to do my part to save SPP. I sent in an email to CNN and I'm writing this in hope someone will read it.

If you want to help out write to CNN or do what you can. Help us save this game cause it's not just a game it's a whole community that Google is tossing out the window.

New House - Part 5

It's been just over a week now since we moved into the new house. I absolutely love our place.

Even though we aren't fully unpacked and have boxes everywhere the place is still so peaceful. Plus I feel less stressful. I think that is because I know if I need to get something done like the laundry I don't have to kill myself doing it or worrying about having enough quarters. Plus we don't have to deal with the screaming kids or the cigarette smoke coming in an open window. My main worry now is where do I put stuff and how should I decorate.

It's fun opening up boxes and deciding on where to put things. I started with the kitchen and I kept finding more cabinets and drawers. We have enough space that if we wanted to put all the small appliances away and clear off the counters entirely we could. There are a few places that I wish there were more shelves or drawers. Like in the hall closet and the master bath, but I'm getting used to it and getting creative on where I put things.

There is 1 major flaw about the house that drives me insane at times. It's that the garage door and laundry room door hit each other when you have both doors open in the laundry room at the same time. They needed to make either the laundry room door a pocket door or make the laundry room 4 inches bigger. It was the same problem on the model home and when we bought the place I totally forgot about it otherwise I would have had the builder fix the problem.

Besides that 1 problem the place is perfect. With it being a 4 bedroom 2 bath home we have more than enough room for the 2 of us and our 2 cats.

New House - Part 4

Well it's that time. It's moving day! Well to more exact it will be in about 12 hours.

Anyways, we went into escrow a week ago and we FINALLY get our house keys tomorrow morning. I can't wait!

We were supposed to be in our house by the 30th of June. Well as you can see that didn't happen. Luckily enough we got to stay in our apartment because we're breaking the lease. We just had to pay for the extra days.

Currently, Jared is next to me packing up his PC, so I guess this is good bye from the apartment.

Tomorrow we move into our new house!

New House - Part 3

It's now near the end of June and the house is finally complete. It's been a long 3 months.

We had our final walk through a few days ago and it felt like home. Seeing all the things we picked. Like the laminate flooring in the entry and kitchen. The tiles in the bathrooms. Even seeing our appliances in the kitchen. I didn't want to leave once the walk through and inspection were over.

It's been an amazing, fun, but at times stressful process. We've had to deal with weather delays, installation delays, product back orders and even vandals. Through it all though we've just kept our heads up and said "Soon. We'll be in our home soon."

Now we are in the packing process. We've got about 50% of our apartment packed. We no longer have to rush our move since we found out we can stay in our apartment until July 10th and here we thought we needed to be out by June 30th. I can take it easy and let my back rest at times. Which is great since the heat in this place is making it so I'm restless at night and end up getting a stiff back.

Besides the packing we're waiting to sign the escrow papers. Those should be signed in a few days. After that we have a week of waiting and then we get the KEYS. That's right the one word every home owner wants to hear. Once we have those let the moving and apartment cleaning begin.

I think out of this whole process it's the moving and the cleaning I'm dreading. But then again I will be able to enjoy the whirl pool tub in our new home. Which I can't wait to do.

Well my next post will either be moving day or once we're in our new home.

New House - Part 2

So, it's been over a month since I last posted about our new house.There was a day or two of back and forth, but a final contract was agreed upon and construction has been moving along smoothly.

It's been wonderful to watch our home actually being built. My mom and I drive by almost every week. While my BF and I have walked through a handful of times. Watching it from being just a drawing and then being framed and then having the roof and drywall added. It's just amazing.

Sure it's been fun to watch, but don't get me wrong it has also been a bit stressful. There have been a lot of decisions to make, which I had no idea about. Like where do we want light switches and outlets, are there enough outlets, do you want this closet here or over there, etc, etc .

On top of things like that we also had to pick flooring, tile, cabinets, garage door, doors, handles, lights, appliances, etc. I mean trying to match everything from little samples is just nuts. I just hope everything we picked turns out to be a good decision.

The other difficult part was trying to compromise. For example I really wanted some kind of wood flooring in our home, while my BF wanted carpet.  So we went with wood in the entry and kitchen, tile in the bathrooms and laundry and carpet in the rest of the house. Then there was the garage door fiasco. Who knew picking how your garage door would look could almost become a battle, but we compromised on that as well. Plus trying to pick matching tile and granite. Oh man! Luckily, I have a wonderful BF and he found a way for me to have the glass tiles I wanted and for them to match.

The next phase of this process is starting this week. Installing everything we picked. That means the cabinets are going in, the tile flooring and garage door. After that there will be appliances, granite and carpet. And finally all the fixtures and doors. Plus some where in there the place gets painted.

Speaking of paint now that is a very difficult decision. We still haven't picked anything final for our exterior. Well, I did pick a coastal blue siding with white trim and part of that has gone up, but we haven't picked an accent stucco color yet. We're still waiting on that sample. Plus we also have to decide on if we want to add fake rock to the house. I mentioned to the builder that I liked the look, but I'm not sure how it will look on a house that has part siding. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

With all that's left to do the house should be done in about 2-3 weeks. Pending the weather staying nice. After that it's just signing the final paper work and moving. Which should happen at the end of June because we've already given our landlord notice.

Which means I get to start packing in the next week or so. Once we have the keys we can have a hassle free move, due to packing everything early. (Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.)

New House - Part 1

A few weeks ago my boyfriend brought up the idea of buying a home because he said he's just wasting money renting our apartment. I agreed with him. So we started our search for our new home.

We started by checking our local cragislist and foreclosure real estate listings. There were a few homes that caught our eye right away, but we weren't sold on anything yet. Especially since we still had to decide to go with either a new home, an older updated home or a home that was cheap enough we could do the updating. Plus we also needed to figure out what we could afford and that in turn would narrow down the homes we could look at.

One of the homes we saw on craigslist really caught our eye. It was a brand new home, just built and it had everything he and I wanted. To make it better there was an open house. So I talked him into actually going and seeing it. Well more like bribed. I said I'd make breakfast for dinner if he got out of bed.

Anyways, we went and saw the house and fell in love with it. We met a realtor there that offered to find the answers to our questions and also pointed us in the direction of a lender to talk to and get an idea of our price range. She suggested setting up a meeting with her to talk about our home needs and plans. We loved the idea especially since she had offered to find answers to our questions about the new home.

The week went by and my boyfriend and I continued with our online house hunt. When we finally met with the realtor again, she had most of the answers to our questions, so we decided to make her OUR realtor. She took down information on what we wanted in a home. Like how many bedrooms and bathrooms, location, amenities, stories, etc. From the information we gave her she was able to make a list of homes for us to browse through.

On that list were 33 homes. We picked 9 that we actually wanted to see in person as well as get more info about the model home we saw since we had thought of more questions. Of those 9 houses 2 of them were knocked off the list right away because of HOA, we didn't want to bother with it. Then another 2 were knocked off when my mom and I drove past them and saw the area they were in. Yet another 2 more were knocked off because the realtor said one of them was just bad and another had already been sold. That left 3. 1 of those 3 was the model home we wanted to see again.

So our realtor set up a time for us to go see the model home again as well and a 2nd model home in that subdivision. We went through both model homes again and still LOVED them especially the first one we saw. After that we saw 2 more homes. 1 that had some updates done and another that needed updates, but was in a good location.

My boyfriend and I finished the day feeling overwhelmed and a little undecided. We sat down and really talked things out and came to a decision.

For the price, style and location the new home was the way to go. That way we can decide right now what we want and not have to worry to much about repairs and the like. We told our realtor this is what we wanted to pursue since this was a great opportunity for us.

We met with her yesterday as well as the listing agent for that sub-division. We talked back and forth and finally wrote up a contract.

So today my boyfriend went in, signed the contract and put the deposit down for our new home. We will meet with the builders next week to finalize a few details about price, changes, etc.

Sign Language

A few weeks ago I found out that my 2 year old niece has some hearing loss, which in turn is making it so she isn't talking. My parents have started taking her to see a speech therapist to help her work out sounds and word association. She is also going to a developmental class that has a teacher that works with her on sign language.

I went to both classes with my mom earlier this week. I was fascinated by how fast my niece is learning sign language. She has only had 3 sessions and already knows how to ask for more, to have something opened for her and to tell us when she's finished.

At the developmental session, the teacher was having my niece put plastic coins in a can and when she wanted more she had to use the sign. After each coin my niece would start asking "more." Then when she got bored with that she signed "all done." And as we were about to get in the car after the session, my niece ran up to the door and did the sign for "open."

I am so glad that my niece is learning sign language. Not only because she can now tell us what she needs and wants, but because it's a good thing to know in general. I for one have always wanted to learn and now I get that chance.

When I was in high school I learned the alphabet, but that's as far as I went. The funny part of all this is that I've been doing a few signs and using them correctly. I've used: to eat, sleepy, sad, car and duck. I had no idea that what I was doing was signing the actual word.

The teacher gave my mom and I a sheet as a quick reference guide, so we can work with my niece on things she would need. I can't wait to go to the next session to see what my niece has learned and what the next word will be. Cause when we left she said to work on "help."