Wednesday's REAL menu

Originally slated for Wednesday was Fish Tacos. But I switched those to Tuesday, and moved the ground beef and rice casserole to Wednesday.

Enter Wednesday, day 18 of a child home sick from school in this current semester.

Enter sick child #1, AKA "Pookie" bored silly and wanting to go to school, but still with just enough fever to keep him from actually GOING. Pookie is cranky.

Enter sick child #2, AKA "Deedle bug" my 2 year-old that seems to pride herself on being 2. Complete with potty learning accidents, pouring water on the new puppy, and leaving a wake of chaos behind her. She is also in a stage where she either wants me to hold her, or she wants milk. Yes, I am still nursing my 27 month old. Deedle Bug is cranky.

Enter Mama. Mama has had 39 days of at least one person in the household having some sort of virus. We've been through 2 rounds of colds, one round of stomach virus and one round of flu. Mama is cranky.

At approximately 1pm, when Deedle Bug wakes from a nap that was too short, Mama decides it's time to get out of the house. So we load up the mini-van with coloring books and crayon rolls, and cups of water, to make the 30-40 minute trek into Santa Fe. The ride up goes well, we are singing along with "Little People Sing the Alphabet" and silly songs such as ~5 Huge Hippos, Hopping on a Hill~ and hooray, we are out of the house!

We go first to see Office Man at Office Max (original huh?) and get some new markers, pencils and hand-writing paper for Pookie who is doing fabulously writing letters, and even writing the addresses on the envelopes. I am very proud of his progress.

Next we go to Petco to see about some new toys for our new pup "Little-Bit" Now Little-Bit is a black lab puppy, and is already more than double the size he was when we got him 2 weeks ago, but I digress. Little-Bit is his name.

After Petco the kids talk me into a snack from Wendys, which happens to be in the same shopping center. French fries for all, and a berry lemonade for Mama. MMMmmm. What a happy outting :)

Next up is Natural Grocers, we need coffee, echinacea, emergen-c and "fake butter." Upon pulling into my parking space, Pookie informs me that I never said we were going to the grocery store, and he didn't want to go. We go anyway, get our stuff and head home. By the time we get home, its just after 5 O'clock, and Deedle Bug has been crying for the last 15 minutes of the car ride home.

By the time I got to the kitchen to start dinner, I realized that in my "cranky" haste to "GET ME OUT OF THIS HOUSE" I neglected to put the meat out to thaw. Ok, no biggie. I'll use that lb of breakfast sausage instead.

So, now that you've read about why I changed my recipe last minute, I'll tell you whats in my casserole. Originally this was made with one can tomato soup, and one can cream of mushroom soup. We like this much better, not only because it's healthier, it just tastes better.

Ingredients;
1lb ground beef or sausage (sausage was a hit)
2 cups rice of choice
4 cups water
1 large can tomato sauce
1 1/4 cup milk like substance, (Almond) or 1 can of full fat coconut milk
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp onion powder (or 1/4 cup chopped onion)
1 tsp garlic powder (or 2 cloves minced garlic)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 lb cheese-like substance (Dayia) (optional)

While browning meat in a skillet, mix all other ingredients (but cheese) in a 13x9 casserole dish, and pre-heat oven to 400. Add the meat, and place in the oven un-covered for 30 minutes. At the 30 minute mark,  add the cheese, cover, and bake for another 30 minutes.

Last night, after getting Deedle Bug calmed down, we went out front as a family to play with the puppy. This took my attention away from coming back to cover my casserole, and therefore some of the rice nearest the top was not cooked through, but all the liquid was gone. The reason I cover after baking some is that the texture is much less mushy if it cooks un-covered for a while. I could work on adjusting the water to a less amount, but honestly, this is easier.

Because of many things, I did not get my beans cooked, nor did I make a vegetable. We simply had casserole. Everyone was happy with it, despite the fact that the rice wasn't all tender. A half success I suppose.

The moral of this weeks menu so far? It is subject to change.