Burrito Pie

- 2 lbs. ground beef
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 tsp. minced garlic
- 1 (2 oz.) can black olives, sliced
- 1 (4 oz.) can diced green chile peppers
- 1 (10 oz.) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
- 1 (16 oz.) jar taco sauce
- 2 (16 oz. each) cans refried beans
- 12 (8-inch each) flour tortillas
- 9 oz. shredded colby cheese

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.) In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the ground beef for 5 minutes. Add the onion and garlic, and saute for 5 more minutes; drain. Mix in the olives, green chile peppers, tomatoes with green chile peppers, taco sauce and refried beans. Stir mixture thoroughly, reduce heat to low, and let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

3.) Spread thin layer of the meat mixture in the bottom of a 4 quart casserole dish. Cover with a layer of torillas followed by more meat mixture, then a layer of cheese. Repeat tortilla, meat, cheese pattern until all the tortillas are used, topping with a layer of meat mixture and cheese.

4.) Bake for 20 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheese is slightly browned and bubbly.

Tater Tot Casserole

TATER TOT CASSEROLE
- 1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
- 1 lb. ground beef
- onion flakes
- 1 pkg. tater tots
- 1 pkg. frozen mixed vegetables

Heat oven to 350 F
Cook ground beef; drain. Put in small baking dish. Add veggies. Srinkle with onion flakes. Pour over meat and veggies. Cover with tater tots. Bake for 30 minutes.

VARIATION: SUBSTITUTE CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP WITH CHEDDAR CHEESE SOUP.

FRENCH TOAST
- 4 1-inch thick center slices of King's Hawaiian Bread
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Cut bread slices in half. Combine eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon; mix well. Quickly dip, do not soak, bread slices in egg mixture. Cook on hot buttered or oiled griddle until golden brown on both sides.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm syrup.


CHILI
- 1 1/2 lb. ground beef
- onion, chopped
- 2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilis
- 1 can mild chili with meat and beans
- 1 can hot chili with meat and beans
- 1 can mild chili beans, drained
- 1 can hot chili beans, drained

Brown beef and onion; drain. Combine cooked beef and onion, tomatoes, chilis and beans together in crockpot. If too thick add 1/2 can of water. Add chili powder to taste if desired. Cook on LOW for 4 hours.

Recipe #2

Today will be a full meal including dessert, plus breakfast.

CHEESY BREAKFAST BAKE
- 12 large eggs
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 lb. pork sausage
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/4 lb. (4oz.) sliced fresh mushrooms
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese

Heat oven to 400 F.
Beat eggs with sour cream with wire whisk until well blended. Pour into greased 13x9-inch baking dish. Bake 10 minutes or until egg mixture is softly set. Meanwhile, cook sausage, mushrooms and onions in large skillet until sausage is cooked through, stirring occasionally; drain. Reduce oven temperature to 325 F. Spoon sausage mixture over baked egg layer; sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 30 minutes or until egg mixture is set in center.


HOME-STYLE CHICKEN & GRAVY
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
- 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
- 3/4 tsp. paprika
- 3/4 tsp. garlic-pepper blend
- 1 (12oz.) jar home-style chicken gravy
- 1 tsp. worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tbsp. milk

Spray large non-stick skillet with non-stick cooking spray. Heat over medium-high heat until hot. Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt, paprika and pepper blend; add to skillet. Cook 4-6 minutes or until browned on both sides. In medium bowl, combine gravy, milk and worcestershire sauce; mix well. Pour gravy mixture over chicken. Cover; simmer over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes or until chicken is fork-tender and juices run clear.


ROASTED VEGETABLE COMBO
- 1 1/2 cups fresh baby carrots
- 1 lb. small red potatoes, unpeeled, quartered (3 cups)
- 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. dried basil
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1 (14oz.) pkg. frozen whole green beans

Heat oven to 425 F.
Spray 13x9-inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray. In large bowl, combine carrots, potatoes & onion. Add oil, basil, thyme, garlic powder & pepper; mix well. Spread evenly in sprayed pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Add green beans; toss to mix. Return to oven; bake 20-25 minutes longer or until vegetables are tender, stirring once.


PEANUT BUTTER & FUDGE SWIRL PIE
- 1 pkg. (8oz.) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 cups cool whip whipped topping, thawed
- 1 oreo pie crust (6oz.)
- 1/4 cup hot fudge ice cream topping

Beat cream cheese, sugar and peanut butter in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Gently stir in cool whip until blended. Spoon into crust; drizzle with fudge topping. Swirl with knife. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Refrigerate leftovers.

Special Extra: Sprinkle with chopped cocktail peanuts.


Enjoy!

new way of blogging

As some of you may know and some may not know...I love to cook. I collect recipes and try and cook as often as I can. I will admit there are nights where cooking doesn't sound good at all but for the most part I enjoy it. So since there is not much going on right now in the way of the adoption, we are waiting for more paperwork, I thought that each day I will try and post a new recipe from my collection for all of you who read this. If anything exciting happens in the adoption I will type about that also.
I hope you and your family enjoy the recipes.

The first recipe is for the slow cooker:

MOM'S TURKEY BREAST DINNER

- 4 potatoes, peeled and sliced
- 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 2 to 3 lbs. turkey tenderloins
- 10 1/2 oz. can french onion soup

Place vegetables in a slow cooker; add turkey breast. Pour soup over top. Cover and cook on LOW setting for 6 to 8 hours. Serves 6.

We are now licensed Foster parents

We have been officially approved by DCFS to adopt!! YAY!! One more step down, many more to go. By getting this license we can now send in our Home Study to USCIS (Homeland Security) so that we can get our 171-H, which is the last piece of paperwork we need for our dossier. Yesterday when I got our mail and saw the envelope from DCFS I just started crying tears of joy. Just knowing that we are one step closer to getting our dossier in the mail, getting it registered in Ethiopia and getting on the wait list for our two precious babies was just a little overwhelming. We have been in this process for a little over 7 months, which I know to some people out there in the adoption world is not that long of a time, but to me it is a crazy long time considering we haven't even sent in our dossier yet. I have seen on other adoption family blogs that they have been in the process for 5 months and 3 of those months they have been on a waiting list. CRAZY!! I know that everything will happen when it supposed to happen, at least that is what I keep telling myself to keep my sanity. LOL!! We get our fingerprints done by Homeland Security a week from tomorrow and we get started our shots in October so at least we have that to look forward to.

just an update

So to update you all about what is going on right now in the adoption. We will be getting our fingerprints done with USCIS on September 29th in Indianapolis. I will be starting the series of shots on September 28th, I have never before been excited about shots. Matt will start his series of shots on October 5th. We are still waiting for our Home Study to be approved by DCFS, it has only been 5 weeks and our case worker told us it could be anywhere from 5 to 8 weeks so I'm not surprised that we haven't heard anything yet. Matt has been working a lot lately so we haven't been doing anything exciting. My SIL, Rachel, and I went to the Arcola Broomcorn Festival on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to a picnic with other people who have or are adopting from Ethiopia. It was really nice to finally meet some of the people I have been emailing or have been stalking their blogs. It was really great to see the children who are home and to see how well they are doing. I can't wait until we get to bring our own children to these get togethers. Someday the paperchasing and waiting will be a distant memory and I will be the mother of two gorgeous babies. But until then I will enjoy my time with my DH, because as he so lovingly points out, we will never have this time again and after having children we will never be the same.

I am disobedient

Well yesterday I did what I was told not to do by our home study agency but told to do by everybody else in the adoption world; I mailed our I600-A to USCIS without our home study. This paperwork is for us to get permission from homeland security to bring an orphan, or in our case orphans, into the U.S.A. They have to have your home study report before they can give you the form you need for your dossier,which is called I171-H, but they don't need it to make the appointment for your fingerprints, and since that appt. can take up to 4 weeks to make I figured I would go ahead and send in what we can to get our fingerprinting appt. and get that out of the way. I'm hoping that we will have our approval from DCFS by the time we get our fingerprinting appt., that would be like the cherry on top:)

So one more step closer to sending in our dossier. I have all but my employer letter, our home study agency's license and the I171-H (which is what we get from sending in the I600-A to USCIS) to be finished with our dossier. I'm so ready to be done with the paperchasing. Once we get the above three documents we then need to get them notarized then state authenticated and then we can get them sent to our placement agency to do the next step which is get it to Ethiopia so we can get on the waiting list. There is still a lot of time before that will happen, but it is still exciting. I figured that if everything goes the way it is supposed to with no hang-ups we will hopefully be traveling or getting ready to travel this time next year. WOW!! Fingers and toes crossed;)

Hooray!!!

So we got our home study report today and it is corrected and ready to be sent to DCFS. It will be sent either today or Monday depending on when Mike is able to get it signed by the director of ICM. It feels so good to know that this part of the process is done. Now all we have to wait on is DCFS to write of referral for adoption, which means that the state of IL has to okay us to adopt an orphan. Once we receive that letter then we will send it to the USCIS (Homeland Security) to approve us to bring an orphan into the U.S. Once we receive the appropriate paperwork from them then we can send in our dossier and be a waiting family. YEAH!!! But first things first, we have to get past DCFS, it can take up to 4 weeks or more to get the letter from them. So we wait. Adoption is full of waiting. I am not a patient person but I think I will have to become one, which will only help me with the joys of parenthood. Okay so many prayers that DCFS will get us the referral letter in record time!

FRUSTRATION

That is what I am feeling and have been feeling for quite awhile now. Our home study report is still not done. Our S.W. sent us an email with the finished home study report for us to look over on July 14th but it was missing pages, he said he would get if fixed and that he would get it to us by Mon. (20th) or Tues. (21st). We did not receive it yesterday and have not yet received it today. I am trying to be patient with him since he is so new and we were his guinea pigs but I am starting to greatly lose my patience every minute that I don't see an email from him. Matt, who is pretty darn patient, is even getting frustrated. After we do the corrections on the h.s. it is then sent to our placement agency for them to okay it, then it is sent to DCFS and they have to write a letter saying that we are approved to receive a referral to adopt, which can take up to 4 weeks. Then we send the h.s. plus other paperwork to USCIS for approval to bring an orphan into the U.S. and that can take another 4 weeks or more. We cannot get on the waiting list for a referral until all of that is done. THIS IS WHY I AM SOOO FRUSTRATED!! Please pray that we get our home study soon.