beads and recipes

So Candace and I are taking "A Daisy A Day" on her first adventure of the summer - we are going to the Farmer's Market in Downtown Laurel this Thursday to sell some earrings and headbands.  So if you are in town - come see us!
In an attempt to make more beads faster, Candace decided she would teach me to make the pretty beaded balls she uses in the earrings!  Well, ladies and gents we now know why I stick to crochet and headbands.  The one on the left is Candace's bead - the one on the right is mine.  Yes it does resemble a funky-looking egg rather than a true sphere!  However, she can no longer say that I have not tried to help!
Don't worry though, Candace fixed my mess up so the earrings will be absolutely perfect for Thursday night!

I also thought I would share with you one of my favorite things about summer so far.  As we are home during the day now, we have to cook lunch.  And as there are only so many times you can have pizza rolls, hot pockets, or anything else from the "college-dorm-food" section of the frozen-foods aisle, we had to get creative.  We love to experiment for dinner, but lunch is supposed to be easy and fast.  So let me introduce you to the grilled cheese.  This is not your ordinary, american cheese and bread grilled cheese.
This particular grilled cheese includes mexican chicken seasoned with a taco seasoning packet!  Today we added left over fried chicken that I cut off the bone and chopped into bite size pieces.

Anyone remember this pic from the other night? The left-over chicken breast became a the filling for a grilled cheese for lunch the next day!  It was amazing!  So my advice is this - use any leftover meat - i.e. taco chicken, sauteed chicken breast, taco seasoned ground beef, add cheese, bread, a little butter.  And you will have the best next day lunch ever!  You can switch it up a little and use a tortilla for a quesadilla instead of bread or heat meat through in a skillet or microwave to top a baked potato or mashed potatoes.

It may just be but this little method never seems to get old.  Oh, one other little tidbit.  Instead of a quesadilla, you could take left over meat of choice, add cheese, dark red kidney beans, bell peppers, onions, etc wrap in tortilla as you would for a burrito.  Store in a ziploc bag, tin foil, or plastic wrap in the refrigerator - and you have a quick homemade healthy lunch for work the next day!  For the OCD types, you could make several burritos, write on the wrapping what it is(if you make different varieties), and freeze them for a couple of weeks of lunches.  I am super excited about making the burritos to freeze when school starts back!  (Even though I am determined not to dwell on the fact that it is now July - the proverbial summer Sunday before the work week starts back!)


So I hope you all have a wonderful day!  Cook your own food - it's fun and so much better for you!  And please don't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen!