Homemade Beef and Bean Burritos

     My family loves eating the beef and bean burritos that we buy from the store, but I always wanted to make my own. Finding a good recipe was a must but also making sure the ingredients were to my family's taste. Turns out there are many recipes out there for such a thing. YIKES! I finally settled on this one http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Traditional-Beef-Burritos/Detail.aspx . I did do a few things differently, so I will post what I did below.

    The only drawback to making homemade beef and bean burritos, is that it is not very cost effective. It cost me almost twice as much as if I would have paid for the premade ones from the store for the same amount. The plus, we can customize to our liking, it is most likely better for us, and we know what is in it.

Homemade Beef and Bean Burritos

• 2lbs browned ground beef
• 2 14 ounce can re-fried beans 
• 1 cup mild taco sauce
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 4 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• 24 pack of soft tortillas

While browning the meat I added salt and pepper to taste plus the garlic salt (since I didn't have any fresh garlic on hand). After browning the meat I added the chili powder and cumin, mixed it together, then added the re-fried beans, mixing again, and finishing up by adding the taco sauce and giving it one last mix. 

I scooped the meat mixture onto all 24 tortillas, I'd say about 1/2 cup worth, but I eyeballed it. Then I wrapped them up like you would a burrito and placed them on a cookie sheet to cool in the freezer. I should note that I should have placed them in the oven for 12 minutes at 375 degrees to cook the tortilla. By not doing it, when reheating I found the shell to be hard on the edges and super soft in the middle. Once frozen, I placed them in a freezer Ziploc bag to until someone wanted a snack. 

To reheat: for 1 frozen burrito, place on microwave safe plate and cook for 1 minute 15 secs. Time may be adjusted to your liking. Also recommend flipping the burrito over half way through to help it cook more evenly. 
for 2 frozen burritos, do the same for 1 however this time cook for 1 minute, turn over burritos and cook for an addition 1 minute and 15 seconds. Make sure to let cool for a few minutes as they will be super hot!
 

Valentine Seed Bombs

     As Valentines day was approaching my oldest daughter was unsure of what to hand out to her friends and teachers. We searched pinterest for ideas. We had found a cute fortune cookie http://www.designwashrinserepeat.com/2009/02/index.html but could not master how to fold it properly. We also found some seed tags http://www.hillcitybride.com/2010/11/diy-from-pulp-art-plantable-paper/  but figured the boys would not like them. Alas we decided to do traditional premade Valentines with rub on tattoos that she would hand out to her class, however her teacher and a few other staff members she still wanted to do something special. I showed her some seed bombs and also came across another pinterest post that showed relaxing bombs http://www.etsy.com/listing/122530703/seed-bombs-for-relaxation-herbal-teas? dressed up in a box like chocolates and it sparked an idea to do the same thing but with the seed bombs.

  Valentine Seed Bombs

 

First we had to gather our supplies to make our seed bombs. There were many directions out there on how to do this, but we decided to use what we had on hand. Dirt from our yard, peat moss, an ice cream bucket to mix everything in, seeds, an egg carton to put the balls in to dry, and some newspaper to protect the table.

 

We mixed equal parts dirt and peat moss in the bucket, add our seeds, and mixed in water to help keep the ball shape as the dirt and peat moss were a bit dry. Once the seed bombs were formed into balls they were placed in the egg carton to dry out for a few days. 

     While we waited for the seed bombs to dry out, we got busy making the boxes. I had some heavy duty card stock on hand that we used to make the boxes. We measured out equal squares along the entire sheet, then cut out a plus shape. We then folded on the creases and also made an addition crease to make the box fold onto itself. By doing it this way we saved on paper.

    After this was done, I gave them to my daughter to color. I went on to get the directions printed out. We took the left over pieces from card stock and used them to put the directions on, however to make them even prettier we added scrapbook paper over it, then pasted the directions on over the top of that.

    All that was left was to assemble the boxes. We used mini muffin holders to put the seed bombs in, then added the directions on top, then we wrapped the boxes up and tied with a ribbon. We also used scrap card stock and punched a hole in it as a name tag and strung it with the ribbon when we tied the bow. All that was left to do, was to hand them out to the lucky recipients and hope that they don't accidentally take a bite!

 

Yard Clean Up Continued...

    I am so very thankful that I cut back a very long section of blackberry bushes last year. It made digging up the fence so much easier and I finished it very quickly. Took me about 4 days to dig up the fence, only working 2-4 hours per day.

The view from the backyard looking toward the front yard along the property line where the fence got dug up.

    There is still a few things that need to be done. Cutting down the tree that is growing through the fence, pulling up all the T-post and resetting them, rehanging the fence on the post, and fixing a few holes in the fence. It would be easier to just replace it with new fence, but with money being a bit tight at the moment it will have to wait.

The tree growing through the holes in the fence and the fence cutting into the tree below that.

I do not really want to cut the tree down, but it already has cut marks in it from the fence and if the tree gets bigger it could break causing damage to the fence and our neighbors property. That is definitely something I really would like to avoid. I also need to do something with all this blackberry brush. Blackberry brush takes forever to decompose and I really would not like to have thorns in my compost. It would be easiest to burn it in 1 big pile, but we have a few people that live by us that do not like this plus we are in an area where we are not allowed to do this. My only other option is to slowly over the course of many days to use a burn barrel and burn it. Any thoughts?

Yard Clean Up

     When we first bought our house I thought our yard was perfect. By this, I mean that I did not have to do much to it to make it the way I wanted. The only trees we had in our yard were next to the property lines and 2 big ones close to the house. Plus blackberry bushes lining the property line and an occasional one popping up throughout the yard. Little did I realize that this was going to be a major problem in the years to come.

blocked by the blackberry bushes

     I had attempted a garden a few times before settling it on the left side of the yard. We had planted some fruit trees. The 2 big trees came down last year, and over the past few years I have been tackling the brush and blackberry bushes.
     Since having chickens we have realized that they love the dirt along the property line and kept finding ways through the fence. I did manage to clear most of the brush and put up chicken wire along the fence line but came to an abrupt halt when we found out that part of the fence is buried 2 feet down in a pile a dirt with blackberry bushes growing in the pile. We figured its about 75ft of fence that is buried.

The property fence is holding the blackberry bushes at bay.

  

     The blackberries are nice but not where they currently are, since I had planned on extending my garden all the way to the back of our property and the blackberries growing next to the fence line on this same side of the property have to go. I do realize that this might not be the ideal place for a garden and it was more likely suited in a different part of the yard, however over the years with other things that were planted or constructed it is just not possible. Plus where the garden is currently, it gets the most sun throughout the day.

    As you can see from the 2nd photo, I had started to clear the blackberry bushes starting at the back of the yard just to see how far down the fence was buried. Did not take me long to realize how much of it was underground. I do wish I had years before gotten to this task of removing these bushes or at the very least trimmed them back to maintain them properly. The tree in this picture is also growing through the fence so it is possible that it will be coming down as well, time will only tell. I will be posting updates as more progress is made.