If you eat weird things, now is the time to confess

Recently I got to thinking about all the meals my mom made when Emily and I were younger that we haven't had in a while, so last night I made my mom dig up her recipe for chicken enchiladas. And they are every bit as delicious as I remembered. They're not fancy, and if you happen to be some sort of enchilada snob you probably wouldn't concede that they're enchiladas, but oh man. I'm sharing the recipe because it's easy and we loved them as kids and we were horifically picky eaters.

10(ish) soft tortilla shells
1+ lb chicken, cubed or shredded
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 8-oz tub sour cream
2 cups shredded mexican cheese
1/2 cup pureed salsa

Now I'm not sure if pureeing the salsa is an integral step, or if my poor mama did that because otherwise her children (and husband) would be like, "ew, what are these green chunks? ::gag::" It's up to you, but I didn't like chunky salsa then and I don't like it now, so we pureed it. Also the recipe calls for just 1 pound of chicken, but we actually used about 1.5 pounds, cubed, and could only stretch it to fit 9 tortilla shells. And even then they were a little skimpy, so I think in the future I'll use 2 whole pounds, and I'll shred it rather than cube it.

So what you do is cook the chicken, and while it's cooking mix together the cream of chicken, sour cream, salsa, and half of the cheese (that's 1 cup). Add the seasonings to the chicken once it's cooked (probably fine to do that at any point), then add a third of the sauce to the chicken. Coat a 9x13 (or whatever dish) in half of the REMAINING sauce, then spoon the chicken mixture into tortilla shells and roll 'em up like enchiladas, lining them up in the pan as you go. Once you've got 'em all situated, pour the last of the sauce over the top and cover it with the other 1 cup of cheese. Then bake it at 350º for 30 minutes.

You see what I mean about it not being complicated, or complex in flavors. But it's very good, if you happen to like casserole-type chicken dishes. I don't know why I feel the need to apologize for the dish. If you don't like the sound of it, just don't make it! And also, don't tell me, because what is worse than when people are grossed out by you?

Remind me to tell you about how I also ate peanut butter and cheese sandwiches when I was little.

Anything for you, hush puppies.

When I got home from work on Wednesday I did the 30 Day Shred. I think it actually may have been day 30, but days 1-29 were almost a full year ago, so I get the feeling Jillian wouldn't be okay with me saying I completed the thing. It was pretty exhausting and I am still sore today. It's probably a good idea to do the workout when I've got more energy, rather than at the end of the day when I'm tired and hungry, but right now I just can't bring myself to wake up 40 minutes earlier to fit it in before I leave for work. Do you exercise in the mornings?


I used to believe that food was just too good, and I was going to have to bite the bullet and exercise more to balance out all the delicious salt and fat, but about 15 minutes into the shred yesterday I was singing a different tune. Please Jillian, I will stop eating french fries and bread if you don't ever make me do this again, oh God not the side lunges. And she even tries to dumb it down for me. "Beginners, follow Anita." I'd feel a lot better about her as a leader if she were also panting and grimacing and using her dad's work boots instead of those unholy 3-pound weights. (Anita actually uses 5-pound ones, which is a riot.) But I try my best to do as many reps as the girls do because like Jillian says, you can't do a 20 minute workout and take a break. It really does take the place of hours of phoning it in at the gym. Which is the same as saying, these 20 minutes are going to be harder than the combined total of all the other minutes you've ever spent being physically active in your life. I think what I'll do is alternate that dvd with plain old walking, and I'm definitely aiming to eat a lot more fruits and veggies and a lot less starchy junk every day. One of the bloggers I read has lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks just by changing her diet (as best I can tell, and I'm not saying that's normal or healthy or whatever. Just saying. Diet matters a lot.) So hopefully I can get rid of my belly jiggle for good. I like to think that once it's gone, it'll be easy to keep it off because I won't want to go back to being jiggly. We shall see.


Tonight we're supposed to get some snow!!! I have high hopes that this will be our annual snow. Of course it couldn't happen during the week so I could enjoy an extra day off, but Monday is a holiday, so we're going to go visit Emily! I'll be walking to and from Charleston, in case you were wondering.

And don't think she won't get the car in the divorce

Did you watch the Super Bowl? I spent most of it on my feet in the kitchen cooking dinner and cleaning up, which I wasn't too happy about. I tried to pick a menu that wouldn't require a lot of effort or attention (pioneer woman's amazing lasagna, plus garlic bread, salad, and a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I am very sad I had to share with anyone), and we prepared a few things ahead of time, but still somehow I only managed to catch about fifteen minutes of the game, but I guess that's for the best since the team I was pulling for evidently never got off the bus. Most of my family was rooting for the Saints since it would be their first win, but I've never really been an underdog fan. I have nothing against Drew Brees, but Peyton Manning is just the best. I did see the halftime show and a lot of the commercials, including the one for the Dodge Charger. Did you see that one? Oh, it made me mad. The commercial is a bunch of guys talking about the sacrifices they make for their girlfriends or wives, and the point is "since I do all that crap, I'm going to drive the car I want to drive." It's stuff like walking the dog in the morning, or being nice to his mother-in-law, or GETTING TO WORK ON TIME. And the slogan? "Man's last stand." As in, "In the face of your overwhelming control over every aspect of my life, the only shred of dignity and autonomy I have left to cling to in this world is that you get no say in what car I choose." Because left to their own devices, men would never be punctual or watch vampire shows. I just can't believe that's the commercial Dodge chose for the biggest ad opportunity of the year. That's the best they could do? A concept that blatantly alienates such an enormous demographic? What were they thinking? What woman sees that commercial and thinks "Huh. You know, they're absolutely right. We are so crazy and manipulative. Those poor guys. Thank heavens Dodge has created a product designed to give them a tiny ray of hope in their insufferably oppressive, emasculating lives."

I hadn't thought that Mike or I would ever have considered buying a Dodge, but I can tell you now for certain that we never will. I want no part of a company that thinks men have to defend their masculinity by ignoring their partner's input when making big decisions. I may not know much about relationships, but I know that resentment and selfishness are two good ways to ruin them.

Bad form, Dodge.