crock pot cooking.

So, today is day two in my husband's old house.  It's supposed to be day 3, so my crock pot has gotten it's workout for the week, and I have to say that I'm loving coming home to a prepared meal, that while I cooked it, it didn't use the last little bit of energy I had for the day.

yesterday was stuffed cabbage.  I'm told I can't give you that recipe because it's a family secret.  we'll see.  I may add it later.  Today is chicken burritos.  I put 3 large chicken breasts (would have used 4, but they filled the bottom of my pot, so that's all I needed)  2 cups of minute rice, 2 packs of taco seasoning, 1 can of red kidney beans (would have used black beans, but didn't have them in the pantry) 2 cups of frozen corn, and 5 cups of water.  6 ingredients, cooked on low, thrown on a tortilla at the end of the day, it's going to be amazing!  clean up couldn't be easier either.  there aren't 30 pots and pans to wash, all you have is your prep stuff and that can be taken care of as soon as you're done putitng your ingredients into the crock pot!  easy peasy lemon squeezy!

For us working girls (I'm a SAHM, but the next two weeks I am working outside of the home!) it's easy to throw some food into the the crock pot so it simmers all day, hits you when you walk in the door with it's delicious smells, and all you have to do.  dinner clean up is the crock pot, and whatever dishes you dirty.  HOW EASY IS THAT?!

this is not only savvy (the crock pot takes less electricity than the oven!) but it's a SUPER smart use of your time!!

Divas- send me in your crock pot recipes!  I want to share them, and test them out myself!

clean up that cat pee...

Well, I'm here the day after going into my husband's old home, and I've been scrubbing to my heart's content there. Long story, but his ex wife, their daughter and his ex MIL were living in that house until 2 days ago. I went in to clean it and was bowled over by the stench of cat urine. talk about gross. Well, I'm not here to bash the choices that were made by his former family, but I'm going to tell you how I got the mold, and cat urine out of 2 rooms, and I'm going back for more today.

I used an entire bottle of a popular pine cleaner on the floor of the MIL's room. it didn't get the smell out. After running out of floor cleaner, I figured it was time to go with something I have on hand. I used my baking soda mixture (if you haven't read my previous blogs, it's right here: homemade baking soda scrub)  and a toothbrush.  Calm down, the toothbrush was only for the corners and the edges where the tile met the baseboard, on the rest off the floor, I used a scrub brush.

the trick to this is:  when your water gets really foamy from rinsing the floor, dump and refill.  My husband did this, as I was moving along pretty quickly, and had 2 buckets, he kept making sure I had plenty of clean hot water. 

cat pee is gone from my stepdaughter's room and her grandmother's.  I will, be going in the day before to do a quick mop and make sure that everything else was taken care of, and just to be sure that I don't have any last-minute cleaning.

I am not putting this to test on carpet.  I think my steam cleaner would be taxed a little too much, but I will definitely use baking soda.  it's the best!