Easy Snack Platter

Turkey, cheese, pickle platter

Once upon a time, I was busily involved in a local home school group.  I needed to make a quick, tasty, and nutritious snack for a meeting.  I decided to make a platter like the one above.  Since then, I have made several platters like this one over the years.  Now, my daughter is making them, too.

Easy ingredients and setup for platter

These are the simple ingredients:

--a block of mild cheddar cheese to cube

--a package of turkey breast slices to cut into strips to roll and pin with 

--toothpicks

--sliced kosher pickles

--knife to cut the cheese cubes and turkey breast

Hardest part of platter--the cutting of ingredients

Other considerations include vegetable and fruit platters.  Perhaps, I'll create another blog entry to reflect such platters.  They are delicious and healthy for you.  It's as simple as coming up with a multi-compartment container to house raw broccoli and carrots.  A platter could also consist of separate grapes and strawberries.

Well, thanks for reading about our easy snack platter.  I hope this informs you all of a quick set of snacks to throw together.

 

What about you, my readers? Do you like finger foods? Do you like cheese, pickles, and turkey breast?  Combining these simple ingredients into a platter is lovely.  I encourage you to get creative with quick meals.  Don't shy away from allowing your family members to eat what they want to eat, as long as they are eating from the recommended food groups, too.

May God bless you with His peace and wisdom, my beloveds.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads. I hope you enjoyed it!

Easy Cheese Enchilada Casserole

Ingredients for cheese enchilada casserole

Today, I want to show how I made an easy cheese enchilada casserole.  Now, I'm not saying this is a healthy meal, but you can see that some of the ingredients are healthier alternatives.  Corn tortillas and extra virgin olive oil are healthier than the flour tortillas and other oils.  The other ingredients are Borden's mild cheddar cheese, which is pre-shredded, and the Wolf Brand Chile with beans.  The last ingredient also has ground meat in it which satisfies my craving for meat.

Softened corn tortillas

In low heat, I poured the extra virgin olive oil in a flat pan.  I placed each corn tortilla, one at a time, just enough to soften them up.

Cheese added to one tortilla

I waited about 20 minutes for the tortillas to cool down, before attempting to place a decent amount of cheese in each one.  There's no right or wrong way of doing this.  You can make each enchilada as skinny or as fat as you would like.

Rolled-cheese-filled taco

I rolled up each "taco" and squeezed it right at the edge of each other.  Notice how I started at one end.  What side would you start with?  (I'm left-handed, and I started on the left.)

Cheese tacos completed

I made fourteen of these little "tacos" or enchiladas fit in this casserole dish.  Like I said before, there is no right or wrong way of making these enchiladas.  You might have cheese coming out of the corn tortillas.  It's okay.  You don't have to be perfect.  The most important thing to remember is to have clean hands before touching your food.

Wolf brand chili with beans on top of the cheese tacos

Once all the little tacos are made, you can dump and spread the canned chili on top.  Just make sure to coat the tortillas until you hardly see them.  Whatever is exposed will turn a bit crunchy.  That's not bad if you want some of it crunchy.  I want to say here that having coated the corn tortillas with the olive oil will keep the enchiladas from sticking to the casserole dish.  That's just a little tip I'm giving because it helped this time around.

Casserole covered with aluminum foil

I preheated the oven at 325 degrees for about 5 minutes.  After completely covering the top of the casserole dish with aluminum foil,  I baked the enchiladas in the oven for about 20 minutes.  It was enough to melt the cheese and make some of the corn tortillas a little crispy.  It gave a nice contrast of textures.

End product--cheese enchilada meal

 

The end product of all the hard work was delicious, easy cheese enchiladas in a one dish casserole.  I added beans and rice.  The beans had been in the freezer from when I had made them previously.  I simply reheated the beans.  I started the rice, while I let the corn tortillas cool.

 

These enchiladas are great as leftovers!  
Simply reheat in the microwave and enjoy even more crispiness.

 

Someday, I will show how easy it is to make beans in another blog entry.  Beans were the first thing I learned to make when I was fourteen years-old, and I'd like to pass that knowledge to my kids.

 

 

Well, I hope you liked my version of cheese enchiladas.

I hope to show how to make my version of Mexican rice, too.  Stay tuned!

 

Thanks for reading this blog entry.  I hope you enjoyed this picture-filled entry.  I wanted to show how to make an easy cheese enchilada casserole.  As always, you can add more or less ingredients.  Perhaps, I will even show a different version of an enchilada casserole, this time with ground beef.  Yum, yum!

 
How about you, my readers?  Have you made enchiladas lately?  Why or why not?  I encourage you to add your own ingredients; you can add bell peppers, diced tomatoes, and onions.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads.

Art Academy for Nintendo DS

 ABCs of Homeschooling...A is for Art

 

 

This is the cover box for Art Academy for Nintendo DS.

I have many concerns as a homeschooling mother.  Making sure that my kids learn art is one of them.  I have never been great at art.  That is one of my weaknesses.  I needed to come up with a way for my children to still learn some art.

Kaelyn needs someone to read the directions.

That's why I was excited when I saw that art lessons were available through a game on the Nintendo DS.  We had already bought the DS system that was used.  I searched online on www.amazon.com for good games for my five year-old.  I found this game, along with some other ones.  I determined to buy the game as cheaply as I could so we bought it at locally at GameStop.

The menus in the game are very useful.

Art Academy gives easy to follow lessons.  The only thing is that you must be able to read.  My almost six year-old stil lcan't read that fluently.  For those individuals who can read, it is a wonderful tool.  The best thing is that the art supplies are not all over the place--they're inside the virtual space.

The game explains what a pencil can do.

You can do the lessons and then save your creations.  You can see your work in the gallery.  I worked through one that my 5 year-old started.  The first lesson shows you how to draw an apple with shadows.  I even got to set the apple drawing onto a frame.

The game starts you with an easy assignment--drawing an apple.

This game offers lessons on how to draw.  It also allows for free painting.  I liked that it assumed that I knew nothing about art.  It is perfect for the beginner.  My older daughter, the aspiring artist, tried the game, found it interesting, and says she will be using it again.

The game teaches about drawing shade for dimension.

Since the DS system belongs to my youngest, it is hard for all the children to use it.  I believe the older ones try not to dominate it.  We are hoping to buy an extra DS for the younger son.  That will make it easier for my children to use this and other educational games that I have bought for the system.

The game allows you to save your picture to a gallery.

Well, thanks for reading about how I am incorporating technology in our homeschooling adventures.  I hope this encourages you to use technology in your own homeschools.

The game allows you to set your artwork on a frame.

What about you, my readers?  Do you incorporate technology in your homeschool?  There are unusual ways to accomplish it.  I would suggest this affordable educational game.

This entry is part of my Tuesday Technology series.  I hope you enjoyed it.