Here in Easy Does It Land (also known as Fort Worth, Texas), the heat of the summer has finally broken. This morning, I woke up to temps in the 50s and dew on the ground. Welcome, Autumn!

That's not to say that the highs for the next few days won't creep back into the mid-90s. But we North Texans will take what we can get. Temps in the mid-90s are a far cry than the 110 degree days we dealt with over the summer. Amiright?

It's no secret that here at the Easy Does It homestead, I tend to make easy meals that can be prepared rather quickly using few ingredients. This recipe is no exception - it includes shortcuts such as using Rotel and pre-grated cheese to save time. With that said, if you have a little extra time, feel free to grate your own cheese and dice up some fresh tomatoes, chile peppers, and onions!

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can Rotel, partially drained
1 8 oz. bag of shredded Mexican cheese
Cooking spray
8 taco-size flour tortillas

Directions:
Cut chicken breasts into chunks, add to pot of cold water and bring to an easy boil for about 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. (If it floats your boat, you can add diced onion or spices to the water to flavor the chicken as it cooks but, honestly, most of the time, I skip it...) Let chicken stand until it's cool enough to work with and then shred with two forks. Mix in the black beans and Rotel.

Heat skillet over medium high heat. Spray with cooking spray.

Top a tortilla with a handful of cheese, a big handful of the chicken mixture, then another handful of cheese and finally another tortilla. Place in skillet and cook for roughly one minute or until tortilla is crisp and lightly browned. Gently flip and cook for about a minute on the other side.  Repeat with remaining tortillas, adjusting time and temperature as necessary to achieve desired crispiness. Use a pizza cutter to cut each quesadilla into six triangles.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole, and/or pico de gallo.

Hope you all are celebrating the un-official end of summer with a long weekend away or some poolside grilling! Here at Easy Does It headquarters, since we took our traditional Labor Day lake trip last weekend, we're hanging out at the house just taking it easy (pun intended)!

For some time now, I've wanted a big piece of art to fill a blank wall in my kitchen. I perused art and poster sites at length but never could find the perfect piece in my price range. Then one day, I was struck with the perfect solution: a magnetic chalkboard! I could write my weekly menus on it. We could post the countless wedding, shower and birthday invitations we get. Hubby could leave me reminders about what he needs me to add to the grocery list. It was the perfect idea!

But then I started looking for one. I had no better luck than I did looking for a piece of art. The large ones were cost prohibitive. And even then, I couldn't find one big enough. So I decided to make my own.

I searched Craiglist for a frame and came across this 3'x3' piece for $20:

Before (as seen in Craigslist ad)

Perfect size for the space!

Closeup

It seems like every Southern family has a recipe for chicken spaghetti. My own family didn't -- darned Northern parents! -- but luckily my husband's family does. Well, technically, each of his sisters and his mom have a different recipe for chicken spaghetti. So I took what I liked from each of their recipes and left out what I didn't. Here's how we eat it at our house:


Ingredients
3 chicken breasts (boiled and shredded)
1 package dry spaghetti, broken in half
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups grated cheddar (one cup for mixing in, one for topping)
1 can Rotel
1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper, to taste


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil chicken breasts and shred (reserve water). Boil spaghetti in reserved water for just less than the time indicated on package (pasta will still cook a little in the oven). When spaghetti is done, combine all ingredients in a casserole dish with the exception of the second cup of cheddar. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.


Serves 4-6. Makes good leftovers.

Note: When photographing this dish, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it looked funny. Then it hit me: I forgot to mix in the Rotel. Duh! So picture some color (not to mention flavor) mixed in there.

Since I started the new full time job and decided to take a break from the side business, I have a lot more time on my hands. Not that you'd know it by how infrequently I post! I've used the time to catch up on some things around the house, do a couple projects and sleep in. ('Cause this girl has some serious trouble getting up in the morning. Remember the 20x20? How could we forget that annoying little adventure?)


The first project I decided to conquer was organizing all of my necklaces and earrings. I'd had an idea in mind for some time but never could find the time to put it into action. That is until recently. A friend gave me an unpainted frame that she wasn't using and I immediately realized that it was perfect for my jewelry organizer project! So I ran to the hardware store and picked up the necessary supplies.


Materials List
Picture frame
Spray paint
Cardboard or foam core board
Fabric 
Window screen
Cup hooks
Saw tooth hangers
Hot glue gun
Stapler
Small nails


Directions

1. Prime frame if necessary
2. Apply several light coats of paint to achieve a smooth, dripless finish
3. At the same time, paint to cup hooks if you want them to be the same color as your frame
4. Finish frame with a high gloss lacquer if you wish
5. Allow to dry for 24 - 48 hours
6. Meanwhile, cut cardboard to fit your picture frame (leave a couple of millimeters to account for the fabric and screen)
7. Stretch your fabric tight over the front of the board
8. Using a hot glue gun, adhere your fabric to the back of the board (you don't want the hot glue to show through on the front)
9. Then, stretch the screen tight over the front of the board
10. Staple the screen to board all the way around (on the back and very close to the edges - don't want the staples to show!)
11. If your frame doesn't already have a hanging mechanism, install saw tooth hangers 
12. Screw the cup hooks into the front of your frame (I opted to do five along the bottom for shorter necklaces and one at each top corner for longer necklaces)
13. Insert wrapped board into frame opening and use small nails to secure it
14. Hang

Over the weekend, a good friend celebrated her birthday with a potluck brunch. We enjoyed a smorgasbord of delicious food and drink including mimosas, Bloody Marys, baked French toast, truffled hashbrown casserole, breakfast pizzas, bagels and lox, and more. I brought an easy to make spinach and mushroom quiche 'cause what's a brunch without quiche, right?

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients
1 frozen pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup half and half
4 ounces button mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 shallot, diced
10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cover edges of pie crust and bake for 7-10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add shallots and saute for a few minutes. Add mushrooms and saute a few minutes more. Remove pie crust from oven and cover bottom with half the shredded cheese. Top with spinach, shallots, mushrooms and then the remaining cheese. Beat eggs with salt, pepper, and half and half. Pour eggs over the top of the pie. Bake at 360 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

And also, I'm a sucker for a sale. Gap and Old Navy -- along with almost every other retail establishment in the US -- hosted some ridiculous Memorial Day sales over the weekend. Gap offered 40% off nearly everything in the store including sale merchandise (which is how I snagged TWO tops for just $2.38 each) and Old Navy offered 50% off clearance merchandise. I feel like a bit of thief because I got a steal on my haul. (Haha, that was funny. Right? No? Sorry.)

Seriously, check out my finds:

Gap - $2.38

Gap - $2.38

Gap - $8.99

Old Navy - $7.74

Old Navy - $3.99

Old Navy - $4.49

Gap - $5.99

Gap - $13.77

This week has already been a little nuts and it's not about to slow down any time soon! Allow me to fill you in:

On Monday, I had to rush straight to a neighborhood board of directors meeting immediately upon getting home from work. On Tuesday, it was a Home Tour committee meeting that I had to hurry to get to. Tonight, I have dinner with my advisory council (I plan tradeshows and work with a group of industry experts to guide the direction of the event). Same thing Thursday. Friday, my fabulous company is renting out a suite at the Mavs game to celebrate a good first quarter (!!). Saturday, I'm planning to participate in the neighborhood garage sale. And, finally, Sunday the hubby and I are headed to our home town to celebrate his lovely mom's birthday.

Phew! I'm exhausted already! (No, really. I could use a nap.)

Peaceful and calm is the opposite of how I feel right now so let's all enjoy some peaceful, calming springtime flowers to start the day.

              

Hands down one of the stupidest things I've ever done:


Publicly declare that I would change my sleep habits in 20 days and start being on time in the mornings.


Ummm... Not so much. Apparently it takes more than a blog challenge to cure chronic lateness.

I came across this recipe a week or so ago on Real Simple and decided to give it a go. It has yet to be hubby tested and approved but the bestie and I thought it was delish! Exactly as you'd imagine: spinach and artichoke dip with pasta plus a kick. Do it!

Won't we all be glad when this ridiculous experiment is over?

It's evident that I'm failing my little self-imposed get-up-earlier challenge. To be quite honest, I'm actually only getting worse at it as I near the end. When these 20 days are over, let's never speak of my laziness, constant whining and excuse making again. Deal? Deal.

Yesterday, I was 12 minutes late in getting up. However, in all fairness, I only got about three total hours of sleep. I was wide awake and out of bed from 2:24 until about 4:45. (I thought that maybe if I got up and did something, I'd get sleepy again. I didn't.) I wasn't back in bed for 30 minutes before KT's alarm started going off. And it went off every nine minutes until mine did at 6:15... Fun times!

Some time ago, the hubby decided that we should give pescatarianism a shot. For no other reason than he wanted to eat more healthy stuff and less junk and felt he needed some set guidelines to hold himself to it. Now, I love me some fish and I love me some veggies so I was 100% on board with it.

And we did pretty well. For about a week or so. But for whatever reason, I had the hardest time coming up with easy and delicious vegetarian or seafood dishes every. single. day. It felt like we were eating the same meal over and over. And, let's be honest, fish doesn't typically make for great leftovers and we're kind of a leftovers-for-lunch-the-next-day type of family. So I started throwing a little meat back in the mix. Long story short, it wasn't but a minute before we were eating meat with almost all of our meals again.

Anyway, after our failed attempt at pescatarianism, I instituted what I like to call "Meatless Mondays." As the name implies, once a week, we make an effort to eat a vegetarian dinner. (Not quite as lofty as our original goal, but it helps us to eat a bit healthier!) As such, I'm always on the lookout for tasty new vegetarian recipes. The other day I stumbled across this one for Quinoa and Black Beans:

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped 
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped 
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Add bell pepper and saute for a minute more.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with chicken broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

I modified it a tiny bit by adding the bell pepper and upping the amount of corn. Next time, I'll probably double the quinoa too.

Serves four.

At what point do I have to stop using the time change as an excuse?

The good news: I'm up on time.

Maybe I'm just lazy but getting up earlier than usual is really hard for me. Especially when something throws off my schedule. You know, like daylight saving time...

Last night, I had a Home Tour meeting that lasted until midnight so I was up a little later than usual. Couple that with the time change and I may have accidentally turned off my alarm instead of pushing snooze.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am always running a few minutes late. Especially in the mornings. Which is a bit of a problem for many reasons but, most importantly, because mornings are a huge source of frustration for the hubby and me. You see, the two of us work for the same company. And the hubby does not like to be late. At all. Ever.

My continual tardiness can be attributed to a multitude of things:

• I’ve never been the best at judging how long it will take me to get from one place to another and am notorious for underestimating travel time
• I’m always trying to fit in “one more thing” before I leave the house
• I absolutely despise getting out of my warm bed – though, once up, I’m surprisingly chipper

(Quick aside: In high school, though I was a straight-A making, super-involved student, I once got in-school suspension for having too many tardies. True story.)

It’s been said that getting up just 20 minutes earlier can relieve much of the stress and rushing around associated with trying to get out the door on time. So I figured that I’d give it a try.

Inspired by challenges such as Kendi’s 30 for 30 and Rosi + Tart’s 10 with 5 (which are both ultimately about keeping things simple), I decided to institute my own personal challenge: Project 20 for 20.

Here’s how it works:

Starting tomorrow – and for the next 20 work days – I commit to getting up and out of bed 20 minutes earlier than usual. I’ll keep myself honest by posting a screen shot of my cell phone/alarm clock daily and promise to let you know whether or not my getting up earlier has any positive affect on our morning routine.

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees
2. In large bowl, toss potatoes, onion, 2 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper
3. Transfer potato mixture to rimmed baking sheet (I like to line mine in foil to make clean up a snap!) and roast until tender, 20 to 25 minutes
4. Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook until browned and cooked through
5. Rinse bowl and add spinach and ¼ teaspoon salt.  Squeeze lime over the spinach
6. Add the hot chicken and the potato mixture to the spinach and toss (spinach should wilt slightly)
7. Serve with glass of chilled white wine, preferably on patio

Serves four. Makes decent leftovers (believe it or not).

KT loathes Valentine's Day and all that it stands for: greed, corruption, the demise of American society. (Or was that how he feels about Perez Hilton? I get the two confused.) Anyway, once - sometimes twice - a day for the past week, he's launched into a rant about Valentine's Day being a fabricated commercial holiday, designed by the greeting card industry to...blah, blah, blah. So, naturally I bought a sappy $8 greeting card professing my undying love. Duh.  But I didn't want to press my luck so I left it there. No flowers. No chocolates. No gifts.

I arrived home this evening and started to prep for dinner when KT informed me of our impending Valentine's Day reservations. Imagine my surprise, confusion and delight (in that order)!

So, all of that to say that tonight's planned recipe post will take a back seat to my enjoying a fancy dinner prepared by someone else.

I hope you're enjoying your fabricated commercial holiday with someone special! I sure am.