Once Upon a Potty

Once Upon a Potty is one of my favorite children's books.  It is a honest and funny book for kids who are going through the traumatic stage of potty training!  I couldn't help remembering this book during a recent toilet install adventure!  Although our adventure was almost as humorous as the Once Upon a Potty book, I will spare you the details or our numerous trips to the store and the multiple toilets we bought.  (Perhaps I will share those stories at a later date!) 

Changing a toilet is disgusting...there's no other way to describe it.  The first challenge is emptying the water.  You'd think you could flush it away...but it's not that easy!  While my other half is very intelligent he doesn't always use his intelligence!  I walked into the bathroom to see him using a towel to soak up the water.  That would be smart if it was only a little bit...but it wasn't!  While I can't name movie stars, remember movie quotes or explain how electricity works like he can, I am a quick on my feet problem solver!  

I've seen him siphon "liquids" from parts of cars enough times to know he has a tool for this. 

I highly recommend using this handy dandy pump when you need to empty a toilet...or when you need to empty anything for that matter! 

Although emptying the toilet is annoying it's not the disgusting part...this is! 

Cleaning the old wax off...bent over the waste pipe is disgusting...but it's got to be done! 

Now that we have a white toilet we just need to replace the sink and tub to have our completely updated bathroom.  I'm sure there will be some good stories with that adventure! 

No Mess Slow Cooker Meal

No mess slow cooker?  Is it possible? YES! 

  

I really wasn't sure...in fact, I was pretty sure I had fallen for the marketing scheme!   I gave it a shot though and now I really love using my slow cooker!

The Reynolds slow cooker liner is easy to use, doesn't affect the taste of the food and makes clean up AMAZING!

Recently I made Chicken Tortilla Soup using a slow cooker liner.  I found the recipe on one of my new go to recipe sites: Chef in Training. I used their recipe as a baseline but adapted it to what I had on hand and what met the "needs" of the household picky eater.


Ingredients

• 2 chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans diced tomotoes with onion, garlic and green pepper (chili ready)
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can corn
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 2 cans low-sodium chicken broth
• 1-2 cups of water
• 1 Tbsp Goya Sozanador Total seasoning
• 1 Tbsp chile powder
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin

• tortilla chips
• sour cream
• shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

After lining the slow cooker it took less than 10 minutes to mix the soup's ingredients together.  

 I emptied the beans and corn into a colander and rinsed them together to save time. 

 Once everything is mixed together in the slow cooker, lay the chicken on top but be sure they're covered with liquid.  Cook on high for 6 hours.  

 After 6 hours I removed the lid and shredded the chicken.  It was so tender it just fell apart - perfection! I served it with tortilla chips and sour cream.  

The soup was very good, but I will experiment with a few things the next time I make it to perfect it a bit!