Paula wanna cracker

Morning all, how's your day?

My morning has been quite productive despite not being able to sleep last night. I was up until 2 a.m. trying to bake pumpkin cookies. While these cookies are easy enough, they're a fail because I used baking sticks instead of butter.  Geez, now they taste like lard cookies.  I've been saving these empty Cafe Bustelo coffee cans for a few reasons. One, to use for cookies and second, my daughter thought they would be colorful for holding flowers for a summer party/fiesta.

I am not giving up on these cookies.  I'm going to the store to purchase real butter and I think with icing instead of powder sugar, they'll be pretty good.  I still have  a pumpkin and I hope to roast it later today.

After cleaning my house, I looked in the fridge to see what I had.  My Daniel will be home very late tonight and so I wanted him to have something hardy after eating fast food for a week.

I pulled out the crock pot. Diced onion, garlic and pasilla peppers and added pinto beans and water.

 Then, I looked in the fridge and found a pound of Natural Ground Pork and Longaniza.  Longaniza is like chorizo but it's not I guess.  I wish I had a better explanation of the difference. Just know that Daniel loves this stuff.

Do you see a little powder sugar on my table?  Last night's mess.

I browned the the pork and longaniza. Added chili powder, salt and crushed japones peppers for a kick.

After it was browned, I added them to the crock pot along with a can of stewed tomatoes and more salt.

I could have cooked the meat a little more but figured it will cook up more in the crock pot.

Geez, I wish I had zuchinni to dice up into this chile batch. It would have given me an opportunity to sneak some veggies into Daniel.

Thank goodness for cooking. It does help me feel productive. Now, only if I could cook something a little healthier. I do miss my salads.  I am off to Smart and Final. Hopefully, I can find some sort of solution to clean my veggies good so that I can eat them without fear.

Certainly restaurants use a cleaning solution to clean greens, right?  If you can recommend a way to clean my veggies, I'd sure appreciate it.

Best,
paula