Baked Chimichangas

This is one of Josh's favorite meals, and I love it cause it's super duper easy peasy. 

Sometimes I just feel like rhyming twice in a row, ya know? 

What you'll need:

1lb ground beef

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

1/2 cup green chilies

1/2 cup taco sauce

1/2 cup sour cream

1 Tbs. cider vinegar

Flour tortillas

Cheese

Brown the ground beef:

While it's browning, throw the sour cream, chilies, taco sauce and cider vinegar into a bowl:

Like so:

Add the spices and garlic. If we have salsa, I usually dump about 1/4 cup of that in there too. But it's good without it, too. 

Then add the ground beef. Drain it, first!

Mix it up!

Put about this much onto a flour tortilla: As you can see, I'm very technical with my measurements.

Put them into a pan...

Brush them with butter. Go all Paula Deen on those babies.

Well actually don't. That's unhealthy. But a little butter won't kill ya.

Put them in the oven at 400* for about 10 minutes, til golden. Then top with cheese. (We do half and half, cause I shouldn't really eat cheese.)

Stick them back in for about 5 minutes or so. (I usually turn the oven off and clean up the kitchen and to me, that means they are done then. :)

And there you go! Easy, yet yummy, dinner. :)

Enjoy!

Handsome Chef + Thrift Store Find!

He's Handsome...

AND he grilled some tasty eats!

YUM. Grilled Chicken Blitz. I'm pretty sure that's what it was called.

And. How stinking adorable is this table I found at Savers? I got two of them. We're painting them this weekend. :)

Also. This weekend I dropped my compact powder into my coffee, spilling it everywhere, spilled water on myself, broken the Brita, shattered the front lawn lamp, tripped UP the stairs, getting a rugburn, and gotten sunburnt. Pretty darn productive, right? 

Ha.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Actually. Earrings. This giveaway has nothing to do with a dinner of chicken.

Anyways. Are you wondering who the winner is?!

ME TOO.



Thanks to Random.org for picking:  Alycia from Crowley Party as the big winner of the earrings! (She got in just in the nick of time, too!) Congrats, Alycia! Shoot me an email with your info and I will mail your earrings next week! :)

Thank you to everyone for entering! I will do more giveaways in the future, so keep a lookout for them!

That's pretty cool!

My DIY Milk Glass (but not) was a featured blog! That makes this girl pretty excited!

You can see the blog I was featured on by clicking the shiny button. :) Apparently, I'm a genius. Who knew?

Giveaway!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!

Because I'm feeling nice today.

And also because it's Friday. (Those two things have alot in common!)

Anyway! I will be having a giveaway for these earrings from My Etsy Shop! Handmade by yours truly. I love these things! I made myself a pair, in fact, and have been wearing them every day since! You can click here to purchase them, if you'd like.

Aren't they so cute? :)

::TO ENTER::

It's easy peasy. Here are your options: (You can do one or all!)

1. Join this site. Leave a comment telling me you did! (If you are already a member, leave a comment saying so!) 

2. "Like" Melissa Rae Murphy Designs on Facebook. Leave a comment telling me you did- or, like the above, if you are already a "liker" then just leave me a comment on here! 

3. "Share" this blog post on your Facebook page. (click the little Facebook icon at the bottom to do this.) Don't forget to leave a comment saying you did! 

4. Grab my button! You can find it over there on your right. Once again, leave a comment! 

*INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS* Feel free to enter! I'll ship them to you free, if you win, 'cause I'm just that cool! =)

Simple as that!

{I will pick a winner using random.org on Thursday evening, April 19th!}

Thrift Store Finds/Before & After

These aren't going to be huge, extravagant before & afters by any means, but I like them. :)

This "thing" ... I have no idea what it really is. I just saw it and loved the design on it. It was $1.25.

We just covered it in white spray paint, easy peasy, and it looks way better. The before picture doesn't really show how dirty and dingy it looked. Anyway, it looks great now!

Before                                                           After

These wall hanging candle holders were $5.00 each at Savers. (My goodness, I love that place.) I love the design on them so much! Josh actually found these, and just knew I'd like them. He's just good like that. :)

I love this design!

Anyway, we painted two of these black, and one of them white. The white one still doesn't have a home yet. But I had a plan for these ones. :)

 So here's our really sad beige-and-white-and-tan living room.

Before:

After!

You can see the candle holders hanging on either side of our finally-framed wedding photo. We also got a floating wall shelf at Savers for $5, and got the longer one at Home Depot to go with it.

You can see the "thing" tucked away behind a picture on the smaller shelf. I like it so much. I don't know why. :)

And I just got filler for that awesome green vase today. No picture of that yet. :)

So much more inviting now, don't you think?

Goodness knows, I'm not done yet. I definitely want to paint and do a few more things in this room. The thing is, all that costs money! So, until we have some of that, this works! :)

Target Gift Card Giveaway!

My awesome friend Ashleigh who I love so much just started an awesome blog. You will love it!

And today she is having a giveaway for a $25 Target Gift Card! (See that post here.)

Her very first post was a DIY on painting your counter tops. It sounded insane to me, but they pulled it off and made their counter tops look like granite! For $150! I am so excited to see what else she has in store for us!

(This the "after" for her counters. They totally look like Granite, right?!)

I want to do it to our counters, too! 

Sweet and Sour Chicken (or Pork. yuck.)

I first posted this on my old blog, but am going to start trying to merge a few of my favorite posts to this one. This is one of my favorite recipes. It's yummy. You should try it. I first made it while I was in Papua New Guinea. 

Here's what you will need:

2/3 cups Soy Sauce

2 tsp. minced garlic (I basically always double garlic. Always.)

1 Tbs. minced ginger. (I keep mine in the freezer and grate it as I need it.)

1/4 cups flour

1/4 cups cornstarch

Salt and Pepper

1 Lb. of Chicken. Or pork, if you're into that. (As you can see, I'm not.) Anyways. Pick a meat, and cube it.

Oil

1 cup of ketchup

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 oz. honey or 1Tbs. sugar (I just do a squeeze or two of honey. It works.)

1 Tbs. vegetable oil 

1/2 Tbs. sesame oil

1/3 cups of each: onion, green pepper, red pepper, celery

1 cup pineapple. (And may I just say, in PNG, we picked and ate it the same day. DE.LI.SHUS. :)

Mix soy sauce, garlic, ginger, flour and cornstarch.

Season meat with salt and pepper. Place in bowl, and toss that disgusting looking sauce all over it. 

It kinda looks gross. But trust me. It's nom nom.

"Dredge" the meat in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. I like that word, "dredge." 

And now for the extra healthy part.

In a large frying pan, heat 1" oil to 350*. (To me, this translates to "heat up some oil in a pan at like... medium-ish temperature.")

While that stuff is cooking, in a separate bowl combine the ketchup, sugar, vinegar, and honey. Whisk them together and set it aside. Also, by the way, don't use a cereal bowl like I did. It's not whisk friendly like you might think.

Mmm.

Fry the meat until golden brown and drain on a paper towel covered plate.

Get your veggies all ready...

Onions.

Celery.

Red pepper.

Green pepper. 

(do you like the way I have carefully cut them all to size? haha. I am the worst cutter ever.)

And the best part, pineapple. This makes this dish, in my opinion.

Doesn't this look great?

Go on. Enlarrrrrge this.

Place the fried chicken and veggies in a roasting pan with the canola and sesame oil. 

Cover with the ketchup mixture. Bring to a simmer and cook til meat is tender.

Yummmmmmmm

Let me know if you try it! It's sooo yummy!

Etsy!

I have an Etsy. You know that.

I just wanted to share with you what I've been up to!

The other day I have the opportunity to have a mixed-vendor open house with some ladies from church. I was so nervous everyone would hate my designs, but it turns out, they don't. :) It went so much better than I thought it would, and I hope to do it again soon!

Here's my table all set up. The tablecloth, frames, bowls, jars and vases are all things I had on hand at home. I wanted to make a cute table with it all! What do you think?

Some of the pretties, available here.

Custom flower-girl bracelet order, available to order soon!

I also got in a bow-making mood, and have these available, too!

I made this baby bow, too. I love it. I want baby girls so I can make them obnoxiously huge bows to wear on their heads. :) You think I'm kidding... Don't you?

That's all for now! I have a few before/after posts coming soon! I guess I better go get some "aftering" done, for that to happen.