Yummy Dinner and lament on clutter

Two nights in a row I've made from-scratch dinners! I was just sitting here sampling the Eggplant Bolognese that I have been working on for the past few hours - thinking how nice it will be to have a home cooked meal two nights in a row.

And then I look at my kitchen and the chaos that is engulfing it...

I have always struggled with tidiness - it's just not something that comes naturally to me. 

Someone told me that they read in a magazine that the state of your master bedroom is a visual representation of the state of your mind.

Man am I in trouble!

Part of our problem is too much stuff - and the other problems are no storage and general untidiness genetic predisposition!

Our master bedroom closet is maybe 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall - it's tiny. 

We have no countertops in our bathrooms - just sinks that come out of the wall - with less than 6 inches of space between the sinks and toilets. There is one linen closet in the hallway and it's stuff with well - linens. 

Mike installed a "found" cabinet in our hall bathroom and it's been a god-send for storage of bath items...

The closet in Maddie and Wyatt's room is more normal sized and Mike installed one of those really nice closet systems (well nice for us!) before Maddie was born and it's not being used to its full potential, but one day.... 

I absolutely fail at laundry - I can wash and dry it, but finding the time to fold and hang and put away escapes me. 

We are masters at living out of laundry baskets and using the dryer to de-wrinkle clothes before wearing them...

I consider myself hopeless - and I'm sure some of my friends will have to agree with me because they've tried to help!

My dear, sweet friends have come and cleaned my house, de-cluttered and organized time and time again to no end.

I'm seriously at the point where I'm considering selling and getting rid of everything in our house and starting over from scratch. But I'm not sure even that would help.

I've consulted with a professional organizer - someone to come into my house, gut it and put some order in place - but that's like $800!

But back to the Bolognese...

I really like this recipe- it makes a hearty, chunky red-sauce that I think would be great with any kind of pasta - or even to use it for lasagna...

I never follow a recipe like this by the book - so instead of ground beef I used a romano and garlic pork sausage (although the first time I used a mild, Italian sausage and I think I prefer the flavor from the Italian sausage better...) Not feeling that the sauce had enough "meat" flavor I also added some chopped up chicken thighs (I skinned, de-fatted and de-boned them myself.). If I have yellow squash in the fridge I throw that in - so I did add a small one today. I added double the zucchini, used a larger than called for onion and only had a tiny little pepper from my garden. I did have crushed tomatoes this time, but also added a can of petite diced tomatoes and also a can of mushrooms, because I feel that tomato spaghetti sauce is incomplete without mushrooms!

Last night I made Tex Mex Chicken, which has become one of our family favorites. My best friend Becca introduced me to this recipe a few years ago and I've gotten quite adventuresome with it when it comes to meats. I'll start by saying that I made it exactly how the recipe says - the first time - but I've made several adjustments since then.

First of all I never even use the recipe any more!

I do not like Rotel Tomatoes - they're much too spicy for me - even the mild have too much heat for me - I'm a wimp. Instead I use petite diced tomatoes and diced, green chiles (they have no heat). 

I often double the black beans - if not also the corn. I love the veggie part of the recipe and would eat it vegetarian if I had no meat!

I omit the chicken bouillon cubes - they typically have MSG in them and they add way too much extra sodium for my taste and health. In fact I add NO extra salt whatsoever to this dish because the canned veggies are packed in sodium water and that's really salty enough for me!

Sometimes I add extra cumin, garlic, etc.

Last night I zested half a lime into the mixture and it added a nice touch - I also added the other half of the zested peel to my rice and that was really nice!

As far as meat goes - we've pretty much tried everything! One Sunday after church we had some ground beef sitting out that was thawed and I used that to make the Tex Mex meal and it was awesome! I planned to use the rest of it for enchiladas, but it all got eaten before I had the chance!

I also have done fish with it - however I flour and fry the fish separately and then cook the veggies/sauce on its own because fish would never hold up to have all that extra moisture around it. We plated with the rice on the bottom, bean/corn/tomato mixture on the rice and set the fish on the top of all that. It was so very super delicious!

This dish really tastes better the next day - to me. I love it for leftovers. It also freezes really well and I often freeze the rice and sauce together so I only have to pop it in some warm water and stick it in a pot or pan.