Field Trips and Calling All Cooks' Impossible Taco Pie

Let's talk about field trips.  They are just one of the various things that a teacher gets to experience with her students.  Over the past 20 years, I have gone on many a field trip.  I have been to Chicago, Anaheim, Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Mobile, Cleveland, and countless other small cities and towns with my students.  The usual method of travel is the good old school bus or as the students so affectionately call it Ol' Yeller or the Cheese Wagon.  Now if you have not ridden on a school bus in awhile, then you may have forgotten that they are not the most comfortable form of travel.  The big controversy about school buses is that they do not have seat belts so what they do to make up for this is wedge the seats so close together, you can't or won't move if a nuclear bomb went off in the bus.  Because I am long-legged, this makes for a very uncomfortable ride.  I have to sit up front so I can stretch my legs out into the aisle because if I don't I will not be able to unhinge my "stove-up" (Bigmama's expression) legs to get off the bus.  My co-teacher - Kim- has motion sickness so she has to pop a Bonine and sit up front too where she can see the horizon.  I remember her first ever field trip with me.  We visited a college to tour their facility.  We were walking around talking to all the professors, and I realized that she was nowhere to be found.  I thought "Well great!!  It is bad enough to have to keep up with the kids, but I didn't think she would get lost!"  I turned a corner, and there she was sitting in the middle of the hall as green as a leprechaun, sweating, and had a cold cloth on her head.  She told me she forgot to take her motion sickness pill.  So now before every trip, I always ask "Did you take your Bonine?"  Doesn't this sound like fun y'all??

So you get on the bus, and the first thing you have to do is count the heads.  There can be 20-35 adolescent heads on any given trip. Horrors!!  Think about that for a minute people!!  You are probably shuddering right about now.  As I begin my count, there is always the wise guy who wants to lie down in the seat so I miss him and have to start over.  Or how about the  smartie pants that as I am counting out loud says the wrong number so that I have to start over again!!  Oh they are soooooo funny!!  NOT!!  I glare at them, proceed to wedge myself into the seat, Kim takes her Bonine, and we are off.  And the fun begins.  If you are leaving before sunrise, it is pretty quiet on the bus.  But if you happen to leave at a normal time of day, the decibel level is about three million megahertz or whatever that unit of measurement is.  Bits and pieces of conversation drift up to the front of the bus interspersed with "Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Holland!!!"  If I hear my name once, I hear it 10,000 times.  I also to get to hear "I need to use the bathroom", "Are we going to stop and eat?", "Can we listen to the radio?" and the always fun "Are we there yet?"  My shoulders start creeping up to my ears. Kim pretends she is asleep.  AGH!!

There have been some interesting things that have happened on the bus.  One time as we were loading up, I was climbing up the steps of the bus and fell flat on my face.  Of course, it was not "Oh are you okay Mrs. Holland?" or "Let me help you up Mrs. Holland!"  It was total silence coupled with a look of disgust in their eyes.  I think I embarassed them.  I embarassed myself.  There is nothing like falling down in front of a bunch of teenagers. My shoulders were in line with my nose, and my knee was throbbing but hey, all is good!!!! It is GO time!!!

Then there was the time there was a lot of laughter coming from the back of the bus.  My little inner voice told me to go check and see what was going on!!  I will never ever forget what I found.  One little imp had made a sign out of notebook paper that said "Honk if you are h****y!!"  Oh yes my friends!!  I had wondered why all the trucks had been honking as they raced by.  I naively had thought it was because the kids were doing that dumb game where you do the old thing with your arm bent to make them honk!!  NO that was not it.  When I saw what was going on, I moved so fast I walked out of my shoes and grabbed that sign and ripped it up to a million pieces in front of him.  I wanted to grab him by the ear and drag him up to the front but I just gave him the old Holland glare, pointed my finger towards the front,  and made him come sit with me for the rest of the trip home.  That is a fate worse than death for a teenager - having to sit by your teacher on the bus!!  HAHAHAHA!!  My shoulders were up to my eyeballs!

Another time I was sitting toward the middle of the bus talking with some students, and all of a sudden, I felt something alive and warm wrap around my leg.  All I could think about was that horrid movie "Snakes on a Plane", and thought to myself could it be "Snakes on a Bus???"   I have a vivid imagination.  I screamed like I was being mauled by a tiger and realized it wasn't an ananconda.  It was one of my students.  She had managed to crawl from the front of the bus under all the seats so that she could scare me.  Are you kidding me??  My shoulders were up to my hairline at this point.

I could write a novel on this topic.  I won't even go into the time we had stopped at a mall to eat, and it was Kim's birthday.  The kids surprised her on the bus with a gift.  She unwrapped it with excitement in her eyes, and then holds up the gift - a pair of thong underwear.  Oh they think they are so funny!!  She was mortified.  Or how about the time we had the "older" bus driver who drove 50 mph on the interstate and what should have been a field trip that ended at 6:00 pm turned into one that had us pulling into the school parking lot at 11:00 pm.  My shoulders were over my head on this one.

Please pray for Kim and me.  In June, we are going to Disney World on a bus with 22 teenagers.  It is a 13-14 hour ride one way y'all.  My shoulders will be on top of the bus.  Anyway, enough about field trips.  Let's get on to the recipe.  It is Cinco de Mayo Day!!  I had to look up what that was!!  I thought it was an excuse to eat Mexican food which happens to be my favorite food of all time.  I am supposed to eat dinner with Food Police and Son-in-Law tonight to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  I thought "Yay we will get to go eat at the Mexican restaurant close to their house!"  But no, she informed me that she was going to cook some Food Police Mexican food.  ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?  SHE IS MAKING A HEALTHY GUACOMOLE WITH ZUCCHINI SQUASH!!!   Never in my life have I heard of such!!!  Luckily, the Eeny Game chose a good recipe for this day.  I did not cheat.  If you will notice, the pictures were taken in March!!  So HA, all you doubters!!  It is Impossible Taco Pie, and I am still cooking out of the Calling all Cooks cookbook.

You will need Bisquick, Cheddar cheese, ground beef, milk, taco seasoning, onion, eggs and a can of green chilies.

Brown the meat and onions!

Stir in the taco seasoning mix!

Layer the seasoned meat in a 10 inch pie plate, and top with chilies.

Top that with the baking mix, milk and egg mixture.  Bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees and then add the cheese, and bake 10 more minutes.

Beautiful!!

I topped it with sour cream and jalapeno peppers.  I wish I had some black olives, green onions, and fresh tomatoes.  It was delicious and so easy!!

Here is your recipe.........

Impossible Taco Pie

Calling All Cooks

1 lb ground beef

1/2 C chopped onion

1 package of taco seasoning mix

1 (4 oz) can of chopped green chilies, drained

1 1/4 C Milk

3/4 C Bixquick

3 eggs

2 tomatoes, sliced ( I forgot these)

1 C shredded Cheddar cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease 10 inch pie plate.  Cook ground beef and onion until brown; drain.  Stir in seasoning mix.  Spread in plate and top with chilies.  Beat milk, Bisquick and eggs until smooth.  Pour into pie plate; bake 25 minutes.  Top with tomatoes and cheese; bake until knife inserted comes out clean, 8-10 minutes longer.  Cool 5 minutes.  Serve with the usual taco toppings.  Makes 6- 8 servings.


Now go have a great day!!!......