If you live anywhere south of the Mason Dixon, you have seen something very similar to this dish. I make it when I need something SUPER quick that my kids are guaranteed to eat. It is mucho cheap to make and mucho fast.

Cowpoke Beans

1 pound of ground beef
2 - 20 ounce cans of you kids favorite baked beans (get the amount relatively close, either a little over or a little under)

Fry ground beef until done, drain fat.  Add beans to the skillet, heat through.  Serve.  :-D Seriously, that is it. 
This is really good as a baked potato topping, as well.  It is also good served with potato salad or coleslaw.  I have been known to serve it on a bun as well, topped with some monterey jack cheese. 

I put off reading this book for quite some time.  I heard about it over and over on the news and read a few blog posts on it.  I was frankly not interested in buying a book and subsequently supporting what seemed to be a horrible mother/person. 

Boy was I wrong to judge.  I don't usually consider myself a judgemental person and generally consider myself to be pretty open minded and easy going.  But, I do have to admit, I let the opinion of the masses sway me on this.  I finally got around to reading the book and let me tell you what! It was a wonderful book. 

As mothers, we tend to put forth our best parenting and best game faces around everyone but our kids.  We hide our flaws and our occasional lack of good judgment when we are around other people.  (Our children truly do know us the best LOL.)  Amy Chua put it all out therem for everyone to see.  She made no apologies to us, the reader, but really let us in the most personal parts of her life where it concerned  her children.  What started out being a book about how Chinese parenting style was better than Western parenting style, morphed into a telling of how she raised her two daughters the best way she knew how.

Although, this is not a parenting manual, she really did challenge me and the expectations I have for my own children.  I can see where I have been too lenient, too harsh, and just right.  She really believed her daughters were so capable that she pushed them to discover their limits. In turn, her daughters learned their limits and even moved past them to accomplish a great deal.  I saw how I tended to "settle" for mediocrity when my children are capable of so much more than that.  It is unfair to them.

I don't want to say a whole lot about the book's contents, as I don't like to spoil it for a new reader. So, I will close this post with this; I have officially learned, never, ever, judge a book based on what other mommy blogger's say......