VDL Acres

07/25/2026

🏡 Homestead One-Skillet Taco Mac 🧀 Streamlined Comfort Food

When the workday is long and the whole table is starving, there’s no shame in leaning on a few pantry shortcuts to pull off a cozy, stick-to-your-ribs meal in under 20 minutes!

This One-Skillet Taco Mac combines rich liquid gold Velveeta with a kick of taco spice and juicy Ro-Tel tomatoes. It's warm, hearty, and guaranteed to clear the table with zero leftover arguments.

🛒 Ingredients

* 1 lb Ground Meat (Beef, venison, pork, or whatever ground meat you have on hand in the freezer!)

* 1 packet Taco Seasoning (or homemade taco seasoning works as well)

* 1/4 cup Water

* 1 can (10 oz) Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies (undrained)

* 2 boxes Velveeta Shells & Cheese

🍳 How to Make It

1. Boil the Pasta

~8-10 min

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Cook the shell pasta from both Velveeta boxes according to package directions. Drain well and set aside.

2. Brown & Season the Meat

~7 min

In a large heavy skillet (a trusty cast iron works best here!), brown your 1 lb of ground meat over medium-high heat until fully cooked. Drain excess grease if needed. Reduce heat to medium, stir in the taco seasoning packet and 1/4 cup water, and simmer for 1–2 minutes until thickened and fragrant.

3. Add the Kick

~2 min

Pour in the entire can of Ro-Tel tomatoes with green chilies (juice included!). Stir well to lift any flavorful browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it simmer for 2 minutes to meld the flavors.

4. Bring It All Together

~2 min

Turn heat to low. Stir in the drained pasta, followed by both pouches of Velveeta cheese sauce. Fold everything together gently until every shell is completely coated in silky, spiced cheese goodness.

💡 Homestead Tips & Variations

> Make it Your Own: Top with a dollop of fresh sour cream, chopped green onions, pickled jalapeños, or crushed tortilla chips for extra crunch! If you're feeding extra-hungry farmhands, toss in a can of drained black beans or sweet corn to stretch the skillet even further.

Save this post for your next busy weeknight, and let me know in the comments: Do you prefer yours mild or spicy? 👇

07/24/2026

Had a few visitors while doing a bit of yard work yesterday! Very cool to see so many of these gentle slithering creatures all in one place and couldn’t resist capturing a few photos of there gathering! I got some very great videos too and those will be released soon. Until then stay safe everyone and we’ll see you all really soon!

-Joe

07/22/2026

The first of six new garden plots went in the other evening and just in time to get some fall harvest vegetables growing! While I plan on having all of them in place within the next week or so I don’t necessarily expect to fill all of them with plants yet this year.

That being said the ones I don’t plant in will be getting an additional layer of organic material (leaves/lawn clippings) on top of the compost layer then I’ll tarp it to allow everything to start breaking down ready for next year!

We are very excited for this new addition to our garden and will keep you all updated as this project progresses!

Stay save everyone and we will see you all very soon!!

-Joe

07/21/2026

Raspberries have started to ripen!!

A few weeks ago I posted about how the blackberries were blossoming but completely forgot about the raspberries! These delicious red raspberries are just starting to ripen with many more being ready to harvest really soon! This was a small batch but with how much these plants have spread over the years we will be picking, storing, freezing and making all sorts of delicious things out of them very soon!

Update on the blackberries coming soon! Until then stay safe everyone and we’ll see you all soon!

-Joe

07/20/2026

With the smoke from the Canadian wildfires moving into Northern Wisconsin late last week making the air quality unhealthy it was time to move to projects inside!

Over the course of a few days we finally got the half wall up that will separate our kitchen and dining areas! It still needs to be finished but that’ll have to wait the rest of the remodel starts getting done! I also built a gate system that will keep the dog out of the living room and keep her and the kids from going upstairs! I’d say it was a job well done! I’ll keep you all updated on the rest of the interior projects as they happen!

More posts coming soon! Until then stay save everyone and we’ll see you all next time!

-Joe

07/19/2026

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!! Or in this case another chicken’s shady spot!

I recently got my hands on a large store banner that was designed for the trash and instantly knew that it was the answer to a problem I was having! While I like to let our chickens out to free range while I’m home when I’m not home they spend their time in the run. The problem with this is that on hot sunny days they had been limited to what little shade there was from a tarp to keep there outside feed dry if it rains.

My long term goal is to see the run completely covered with a proper roof but as it stands it’s not currently an option. Originally I thought about using one of the large tarps I had from when the roof was done and putting it over the run but this came with its own problem of holding water when it rains.

That’s where this banner come in! Because it was made to hand on the side of a building and not act like a giant sail it has thousands of tiny perforation throughout the entire banner! These perforations allow not just wind to pass through it but water as well making a perfect sun shade for over our chicken run!!

We installed this on the first day of our most recent heat wave and it was instantly a hit! As soon as the run was covered our chickens instantly went back to utilizing the entire run and not just laying about in the limited shade!

More updates coming soon! Until then stay safe everyone and we’ll see you all next time!

07/19/2026

New Video Uploaded! I guests been a while! It’s a bit of a long one but I’ll be working on shortening them in the future! Hopefully more to come soon!

Stay safe everyone and we’ll see you all soon!

-Joe

This evening the homestead was blanketed with smoke from the wildfi...

07/18/2026

Last week our bedding in the chicken coop was ready to be changed so we got hard to work shoveling all the old bedding out and laying out some fresh new bedding! The old bedding material was piled up as the start of our compost pile and will be able to start being working into the gardens later this year!

I know this update is a short one but I’m trying to get caught up on some of the missed updates that will hopefully be posted over the next few days so stay tuned! Until then stay safe everyone and I’ll see you in the next one!!

-Joe

07/18/2026