Bruschetta Chicken

A couple weeks ago when Drew and I were planting trees and flowers around the house I decided to buy a few fresh herbs to use throughout the summer. I have not had an opportunity to cook with any of these herbs until last night. I found a KRAFT recipe on Pinterest for bruschetta chicken and decided to give it a try…

 Ingredients:

3-4 Chicken breast halves
1 Bottle of Bruschetta-style salad dressing (I used Wishbone) or you could use Sun Dried Tomato dressing (KRAFT).
1 Tomato, finely chopped
½ Cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
¼ Cup chopped fresh basil
Olive oil

Directions:
*the original directions call for the chicken to be grilled. I seared the chicken on the stove top then finished cooking in the oven.

1. Marinade chicken. I put the chicken breast in a large zip-lock bag and marinated all day with the dressing while at work.
2. Heat skillet to medium heat, add olive oil to slightly coat skillet (I used cast iron so that I did not have to dirty a baking dish). Place breasts in skillet and seer both sides (appx 4-5 minutes per side).
3. While the chicken is in skillet combine the tomato, basil, mozzarella and a couple splashes of the left over salad dressing. Top chicken with the tomato mixture.

4. Loosely cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees until breasts are cooked throughout. (appx 20 minutes). I took the foil off for the last 5 minutes to make sure the tomatoes were cooked thoroughly.
5. Serve warm (I added a splash of balsamic vinegar to the chicken once it was finished baking). Delicious! 

This recipe was another hit and will be added to my growing pile of recipes that I will make time and time again! I think next time I cook it I will pound the chicken breast out a little thinner so that is cooks faster.

Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding

Drew and I had a relatively slow weekend and we were able to get a lot accomplished around the house. I even got to try a couple new recipes over the weekend, one of which being Paula Deen's 'Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding!' I have always liked banana pudding, but I LOVED this recipe! Drew and I have been working on finishing it off for the past few days and I may have even had some for breakfast this morning too!

Ingredients: 

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies 

6 to 8 bananas, sliced 

2 cups of whole milk 

1 (5-ounce) box instant Vanilla pudding 

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened 

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk 

1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions: 

Line the bottom of dish with crushed cookies and layer sliced bananas on top.

Crushed cookie base - starting the banana layer.

 

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the first layer of cookies and bananas. 

Starting to add the bananas on the 2nd layer.

Repeat the layers until dish is full. Top with remaining cookies (I crushed them again). Refrigerate until ready to serve. ---AMAZING! 

This recipe required a little more work than a traditional banana pudding recipe but it was WELL worth it. I will definitely make this again, and again... 

Zucchini Gratin

Ingredients:
 4 medium zucchini, sliced in 1/4-inch thick rounds
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I also used fancy shredded Parm)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:
Butter a 10-inch round pan (I used glass, but a pie plate or quiche pan would work too). Put the sliced zucchini in a medium pot and cover with water.

Bring to a boil and cook for 1-2 minutes; drain and rinse with cold water. Arrange the zucchini in dish in an overlapping circular pattern. Season with salt and pepper between the layers. Top with the Parmesan cheese and drizzle with the melted butter.

Bake at 400º for 25 minutes, then bake at 475º for another 10 minutes until golden brown, I also turned the broiler on to get the cheese extra crunchy!

This dish turned out great! It was pretty good warmed up the next day too!

Weekend Fun

This past weekend we did a lot of running around, yard work and spent some quality time with friends and family. We went to Augusta after work on Friday, ran errands and met up with Scott and Laurie at Carolina Ale House for dinner. The food was okay; I should have known better than to order a steak though! After working in the yard for most of Saturday we went to Waynesboro and met up with some friends at Burke Perk for a St. Patrick’s Day themed celebration. 

I also got to spend 2 days with Parker! Saturday we rode the Ranger and played on the playground and I got to babysit him on Sunday while the rest of the family was working at Justin & Kim's new house! Manual labor or play with Parker? That's a no-brainer! 

Riding the Ranger with Drew! 

Watched Tangled with me, and we might have taken a nap too! 

Oh, and if that was not adorable enough here are some of his Easter pictures:

Spring is in the air!

 We spent most of Saturday morning at Yard Masters in Swainsboro getting shrubs for the front of our house and flowers for my planters. We also wanted to get some kind of evergreen shrub to plant around the front gate but we were unsuccessful at finding anything that we wanted to plant at the time. So we decided to just put a few large planters at the gate for the time being. We also picked up 9 shrubs (Japanese Holly) to plant around the front of the house. We have 6 planted so far and hopefully we will get time to finish planting the remaining 3 after work today.

Making a mess! 

The planters are actually pretty large, but they look tiny next to the gate!

Baby Dedication

This past Sunday our sweet nephew was dedicated to Christ. It was a beautiful service and he was so calm and quiet – very impressive for such a young fella! After the service we went to town and had lunch at Frank’s, then Drew and I spent the rest of the afternoon 'spring cleaning' out the garage and closest. (My kind of fun!).

26 Trees Later..

 After spending all of Friday afternoon and a good portion of Saturday, we finally finished planting all 26 trees. During the process we discovered 2 things, first, that planting the trees took a lot longer than we expected and second, neither one of us can count. Our original plan was to plant 12 trees down the driveway (6 on each side). Halfway through planting the driveway we realized that we had planted 7 trees instead of 6 on the left-hand side. We had planned to plant 4 trees in what we considered to be the yard but we ended up with only 2 in the yard (fine by me – I hate raking leaves). We also planted 10 Leyland Cypresses down the master-bedroom side of the house. My grandfather was kind enough to assist Drew with the last 10 trees so that I could go to Augusta and run errands (i.e. shop). Right now the trees look like twigs but hopefully the leaves will start budding out soon!

Drew being assisted by Reagan - Friday evening.

Drew and Grandpa  - Saturday afternoon.

Row of cypresses - these were the easiest since the root ball was small.

Trees

After almost a year and a half of living in our home we are finally planting trees! I placed an order for the trees today and we will be picking them up on Friday. Can you guess what we have on our agenda for the weekend?? We ordered 16 Tulip Poplars (4 for the yard and 12 to line the driveway) and 10 Leyland Cypresses for the side of the house for added privacy.

Tulip (Yellow) Poplar  -only yellow in the fall

Leyland Cypress

Unfortunately the ones we ordered are significantly smaller than the images above and will take many, many years to reach the sizes that are pictured! :(

Supper - March 5th

Last night for supper I made 2 new low-carb inspired recipes that we have never tried before. They were both a hit!

I made crock pot balsamic roast with onions and the ‘best broccoli of your life’. Both were recipes I found on Pinterest.

Balsamic Pot Roast:
Ingredients:
3lb Boneless chuck roast
1-2 T steak rub (I use weber’s Chicago-style steak rub)
Ground black pepper
Kosher Salt
2 T olive oil
1/4 cup water
2 large onions, peeled and thickly sliced (I used Vidalia onions)
1 cup beef stock
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (I used BI-LO brand)
1/2 cup tomato sauce

Directions:

Rub meat well with steak seasoning, black pepper and kosher salt. Heat heavy pan with small amount of olive oil and brown roast well on both sides (3 to 4 minutes per side) – I had to cut the roast in half.

  

Mix the beef broth with the balsamic vinegar and tomato sauce. Peel onions and cut into thick slices and place in the bottom of the crock pot. After the meat is browned use the water to deglaze pan and add to broth mixture above. Add roast and sauce to the crockpot. At this point I put it in the refrigerator overnight to start the next morning before I went to work.

I turned the crockpot on low and let cook for 8 hours. I removed the meat immediately and wrapped in tin-foil. I then took the broth mixture and put it in a sauce pan and cooked-it-down to make gravy for the roast. It was outstanding!

I served the roast over the onions and topped with the gravy.

Best Broccoli of Your Life:

Ingredients:
2 large heads of broccoli, cut into florets.
5 T olive oil
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 T fresh crushed garlic – I just used the kind from a the jar
1 lemon
1/3 C fresh grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425. Line a baking sheet with tin foil.

In a bowl I tossed together the broccoli, olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper and garlic and then transferred to the baking sheet. I let it bake for 22 minutes. I also open the oven half way through and shook the pan a little but I don’t think that was necessary.

After baking I took the sheet out of the oven, zested the lemon over it and squeezed a small amount of the lemon juice on the broccoli. I also added an additional tablespoon more of olive oil so that everything would stick together. Then I mixed in the parmesan cheese.

The broccoli was really good too, but I’m not sure if I would call it the ‘best broccoli of your life’. It’s pretty hard to beat broccoli and cheese!

--This was such a good dinner and I’m eating it for lunch today! 

**note - both of these pictures are from pinterest.

Outdoor Kitchen

Drew and I are planning to start our outdoor kitchen adventure within the next month. The grill has been ordered and we are hoping to order the pergola kit and stones by the end of next week. The picture below is similar to the layout that we are going to have. I am not a fan of the stone they used – I want to do much smaller stacked stones. Budget permitting, we are also going to have a fireplace and seating area to the left of the kitchen. 

I like the stonework in the picture below much better than the picture above. I would like more gray tones mixed in with the neutral stones though. 

Bacon in the Oven

I found directions on Pinterest for cooking bacon in the oven instead of cooking it in a pan on the stove top. As a lover of bacon I was very intrigued by this concept and decided to try it out. We had BLTs for dinner last night and I must say they were pretty darn fantastic with the ‘baked’ bacon. Here are the directions:

1.  Set oven to 400 degrees.

      2. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and place bacon on the sheet. One pack of bacon was enough to fill 2 pans. It is important that the bacon is close to one another but not touching. 

         3. Place in the oven and bake for appx 13-15 minutes (I like crispy bacon so I baked them for 15 minutes).   
   4. Once they are done baking I moved them from the baking sheet onto paper towels to absorb the extra grease.

       I let the grease in the pan cool for a few minutes then rolled up the tinfoil and tossed it out – a much easier clean-up method than the traditional cook-top method. I will say that the grease did pop a little in the oven and I saw it hitting the glass on a few occasions but all-in-all this was a much cleaner and convenient method to cook bacon. 

Birthday Excitement

In 2 days a certain someone will officially be closer to 30 than 20 years old! Yikes! Although I am not big on birthday celebrations I am big on birthday presents! ;)

Thanks to my oh-so-thoughtful husband (and by thoughtful I mean a good listener and direction follower) I am now the proud owner of a new MK gold watch and I love it! Except its too big – got to get a few links taken out next time I go to the mall!

...Now, how do I talk him into getting me the MK East West Satchel?? I’m thinking we are going to start a new tradition of St. Patrick Day gifts! 

Electrical Woes

I have finally located my motivation to start getting up early and getting on the treadmill before work. My sweet husband (with the assistance of my sweet father-in-law) installed a TV for me to watch while I run, and I must say it is much more fun to watch the Real Housewives I have recorded on the DVR versus running outside and looking at nature! The only problem with this setup is that the idiot electricians that wired our house in 2010 overloaded the outlets in the formal living/foyer/dining room area. We’ve known that there was an issue with some of the outlets in that area; only a few can handle the vacuum cleaner without throwing a circuit breaker. Usually about 15-30 seconds into my run the circuit with the lights on it (dining, hall or living room) will flip the circuit breaker. Unfortunately at 5am it’s still dark outside which leaves me in quite the predicament. Of course there is always a silver lining; the outlet that the treadmill and TV are plugged into works just fine! I’ll run in the dark before having to run without TV!

My goal is to run a 5k in April in under 35 minutes.. Fingers crossed I don’t lose motivation (again)!

Fortunately my uncle is an electrician and has agreed to come take a look and see if there is a solution to these issues.

Make Up Forever

After 8 years of being a loyal Bare Minerals user, I have decided to switch foundations, for the time being at least. It was just getting too hard to match my skin tone to the right shades of Bare Minerals and I was so tired of constantly having to wash brushes and wipe off the countertops that were always lightly dusted with the excess mineral foundation.

Right before my wedding I purchased a tube of Make Up Forever HD Concealer and I loved it. The lady at Sephora also matched my skin tone with same brand of foundation in a liquid. I must say, I am smitten with this new foundation even though I’ve avoided liquid foundations since they have a tendency to clog pores. She applied it with a synthetic mineral brush in a buffing motion, instead of a sponge and it made all the difference in the world. I purchased the foundation, brush and another tube of concealer and have not had any regrets, except for the price! I still use the bare minerals mineral veil to set the foundation and control shine. The only thing I dislike about this new foundation is that it is lacking sunscreen.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I TRY to follow a low-carb-lifestyle, when I saw this recipe on pinterest for cauliflower pizza crust I was excited to give it a try! I made this (very messy) recipe on Sunday. I’ll be the first to admit that my finished project looked horrible compared to the picture on pintrest. “Nailed it.”

Step 1: Head of cauliflower cut into pieces and placed in the food processor.

Step 2: “Rice” the cauliflower. Place into microwave and cook on high for 4 minutes  -no need to add water.

Step 3: Combine the ingredients and press it out onto a greased baking sheet. (Ingredients: 1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower, 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, 1 egg (beaten),1 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp crushed garlic and 1/2 tsp garlic salt. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, toppings and cheese.

Step 4: Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (approximately 3-4 minutes).  Or you can do it a little longer like I accidently did and completely burn the edges! Like I said, this looks horrible compared to the original picture on pinterest!

 This pizza was pretty tasty especially when you consider the nutritional value in the cauliflower crust versus a regular pizza. Next time I am going to press it out a little thinner so that the crust is a bit crispier. A fork and knife was required to eat this bad boy.

The reviews on the original blog that posted this recipe were overwhelmingly positive. Some commenters went as far to say that this was their favorite thing to make and that they preferred it over regular pizza. My response: You apparently have never had a pizza from Papa John’s!

Oh, here is the original picture - Yep, I'm embarrassed!

Miracle Soap Scum Remover

Like many others who decided to have glass installed in their showers I have come to regret that decision, mostly due to the fact that there is always soap scum or lime scale on the glass. I stumbled a cross a blog on pinterest claiming to have discovered an easy solution for combating soap scum and such on shower glass. So, following the advice off of the blog I mixed up 1 cup of blue dawn dish soap and 1 cup of hot white vinegar in an empty spray bottle.

   Here is the solution from the blog:

     Here is my extra-tall hubby coating our shower with the mixture:

Let it soak for 2 hours.. then I scrubbed it off with a sponge and hot water.

Results? Ehhhh. It worked better than Windex, but I'll stick with CLR bathroom cleaner. I think another issues why this might not have worked as well as the blogger posted in her site is becasue we have lime and calcium in our well water which builds up on the glass in addition to the soap scum.