New recipes

Chili's Queso Dip - Have you ever had the queso at Chili's? It's good. But in a really bad for you way I'm sure. This recipe can be made lower fat and that is what I did. It call for 1 can of hormel chili so I used turkey no bean hormel chili, 1% milk, and reduced fat velveeta. It was still pretty yummy!

Crockpot Cashew Chicken- Yum. I liked this but it was a bit spicy. I had even halved the 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper to an 1/8th of a teaspoon for the boys. It was still spicy for them. I used chicken breasts ( I don't cook with thighs or tenders) and this definitely had a thai food feel to it for me. I served it with white rice and snow peas.

Sweet & Spicy Cucumbers- I have not made these yet but my sister brought them last weekend to my dad's birthday celebration. They were delicious! I would definitely make these! Yum!

Quinoa Salad - Here is the other recipe Cara brought last weekend. This quinoa salad has mango, avacado, red pepper, black beans and cilantro. It was so good!

Microwave popcorn- This is a way to make air pop popcorn in your microwave without all the chemicals and stuff that is added to microwave popcorn. All you need is popcorn kernals and a brown bag. Easy and tasty. The boys love popcorn and they thought this was really good. I melted a little butter for them and drizzled it on the popcorn and salted it a little bit.

Raw Energy bites- Just made these last night for breakfasts the next several days. Tried them this morning and Wilson and I really liked them. There are a lot of variations you can use to tailor these to your taste buds. Here is the version I tried: (adapted from fooddoodles.com)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cups oat bran
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Follow the link to see recipe directions and all of the other options for mix-ins.

Pizza Quesadillas

Pizza Quesadillas- Yum and EASY! I made these for dinner last week. We had leftover pizza ingredients from making pizza so all I needed was tortillas. These were a hit and super easy!

Summer = Awesome

Updated 20 in 2012 post!

I'm reading!
I'm exercising! - Cute story- I started back on the C25K today. Luke said he wanted to run with me and Andy joined in as well. Luke was a trooper. Today was easy but he hung in there! It was so sweet to have him running with me.
I'm sleeping more!
Lots of time with the boys!
Life is good. :)

A  couple recent recipes:

Pretzel rolls by Pennies on a Platter - I read this blog but am trying to pin recipes I've bookmarked so they are all in one place. I finally made these and they were good! I actually took a picture of one I made just for you all to see!
Honey Lime Chicken- Oh. My. Goodness...we love this chicken! We've had it twice. I drastically reduce the cayenne pepper so that the boys can eat it too. I just shake a little in the gallon size bag I marinate the chicken in. The chicken is juicy and delicious on the grill! Make this!

Updates & Recipes

Not sure where to start. It's been a while! Life has been busy.

* We are still adjusting meds for the anxiety...I'm beginning to get frustrated. We upped again 2 weeks ago but this week has been HARD. 3-4 times of intense anxiety coupled with him being waaay less inhibited...it's a little rough. His behavior choices and home and school are being impacted negatively. I'm calling the psychiatrist today to get her thoughts on this. He is being silly more often when it isn't appropriate, more careless on his work (handwriting/spelling), and not following all directions at school. At home he thinks he can do whatever he wants. Thinks he is Mr. Independent and is making bad choices. So. We've had behavior trouble at home all along it just seems to be worse. 

*I made my first call to poison control this week due to a super glue incident. He was convinced he was going to die. He panicked. The super glue was on top of the refrigerator...he decided to glue a toy together while I was putting his brothers to bed. But it all turned out fine. Poison Control said the amount ingested was no big deal (just licked some excess off a finger) and he was in no danger. He still asked last night if he was going to be ok. Hopefully that taught him a lesson!

* We've had a lot going on. Andy and I threw a baby shower last weekend for a couple of his youth volunteers who are expecting a baby, celebrated my mom's birthday and made her homemade cupcakes, helped with a wedding shower at school, worked a Legends game for my niece's marching band, and took Ty to Disney on Ice! We went with Cara and Silas. It was fun! The boys were in awe and loved the show. We bought them a tub of popcorn and they had a GREAT time!

* Tried a few new recipes over the past few weeks.White Cheddar Chicken Pasta - this was pretty good. I didn't have any wine so I just subbed chicken broth. The leftovers were pretty yummy though. BBQ Burgers- these were yummy. They have Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and shredded monterey jack cheese mixed into the meat. (We used 90/10 not 85/15.) We all enjoyed them. I just used the hamburger recipe on this pin- not the special sauce or anything else. We just topped ours with ketchup/mustard. We will make these again! Though with the mix-ins if you are going to grill lay down some foil. Andy said they started falling apart on the grill. Slow Cooker Chicken & Rice - this was good. The boys didn't care for it but I think it is just because everything was mixed together (like a casserole). It was super easy. Chicken, corn, rice, cheese. Yum!

Beach Shrimp

We had a great dinner tonight from Pinterest. You can find the original pin here. I reduced the recipe and used frozen shrimp. It was still delicious. Can't imagine how good it would be with fresh shrimp! My slightly modified version is below!

Beach Shrimp

1 1/2 pounds frozen shrimp (deveined, peeled, raw, no tail)
1 lemon, halved
1/8 cup fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
8 oz italian dressing
3 Tbs butter, cubed

Pour dressing into 9x13 pan. Sprinkle in 1 minced clove of garlic. Place frozen shrimp in pan. Stir around so shrimp are covered in dressing. Squeeze juice of lemon over top of shrimp. Sprinkle parsley and butter on top of shrimp. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until shrimp are pink. There was no temperature in the original recipe (see link above) so I baked mine at 350. This would be enough for 3 adults.

Slightly modified from: The Inspired Collection Blog

3 Chicken Main Dish Recipes

Pesto Chicken pinned here
This was good. I used store bought pesto. You could really make this for any number of people. Just reduce or double the recipe. I think this chicken would make an excellent panini...with fresh mozzarella & tomato on it. Yum! No changes to the recipe. The boys even liked it.

Garlic Lemon Chicken with New Potatoes & Green Beans pinned here
This was easy and delicious. I served it over quinoa (pronounced keen-wa...so weird!). The quinoa smells funny but it tasted good with this dish served over top. I've been wanting to try to sub this for rice/couscous when I can because it is 100% whole grain. Funny story...so the quinoa was boiling and Wilson was asking me what it was. On a whim I said oh it's quinoa- you used to love this stuff when you were little! Then Andy jokingly bought into it too. But, it worked! Wilson ate it and tonight he was talking about how he still likes quinoa. Oops. I don't recommend lying to your children. ;)

One change to the recipe: I don't cook chicken with bones or skin. Absolutely no way never ever gonna happen. So I just used chicken breasts. The end.

Chicken Tortilla Soup from Brown Eyed Baker found here
This is supposed to be like Max & Erma's. I've never had their tortilla soup but this is good. I  used 1 anaheim pepper which was 1/4 cup.  I also halved the amount of cayenne pepper. The soup wasn't very spicy.  I don't used chicken thighs (I know I have a lot of my chicken rules in this post. sorry.) so I just used 2 chicken breasts.  If you are making this and want more than 4 servings double the recipe. It is a small batch of soup. (The first time I used serrano peppers (I think) which made the soup much spicier. I didn't know what an anaheim pepper looked like.)

These are the recipes worth trying. I made 3 others that were just so-so. You aren't missing anything and I won't be making them again. They were fine, just not good enough for me to make again. I've already deleted them from my pin board.

Pinterest Food on the Menu

This week's menu featured a few more Pinterest inspired recipes. I promise I pin lots of things that are not recipes! It's just I have to cook dinner so I might as well make it fun and interesting!

Crockpot BBQ Chicken - This was good. Will make again. It was good as leftovers too! We had this with "the Best Broccoli of your life" and my favorite garlic rice pilaf (from good ol' Annie's Eats). OK so the broccoli was okay, I ate it and enjoyed it but no one else did. And I would be just find not eating it that way again. We decided plain steamed broccoli is enough for us! This one involves roasting, lemon zest, parmesan cheese etc. Good but probably won't make it again. Aleady deleted the pin. Everybody loves the rice recipe. So good. You should definitely try that one!

Easy Breakfast Potatoes - These were pretty good. I might make them again but they weren't spectacular.  But easy! We had these with turkey sausage egg mcmuffins. I learned from Pinterest to cook eggs in a muffin tin and bake them. We like to scramble the eggs before baking so the yolk is mixed in. Then we put them on whole wheat english muffins with turkey sausage and a slice of cheese. Yum! This is my second time to make the mcmuffins.

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting- you all, I came home from work on Monday and the house smelled like cake. Andy had made me a birthday cake! It was a surprise though and I wasn't allowed to know what kind. It about killed me. Surprises aren't really my thing I guess. Come to find out he had seen me on Pinterest and saw me pin this icing and I had said something along the lines of cream cheese frosting being the only kind I actually like. While I was at work on Monday he got on Pinterest, found my recipe board, got this recipe, and frosted the cake he made me with it. How sweet was that? Just wait till you see pics of what the cake looked like. I almost cried because he made me feel so special. I'll post pics and tell you about my birthday this weekend.

I have a fish recipe on the menu but haven't made it yet. I'll post it next week if it is good!

Pinterest Project #1

So yesterday I made a Menu Board! This was inspired from Pinterest. I bought a 12x12 frame at Hobby Lobby for $5. It was 1/2 price. I bought a sheet of scrapbook paper for $ .30. I bought 2 packs of scrapbook stickers for a total of $3.00. All together- $8.30! Not bad! The stickers are directly on the paper, so they are under the glass. I just used a dry erase marker to write the menu down. Up until now I used a document I created in word and printed it for menu planning but now I just erase! Saving paper and ink :) .  This helps with my 20 in 2012 post too. In case you are interested in any of the above recipes (other than the sloppy joes and pizza- haha) here are some links.
Pasta alla Vodka- was good last night but when re-heated for lunch today it wasn't very good. Boys thought it was spicy.
Bread with Carrabba's olive oil/spices- YUM - for special italian dinner occasions. (found through Pinterest)
Chicken Fingers
Roasted Green Beans- These were pretty good. would make again or just mix fresh green  beans in with roasted veggies. (found through Pinterest)

Stovetop mac & cheese - finally, an EASY homemade mac & cheese that my family likes! (found through Pinterest)

Veggies= weekly veggie tray

Back in the Kitchen

So I have been really struggling with menu planning lately. I finally told myself enough was enough and I had to make a full week's menu. Hopefully it will continue. It takes a long time to plan the whole week and make the grocery list.  Pinterest (my new favorite thing) has given me a few new recipes to try. Pinterest = love. I have so many ideas for things! It is a great resource. I still have my favorite food blogs of course.  Here are three new ones this week that are worth mentioning!

Creamy Chicken Taquitos from Annie's Eats. I really liked these. Wilson & Luke did not...but I really feel like they should have! It has ingredients in it that they like. Oh well. I'll make these again. I did double the recipe and ended up with about 20 taquitos I think. I wanted leftovers! I also made my favorite salsa from Pioneer Woman to dip these in. Yum!

Last night I made Wilson's birthday cupcakes for him to take to school. He wanted white cupcakes with chocolate icing. I chose the vanilla cake recipe found here and hershey's perfectly chocolate icing here. I took 1 bite of a cupcake and it was good. Andy tasted the cupcake with icing and said it was really good. Wilson told me this afternoon that his friends loved the cupcakes.

I'll be making cupcakes again next week for Luke to take to school. He hasn't decided what kind he wants yet. The cakes for their friend party next week are: Wilson- police badge cake...Andy is in charge of this one! Luke wants cake pops just like last year.

The roast I was supposed to put in the crockpot tonight is still in the freezer...so the kitchen is closed tonight! oops!

Chicken Gyros & Garlic Lemon Chicken

A couple weeks ago we made Chicken Gyros and Garlic Lemon Chicken Kabobs on two different nights. We used tzatziki sauce to go with the chicken both nights. We enjoyed both dishes!

The Gyros were a favorite of Andy's. He loves gryos so I was hoping he would enjoy a homemade version with chicken. The gyro has a pita with marinated chicken (that we broiled), halved cherry tomatoes, purple onion, & tzatziki sauce. The sauce is good though I did add a packet of splenda to the recipe. Plain greek yogurt just needs that added in my opinion! I did not strain my yogurt as the recipe suggests. I just bought greek yogurt. Annie made her own pita bread so you will find that link in the recipe as well. I just used store bought whole wheat.

The kabobs were good and anytime I get to use my microplane to zest a lemon I'm happy! Ha-ha the little things that make me happy..:). The boys enjoyed this chicken though Luke thinks any grilled chicken needs to be dipped in barbeque sauce. Ty refers to it as Q sauce - he loves Q sauce! Wilson, Andy & I dipped it in tzatziki sauce.

Both recipes are from Annie's Eats.

Grilled Chicken Bruschetta

I made this chicken for myself Sunday night. I prepped the bruschetta and then grilled a piece of chicken. The bruschetta is delicious and could be eaten by the spoonful or over baguettes. Yum. It was pretty good over the chicken but the chicken was so bland. It needs to be jazzed up even with the bruschetta on top. If you marinated your chicken in something before grilling it would help. So the best part of this recipe was the bruschetta! Try it!
Follow this link to Pennies on a Platter for recipe and picture!

Cajun Grilled Shrimp

Tonight I made my first recipe with shrimp. Andy did the grilling. It was simple and delicious! Andy, Wilson, & I all enjoyed the shrimp. I bought frozen, peeled, & deveined shrimp. They were uncooked. After thawing the shrimp you pat them dry, skewer them, and brush olive oil on. Then you salt & pepper. I did both sides because I wasn't sure. Next you sprinkle the cajun seasoning on both sides of the shrimp and grill for about 6 minutes. Follow this link to Annie's Eats to find the recipe and picture!

More Spring Break :)

It's so hard to see the week coming to an end. It has been wonderful! We have stayed busy around here that is for sure. Thursday was appointment day. Luke had his eye exam for school and Andy and I had a dentist appointment. We went and got frozen yogurt that night with several of the youth kids from CCY. A new froyo just opened near us and I tried pineapple/coconut twist. Not something I would usually pick but it was DELICIOUS!! I want to go back! Friday we took a picnic to the park and hung out for a couple of hours. The day was beautiful. Andy and I read while the kids ran around - it's a small park so there were only a few other people there. Ty came back every few minutes to eat cheez*its. It was funny! Later we started working in the garage and took a load of stuff to Good*will. Today we worked more in the garage this morning. We're making progress! A load to the dump and another load to good*will today and we can see the floor. Lots of organizing still to be done. I've gotten to spend a lot of time in the kitchen this week. The new recipes I have tried: - scones (1/2 blueberry and 1/2 plain for the man and boys in my life) - creamy mac & cheese - it was yummy. of course the rest of my family didn't like it - it's just a classic homemade mac & cheese...I used whole grain pasta but that was the only change to the recipe. This took a long time to make and since my family prefers less creamy mac and cheese I'll be using the boxed kind again... -spring green risotto- my first risotto ever. I've wanted to make one for a long time. It was delicious. It has asparagus, leeks, peas, & chives. I knew no one else would eat it so of course there are a ton of leftovers. It was really good though. It is creamy due to a little cream cheese (or mascarpone) and parmesan cheese. Plus a lemon flavor - perfect for spring! It makes a lot and it a little pricey with all of the ingredients. I definitely want to try more risottos. - dijon vinaigrette - this is a link to a salad with mushrooms. I just made the dressing. It was good. I only used 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and it was plenty tart for me. - smoothies- yum! So many seeds though. That was my only regret. Next time no raspberries or blackberries for me. It really tasted great I just didn't like the seeds! I just bought a mixed bag of frozen berries- raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Also used a banana and frozen fresh pineapple like the recipe suggests. The boys weren't interested in even trying these. Andy had a pineapple/banana, blueberry. It was ok. That's all. I read several cooking blogs even though these are all linked to the same one. Annie's Eats is definitely my favorite site for finding new recipes!

Chicken Fingers & Creamy Taco Mac

This week I have tried 2 new main dish recipes from Annie's Eats. They have both been good. The Creamy Taco Mac was quick and easy- like a homemade version of hamburger helper. Just healthier! It has ground turkey and whole wheat pasta. I used Annie's taco seasoning, low fat cream cheese (3 oz) and low fat sour cream (1/2 cups). Everyone ate it though Luke wasn't a big fan. This made enough dinner for two nights for our family. THe first time I saw it on the blog I didn't bookmark the recipe. But when it was featured in the blog this weekend I thought it looked good enough to try!

The other main dish was chicken fingers. I liked that the recipe called for chicken breasts cut up. I don't always care for the chicken tenderloins. Had a bad experience once when I bought them at the grocery once and it is hard for me to ever buy them again. If I don't prepare them then I can eat them. I know... Everyone liked these- very crispy with no deep frying. Panko bread crumbs and hardly any oil. Much healthier. Of course we dipped them in honey mustard!

Low Cal Fettucine Alfredo

This dish is easy, healthier than most alfredo sauces, and tastes really good! There is no heavy cream in the recipe - just 2 T cream cheese, 2% milk, and parmesan cheese. I had to tell Luke I added the green flecks (of fresh parsley) for decoration since green is his favorite color. That was what Andy and I came up with and it worked! Usually he won't eat things with green cooked into them that he can see. He'll eat green veggies, he just doesn't want them hiding in his sauces and stuff. Wilson and I enjoyed this the most. It's not one of Andy's favorite meals but for an every now and then he thought it was okay. There is a bit of a lemon flavor in the dish due to the lemon zest which was nice. That also means I got to use my microplane which is always fun! You could always add grilled chicken to this dish too. Enjoy!

Low-Cal Fettucine Alfredo
1 T unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t grated lemon zest
2 t flour
1 cup 2% milk
kosher salt
2 T low fat cream cheese
3/4 cup grated parmesan, plus more for topping
3 T chopped fresh parsley
12 ounces fettucine
freshly ground pepper

1. Boil water for fettucine. Cook according to package directions until al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking make the sauce. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and lemon zest and cook until the garlic is slightly soft, about 1 minute. Add in the flour and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon for 1 minute. Whisk in the milk and 3/4 teaspoon salt and cook, whisking constantly until just thickened, about 3 minutes. Add the cheeses; whisk until melted, about 1 minute. Stir in the parsley.
3. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta and return to the pot.
4. Add the sauce and 1/2 cup pasta water to the pasta and gently toss to combine, adding more cooking water as needed to loosen. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with parmesan.

Chicken Fajitas!

YUM! I've had this recipe bookmarked forever. But it required a grill. We've had a hand me down grill from my parents that just didn't work anymore. So we've been without a grill for almost a couple years I guess. I've really missed grilled food at home! Anyway, Andy got a grill from my parents for Christmas! Yay! So since it "warmed up" a little on Saturday I suggested we grill out! We had the best chicken fajitas. Andy did a fantastic job grilling and this will definitely become a regular dinner on our menu! It is of course from Annie's Eats - Grilled Chicken Quesadillas.

Burritos

So here is the first recipe I tried from the new food blog - The Way the Cookie Crumbles. I made burritos on Tuesday for dinner. Everyone ate them up! Tyler didn't but he's still in a picky phase. I served them like a soft taco with lettuce, cheese, tomato, and black olives. Yum!

It was a LOONG week...

This week seemed to go on and on. It was a hard week for me at school. But it's over! So looking forward to two days at home. Nothing exciting planned - just extra sleep and catching up around the house. Last night was good - came home from school and bought my first fresh salmon filets. I made a nice dinner- salmon, rice, steamed broccoli and my favorite wine. But I don't think I'll use the salmon recipe from last night again - the salmon was ok but didn't really care for the cilantro pesto - and I love cilantro! It didn't have much flavor. We LOVED the garlic rice pilaf. Easy - and will definitely make it again. Yum! But I was glad I finally tried fresh salmon! I've always been afraid I might not like it. I had to cook fish with the skin still on one side but like the meat man said, it peeled off very easily once it was cooked. I made sure to not touch or look at it! LOL!

After the kids were in bed Andy's uncle stayed at our house so we could go out. We went to Home*Depot to look at bathroom vanity's. Andy has been working SO hard on our downstairs bathroom (separate post to come). We then went to Star*buck's and had coffee and played checkers. It was fun! Even though he beat me both games. I told him I didn't think I'd played checkers in about 20 years. Of course he has all this strategy and I don't! Anyway, it was fun. Then I fell asleep watching The Closer.

Pizza Sauce

Last weekend Andy and I made Pizza bites. We've made them before using homemade pizza dough. Yum! The boys love them too. I've wanted to try the homemade pizza sauce from Annie's Eats for a while and finally got around to it. We put ours in the blender so it would be smooth and not chunky. I don't own an immersion blender. It worked just fine! Have pizza sauce in the freezer for the next time!

Ham & Cheese Sliders, Pizza Bites

A couple new recipes we had for dinner this week. The Ham & Cheese Sliders were super easy to make! I used mini Hawaiian rolls and reduced the butter. Wilson, Tyler and I all really enjoyed these and I am not a ham eater. Ham & Cheese Sliders from Annie's Eats. Follow the link for recipe and picture!

The pizza bites were a big hit! I made pizza dough and stuffed 2 slices of pepperoni and a cube of fresh mozzarella inside. I want to try Annie's homemade pizza sauce but didn't have time this week. Pizza Bites from Annie's Eats. Follow the link for recipe and picture!