Gift Wrapped Chicken

Oh man do I have a delicious recipe for you today! This one comes compliments of my Memaw. I had it a couple of times at her house and then just had to get the recipe from her. It is a chicken dish that is delicious, I don’t usually eat a lot of meat (I focus more on the sides) but I clean my plate with this meal.

Ingredients:
– 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
– 16 oz. can whole berry cranberry sauce
– 8 Tbs butter, divided
– 16 oz phyllo dough, defrosted in the refrigerator
– 1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:
1. Cut each chicken breast in half the short way and pound each piece to lightly flatten.
2. Place one tablespoon cranberry and one tablespoon of butter on one half of chicken breast and place the other half on top, do this for all pieces
3. Cut dough in half the long way
4. Stack cut strips of dough to make a star shape, just layer two strips to make an X then add remaining two on top to form a +, brush each piece with melted butter as you stack them
5. Place filled chicken in center of your dough star and pull ends up together in the center, pinching them closed at the top like a beggar’s purse (Note: This dough is very thin and breaks easily but as long as you aren’t going for perfection it will still taste delicious even if it doesn’t look great)
6. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, temp chicken to ensure it is fully cooked
Serves 4

This recipe is delicious, the cranberry and chicken inside the buttery dough is so yummy! The dough is sometimes a bit tricky to work with but you just have to not worry about what it looks like and go for it. It is delicious. Let me know if you try this recipe out and what you think? We love it!

Roasted Red Potatoes

I thought you might enjoy a delicious and easy side dish to go with the Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin. These are a favorite in our house, easy and delicious.

Ingredients:
-Red Potatoes (For the two of us we generally use 6-8 and have leftovers)
-1/4 cup Olive Oil
-1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
-1 tsp salt
-1 tbsp parsley
-1 tbsp oregano
-Garlic to taste

Directions:
-Cut the potatoes up into small pieces
-In a bowl mix olive oil, salt, parmesan cheese and spices
-Put potatoes in the bowl and toss around with mixture
-Spread potatoes in one layer on a cookie sheet (We cover ours with foil and spray the foil with Pam)
-Cook at 425 for 45 minutes then test to see if they are done

And ta-da a delicious side dish! I thought I would post this for a little Tuesday bonus. It’s been a long day already. I had to text Tyler to find out all of the ingredients because he is the master behind making these delicious potatoes! These are just estimates of how much of each ingredient, he just kind of throws it all together. So take this and make it your own and enjoy! Let me know if you make these and if you add anything different?

Weekend Wrap Up-Productivity

We had such a productive weekend, it must be the warm weather. On Friday we both got home from work a little early and went to Olive Garden for dinner. A big storm was coming so afterwords we ran to Giant to get the french bread for the Crock Pot French Toast and headed home. So Friday wasn’t that productive but the rest of the weekend was productive.

Saturday we got up and enjoyed our crock pot breakfast with some grits and then we got ready and headed to the farmers market. Since I had not made my grocery list yet we just got some local honey to hopefully help our allergies. I’ve head that helps, have y’all? I then convinced Tyler to take me to Ikea for some picture frames for some projects I am doing. Well we came out with 7 picture frames and a new dresser. We have been wanting to replace our dresser for awhile and we finally did. It looks great, but more on that later. We had lunch at Panera and who knew? They have pasta now! So that pretty much made my day because if you know me, you know I love pasta. We then headed home and stopped on the way to do our grocery shopping.

Saturday night we had another delicious meal which I will be sharing with you all this week. We ate good this weekend! Tyler put together our new dresser while I FaceTime’d with my best friend, don’t you just love modern technology! We had an adventure getting that old dresser to the driveway, now it’s waiting for us to do something with it.

Sunday was church, lunch at Bob Evans, a few more errands then home for an afternoon/evening or organizing and cleaning. Our house is really coming together. We also got a beautiful mirror to go above our new dresser. I can’t wait to share it with you all! And Sunday was another delicious meal to share. Like I said, it was a productive weekend and I got ahead on my things to blog about so stick around, give us a follow and check out our Twitter and Facebook pages (whichever you prefer). We would love for you to follow us and keep coming back because some yummy, great stuff is coming up soon!

All of my pictures of the weekend are for future posts so for now enjoy this lovely picture of my precious Dolly Wolly, who was not so precious and got a hold of one of my favorite pair of shoes, sigh.

P.S. Did you guys get anything exciting done this weekend? Any spring projects in the works?

Crock Pot French Toast

This meal made me so happy! It was my first crock pot breakfast success. After a failed attempt at crock pot oatmeal and crock pot grits I decided I could not give up. So I tried again with crock pot french toast and it turned out delicious! I have not had monkey bread in awhile but this reminded me of monkey bread. Delicious, you must try it!

Ingredients:
1 loaf of bread (You can use any kind, I bought a loaf of french bread)
7 eggs
2 1/2 cups of milk
1 tsp. cinnamon (I just sprinkled the cinnamon in, I didn’t measure so I probably used more)
Filler & Topping
1/2 cup butter softened
3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (once again I just sprinkled to my hearts content)

Directions:
1. Chop up the bread into cubes
2. Spray crock-pot with cooking spray
3. Place the first layer of bread in crock-pot (Use half of the cubed bread)
4. Pour half of the Filler and Topping onto the bread
5. Put the rest of the bread in on top
6. Pour the egg mixture over the bread
7. Pour the remaining Filler and Topping over the mixture
8. Cook on Low for 6 hours (I started mine at about 10 pm and we ate it about 9:30 am and it was fine to sit staying warm in my crock pot over night)

I was so excited when I came downstairs Saturday morning and tasted it and it was so yummy! I turned it back on low and let it cook without the top to try and make the top a little crisp while I made the grits to go with it. It was a delicious and easy breakfast! It would also make a delicious crock pot dessert, whatever your preference. I hope you all enjoy my first breakfast crock pot success. I hope there will be many more to come. Do any of you have good breakfast crock pot recipes? I am always open to new ones to try as I am trying to expand my recipe collection in that area!

 

Adapted from: Today’s Creative Blog

Creamy Crock Pot Spaghetti

Pasta + a crock pot = YUM! Two of my favorite things and it was delicious. I found this recipe and just knew I had to try it out. I did it a bit different then the recipe and it was delicious. So here goes!

Ingredients:
1 26 oz jar Spaghetti Sauce (I used Ragu)
1/2 lb angel hair pasta
1/2 ground beef
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 oz. cream cheese

Directions:
Brown the ground beef and drain fat
Pour half the jar of spaghetti sauce into the bottom of the crock pot
Place uncooked pasta noodles on top of the sauce, break the noodles so that they fit
Pour ground beef over the pasta
Sprinkle 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
Cut cream cheese into cubes and place on top
Cover with the last half of the jar of spaghetti sauce
Cover and cook on high for 3 hours
After 3 hours, stir it, it will be thick. Mine I thought was delicious and needed nothing more added but if you found it to be too dry then you could pour more sauce on it.

This is the recipe, there were additional steps and ingredients to add that I did not do because I thought it tasted fine after doing this. The link to the recipe I adapted this from is below. The only problem I encountered were that some of the noodles stuck together. I am not sure what would have prevented this? Maybe cooking it longer on low rather than on high or maybe being home to stir it? But since this is a crock pot meal I don’t want to have to do anything to it during the day. But it made a lot and for the two of us there were plenty of delicious noodles that hadn’t stuck together. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to prevent the noodles from sticking together?

This was a yummy, easy meal and the cream cheese really added something creamy and yummy to regular old spaghetti. And in the crock pot, win win! I hope you all enjoy this meal!

Adapted from: Picky Palate

Swiss Cheese Chicken

or Patty’s Chicken as it is known in our house, but I thought I would give it a name that reflected the deliciousness that is in it! If you have never made this then you need to make it. We had it last night and it is delicious, another family favorite.

Ingredients
-4-6 boneless chicken breasts (for the 6 of us my mom would cut three in half)
-Swiss Cheese slices (6 or more, it’s your choice)
-1/4 cup white cooking wine
-1 can cream of chicken soup
-1 cup Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing Mix (I use the one that is the blue and white bag)
-1 stick margarine, melted

Directions
-Grease or spray baking dish
-Place chicken in dish and lay swiss cheese slices over to cover
-Combine white wine and soup on small bowl; spread over cheese
-Sprinkle stuffing mix over top
-Drizzle melted margarine over top
-Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, uncovered

When my mom makes it we have it over mashed potatoes and it is delicious. I don’t ever have the time to make homemade mashed potatoes and I don’t care for the taste of instant mashed potatoes, so last night we had it over rice and that was delicious. It makes a delicious creamy sauce to go over the rice or mashed potatoes. It is also good with broccoli for the vegetable.

Hope you all enjoy this dish, it is scrumptious (a word I’ve picked up from the many Fancy Nancy books I read at my job).

Three Cheese Pasta Bake and a Guest Post!

Today I am so excited to share with you guys that I have been given the honor of doing my first guest posting on another blog. Like Mother, Like Daughter is a great blog that shares all kinds of yummy recipes. I have found my new favorite meal from this blog Creamy Chicken and Broccoli over Rice which we are still having almost every week.

I wanted to share a recipe with you guys that we had on Sunday night. It is all about pasta and cheese, lots of cheeses. We found the combination of cheeses to be a little much but some people could love this combo. I added a few things to it and even feel like a few variations on this recipe would be good as well.

Ingredients:
-1 (16 oz) package ziti
-2 (10 oz) containers refrigerated Alfredo sauce
-1 (8 oz) container sour cream
-1 (15 oz. container ricotta cheese
-2 large eggs, lightly beaten
-1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
-1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
-1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
{Optional} – This is what I added to it
-chopped pineapple
-chopped bell peppers (I sautéed mine but that is optional)
-canned chicken

Directions:
Prepare ziti according to package directions; drain and return to pot
Add chopped pineapple, chicken and bell peppers

Stir together Alfredo sauce and sour cream and toss with ziti until evenly coated
Spoon half the mixture into a lightly greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish

Stir together ricotta cheese and next 3 ingredients; spread over pasta mixture in baking dish
Spoon remaining pasta mixture over ricotta cheese layer; sprinkle with mozzarella cheese

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly

We had this dish and Tyler gave it a 6.5 but I wanted to share because I feel like there are people who would love it. I also thought it could have been really good before you added the ricotta cheese mixture. When reading the reviews on the recipe I also saw people who had substituted cottage cheese for the ricotta. I think there are many versions of this recipe that could be delicious. I hope you enjoy it and let me know if you make your own version of it!

Source: Southern Living

Yummy Pineapple Casserole

Pineapple, Cheese, and Ritz Crackers. Can you say YUM! That’s what I say whenever I think about this side dish. It is a family favorite and we had it the other night with our Poppyseed Chicken Casserole. I got this recipe from my mom.

Ingredients

2 (2o oz) cans pineapple chunks, drained
1 cup sugar
6 T. flour
6 T. pineapple juice
2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup of melted butter
1 cup Ritz Cracker crumbs

Directions

1. Butter Casserole Dish
2. Mix together sugar, flour and pineapple juice
3. Pour into casserole dish
4. Spoon pineapple over mixture
5. Cover with grated cheese
6. Mix crumbs and melted butter together and sprinkle over cheese
7. Bake at 350 got 45 minutes

-This recipe can also be halved and baked for 25-30 minutes. I usually halve it when I am making for just Tyler and myself. It would be enough for 4 people when halved.

Poppyseed Chicken Casserole (sans Poppyseed)

So how many of you have had Poppyseed Chicken Casserole before? I’m sure a lot of you have had one version or another. If not then you need to try this casserole! It is delicious! I didn’t have my moms version so I used one I found online and changed a couple of things, including the fact that I didn’t have any Poppy seeds so that kind of negates the name but its basically still the same.

Adapted from: My Recipes

Ingredients

2 Chicken Breasts, cooked and chopped

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

16 oz. Sour Cream

1 roll of Ritz crackers, crushed

1 stick of butter, melted

Instructions

1. Boil chicken until done and then chop up

2. Combine chicken, cream of chicken soup and sour cream

3. Spred mixture in a lightly greased casserole dish

4. Melt butter and then mix in crumbled crackers

5. Spread cracker mixture over chicken mixture

6. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until bubbly and hot

So that is the way that I made it. It turned out delicious and we always eat it over rice. It is an easy, delicious comfort food. Enjoy!

Easter Weekend Wrap-Up

We had a great Easter weekend! We had beautiful weather and were very productive. Friday I was off work and created my new spring wreath! We had Spinach and Ricotta Shells for dinner which I have shared with you all before. They were delicious as always. You can’t go wrong with stuffed shells. We caught up on some of our DVR shows Friday night and just relaxed.

Saturday, we had breakfast at Bob Evans and then headed to Lowe’s We bought everything we needed to finish fencing in our yard! You can read all about that on Tyler’s blogging post, his first contribution to the blog. And he is a good writer and funny so I will be having him do more posting. While Tyler worked on the fence I weeded my flowers and put up my new potted flowers and garden flag. I was quite excited about those and now our yard looks so cute and ready for spring!

After our yard work we got ready and headed over to the Twaddell’s for Easter egg dying, dinner, an inspirational egg hunt, cheesecake and Nertz. If you have never heard of Nertz or experienced the Twaddell’s playing it then you won’t understand my excitement about coming in 3rd place!! It is a game of speed and that is something the Twaddell family excels at, the Ballards and Glovers not as much. So I was proud to come in 3rd out of 7 people playing!

On Sunday we dressed up and headed to church for Easter Sunday. Growing up in a Southern Baptist church I just felt the need to dress up for Easter. When I was a little girl it was always so exciting to get our Easter dresses! It was a dreary and rainy day on Sunday so we came home and spent the day lounging on the couch and I also prepared us a delicious meal, Chicken Casserole and Pineapple Casserole, recipes coming later this week!

We had a great weekend and this morning it was back to the grind. I am not the biggest fan of Monday’s but I mean who really is? But this work day is close to over and then we are one day closer to the weekend 🙂 This coming weekend if the weather is nice we are hoping to go into DC and check out the Cherry Blossoms! Quick find the Zyrtec, hello allergies!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Dolly says “Happy Easter” 

New garden flag!

Front porch!

The Easter Bunny came!

Dying Easter Eggs at the Twaddell’s!