2012 Week #21

Ranch, Bacon, Chicken Macaroni and Cheese

This was the strangest recipe I have seen on Pinterest.  The first strange thing is that there is no ranch in it at all.  The gal who made it and put it on her blog was talking about how if you love ranch then this is the recipe for you!  There was no ranch anywhere in the recipe!  I was a bit confused.  Someone also wrote in the title on Pinterest that it was an amazing crockpot mac and cheese.  No where in the directions did it say to put it in the crockpot.  Someone even posted a comment on her blog saying that it looked good but she didn't want to try it because she didn't like that you had to cook it some first and then do the rest in the crock pot.  But it never told me to do anything with the crock pot.  Seriously confused.  Jay even told me not to bother trying it but I really wanted to and we actually really liked it.  It was a bit complicated because there are quite a few different pieces to it...like cooking the bacon, cooking the noodles, cooking the chicken and then combining everything.  But it was delicious and I think I would make it again!

8 ounces uncooked elbow macaroni

1 slice applewood-smoked bacon

8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups fat-free milk

1/3 cup condensed 45% reduced-sodium 98% fat-free cream of mushroom soup, undiluted

3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded six-cheese Italian blend (such as Sargento)

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh dill

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cooking spray

1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded colby-Jack cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain.
Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving drippings in pan. Finely chop bacon; set aside. Increase heat to medium-high. Add chicken to drippings in pan; sauté 6 minutes or until done.
Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat; sprinkle flour evenly into pan. Cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk. Combine milk and soup, stirring with a whisk; gradually add milk mixture to saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Bring to a boil; cook 2 minutes or until thick. Remove from heat; let stand 4 minutes or until sauce cools to 155°. Add Italian cheese blend, onion powder, garlic powder, dill, and salt, stirring until cheese melts. Stir in pasta and chicken.
Preheat broiler.
Spoon mixture into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with reserved bacon and colby-Jack cheese. Broil 3 minutes or until cheese melts.

2012 Week #20

Classic Macaroni Salad

I made this for my sidedish at our Wednesday nights in the park with our church.  During the summer our church gets together every Wednesday night at Wes Bennet park.  We just have to bring a sidedish and then hotdogs and drinks are provided.  I tried a new salad and liked it a lot. 

2 Cups uncooked elbow macaroni

1 cup fat-free mayonnaise

2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

2 teaspoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/3 cup chopped carrot

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 hard-boiled egg, sliced (I did 2 because I wanted a little more egg in it)

dash paprika (as you can see I did a little more than a dash)

Cook macaroni; drain and rinse with cold water.  Cool completely.  For dressing, in a small bowl, combine the mayo, pickle relish, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.  In a large bowl, combine the macaroni, celery, carrot, and onion.  Add dressing and toss gently to coat.  Refrigerate until serving.  Garnish with egg and paprika. 

I mixed the egg in with the salad rather than just garnish with it.  I liked the egg in it. 

I am cheating a little by counting this as one of my new meals but I'm doing it anyway.  I tried something new to eat so it counts in my eyes :)

2012 Week #19

Greek Yogurt Baked Chicken

Sorry this picture isn't great but this chicken was really good!  This was the most simple way to bake chicken every!  Mix together some plain greek yogurt and parmesan cheese, spread over the top of the chicken, sprinkle some bread crumbs on top and bake.  So good and moist and yet so simple!  I probably overcooked it just a tad because I am always so worried about not getting the chicken cooked through enough but we loved it!  This was off of pinterest but I am not going to put the recipe because it is literally just those three ingredients. 

She's 3 Months!

My baby girl is three months old.  Does that mean I don't have a newborn anymore?  It just amazes me how fast the time goes.  She is just as sweet as can be and I love her so much. 

Here's what our baby girl has been up to...



Right after she turned two months we switched her into her room in her crib.  I was super nervous about this transition because she just wasn't a great sleeper unless she was in her swing.  It turned out to be a super easy transition!  She is doing so well in her crib and sleeping better than she ever did in our room.  It was that way with Carter too.  With both kids I wondered why we didn't switch them earlier.  And we switched Carter at 4 weeks. 

She usually goes down between 9 and 10, depending on when her evening nap was.  I usually feed her and she gets super drowsy.  I wait until she is really tired but usually still a little bit awake and then we lay her down.  Sometimes she fusses just a bit but usually Jay can go in there and rub her head and put her blankie by her face and she falls right to sleep.  Yep, daddy has the touch! 



She had her first smile at three weeks old and then really started smiling easily around 6-7 weeks old.  She now smiles all the time!  She is a super happy baby and smiles easily for almost anyone that gives her some attention. 

She looks so much like me when I was a baby.  People are always telling me she looks just like me but I keep seeing myself as a baby in her, especially when she smiles.  I need to do a side by side picture when I find a picture that resembles her.  Carter has always looked more like Jay (especially to others) and Madelynn is definately her momma.  I guess that is a good way for it to work out :) 



She is turning out to be a super easy baby.  Unless her tummy is upset (which does happen every once in a while) if she is crying it is because she is hungry or tired.  She is a great nurser and loves to sleep in her swing!  I know I will have to break that habit in the near future but for now I can just lay her in her swing, turn the swing and the music on and she usually falls right to sleep and sleeps anywhere from and hour to three hours.  And she is pretty good at sleeping through her brothers noise.  I am thankful for that.  But I guess that comes with the territory when there are multiple kids in the house.  

She usually sleeps until anywhere between 3 and 5 in the morning and then eats and then sleeps again until 7 to 8ish.  There are some nights that she has one extra feeding in there somewhere.  I am happy with her sleeping though but look forward to when the sleeping through the night starts.  But I don't want to hurry anything because she is already growing up too fast.  

She found her voice this week!  Wow, she is a chatterbox!  She just loves to screech and holler and sing.  She is happy but just talking away.  I love it!  It probably means that she won't be as easy in church though.  It might be about time for her to be in the nursery all the time now.  I have been leaving her in the nursery some already because I have been teaching on Sunday mornings but I am still a little picky about when I leave her (not too many other kids, people I know and trust, etc...).  She is close to going all the time though especially if she is going to sing while the pastor preaches :)



I don't think I ever blogged her 2 month stats.  At her two month check-up she weighed 10 pounds 13 ounces which is the 35 percentile and she was 21 1/4 inches long which was the 30th percentile.  Her head was in the 45th percentile.  She is a little peanut.  I looked up Carter's stats from his two month check-up and he was two pounds heavier and almost two inches longer.  

She loves hanging out in her swing and her bouncy seat.  She also loves being where we are and where she can see people.  She loves watching Carter play and is super patient with him when he is smothering her with kisses.  I can't wait until she is bigger and can really interact with Carter.  He keeps saying things about baby getting bigger so she can play with him.  He is excited too! 

To our sweet Mady girl...

We love you so much!  You are such a joy!  I get little butterflies in my stomach when I look at you and when you smile at me.  I am literally filled with joy when I look at you baby girl!  You are special!  You are a happy baby!  You love to smile and squeal out of excitment.  We are so blessed to call you our daughter!  I know God has big plans for you, little lady.  We love you so much!



Pretty Girl and a Cute Boy

12 week pictures

Oh and one for good measure of some sweet ladies that I love hanging out with.  These are some of the girls at my MOPS table and I just feel so blessed to have spent the year together at MOPS.  We threw a little baby shower for Billie and had a great time celebrating her and baby Trinity.  Um, can anyone say SHORT?  Look how short I am next to all of these ladies.  Wow! 

My two lovebugs!  I love these two precious kids SO MUCH!  They are just sweet as can be and love each other so much.  It is just precious how much Carter loves his baby sister.  Every time he sees her his voice completely changes.  It goes very high pitched and he starts ooohhing and awwing and saying "hi baby" in the best and cutest, sweetest little voice. 

Please ignore my awful bedhead.  We were all snuggling in bed together and I just couldn't resist trying to get some pictures of the three of us, bedhead and all :)

I am trying to be a little more proactive about getting pictures of my family with me in them.  I am always behind the camera and I don't want my kids to grow up and not have pictures with their mom in them.  I love how Madelynn is smiling in this next one when no one was even there to make her smile. 

If you look really closly in this next one you can see a little scratch on her head.  I scratched her with my wedding ring :(  I felt TERRIBLE!  It left quite the mark for a little while.  This ring is dangerous ;)

2012 Week #18

This salad was really good but I learned a few things that I would do differently the next time I make it.  It was healthy (for the most part) and very tasty.  It was a little time consuming just because of chopping stuff but not bad. 

The first thing that I would do differently is less green peppers or chop them much smaller.  I was getting a little tired of biting into such big chunks of green pepper.  But just putting less or chopping much smaller would solve that problem. 

It makes a large amount!  The bowl we had when it was done would have probably served 5-7 people.  Jay and I could not get through much of it and then it was just wasted.  Since I put the dressing on the entire thing by the time we were done eating the left overs were super soggy.  Jay ate some the next day but I just couldn't handle it.  So next time (and there will be a next time!) I will only put dressing on what we think we can eat and then do more dressing when we eat it the next day. 

I would also cook my chicken differently.  I didn't plan ahead.  If I had realized that it said shredded chicken I would have cooked the chicken in the crock pot.  Since I didn't plan ahead I had Jay grill the chicken.  It was good and Jay said he actually liked it that way better than if we had shredded it but I think I would have preferred shredded.  So next time I plan on crock potting it and comparing the two :) 

Southwestern Chopped Chicken Salad

salad:
2 cups shredded chicken
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can sweet yellow corn (or 1 cup frozen corn, thawed)
2 roma tomatoes, diced
4 green onions, sliced
1 head ice berg lettuce, washed and chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 ripe avocados, diced
1 cup crushed tortilla chips


dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup Greek yogurt
1 tbsp ranch seasoning
1 tbsp taco seasoning


Directions:


In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients together, excluding the tortilla chips.


In a small bowl stir all dressing ingredients together. Pour dressing over salad, starting with about half of the dressing. Toss to combine, then gradually add more dressing until it is dressed to your liking. Top with tortilla chips. Enjoy!

2012 Week #17

This was a chicken chili.  It was good but nothing overly special.  It was similiar to a taco soup which I wasn't expecting.  I put sour cream in mine but chips would have probably been good as well.  Jay liked it but he doesn't like sour cream and I thought it was better with sour cream. 

1 onion, chopped
1 16-oz can black beans
1 16-oz can kidney beans
1 16-oz can tomato sauce
10 oz package frozen corn kernels (used 2 small cans of corn kernels)
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies (used a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder (used a bit more as I didn't have any chilies in my tomatoes)
24 0z. (3) boneless skinless chicken breasts
chili peppers, chopped (optional)
chopped fresh cilantro

Combine beans, onion, chili peppers, corn, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder and taco seasoning in a slow cooker. Place chicken on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Top with fresh cilantro. Also try it with cheese and sour cream.