Baked Chicken and Rice

Last night I got home and the hubs had my new dining room table put together (WOOHOO) and most of the chairs. We took a "short" trip to IKEA Sunday (by short I mean due to issues and traffic we left at 10:20am and got home after 7pm) to pick up the couch and bed for the kids Christmas bedroom redo. We wound up getting a table that is extendable up to 10 people and 4 chairs. We're still looking for 2 end chairs because he wants a "captain's chair" as he calls it. Boys... *sigh* Anyway, he was getting the table together and then taking B to Cub Scouts. I make my menu around the Cub Scout schedule every week and had found a recipe a while back for this chicken. It said you could cook from 1 1/2 - 3 hours depending on temperature so I thought it would be perfect timing for when they got home from the meeting. And since my baby girl was asleep in her room because she wasn't feeling too great this recipe wound up being perfect. I was able to pop it in the oven and hang out with her while it cooked.

Ingredients:
4 - chicken breasts
1 - can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 - can Cream of Celery Soup
1 - can water
2 - cups uncooked MINUTE rice (I would not use regular rice. I don't think it would cook well.)
1 - pkg onion soup mix
Aluminum Foil

Prep Time: 3 minutes
Cook Time: 1.5 hours

Directions:
1. Mix both soups, water, and rice in a bowl.
2. Pour into a greased casserole dish. I used an 11X13 but a 9X13 would probably work too.
3. Lay completely thawed chicken on top of rice mixture.
4. Sprinkle onion soup mix over the top of the entire dish. (If you have picky eaters you could hide this in with the rice mix to still get the flavor.)
5. Cover with aluminum foil. (DON"T forget this step or your rice will burn.)
6. Cook on 250 for about 3 hours or 350 for 1 1/2 hours. Times vary by oven. (I actually cooked mine at 300 for 2 hours.)
7. Remove and enjoy!

This is the next day when I brought some of what was left for lunch.

*This is not the healthiest recipe with the processed soups, but there are lots of homemade recipes for these soups as well as the low-sodium versions in the grocery store if you're trying to cut back.
**Better pictures to come next time I make this. I always forget. :/

This was honestly delicious. TJ kept eating the rice right out of the dish. He even claimed it was the best rice he'd ever had. The chicken was a little more dry than I'd like, not terrible, just not juicy, so next time I will probably find a mild marinade (maybe garlic...) and let it soak overnight in the fridge. You could serve a salad and cornbread with this if you wanted more but for us just the dish was good.

I was told to definitely leave this as a good recipe in the box since when we aren't fond of something we just toss the recipe so we don't use it again. We had some Halloween candy for dessert then hung out with the kids and furbabies in front of the first fire we've made in our new house.

I am in LOVE with this fireplace. 

Roscoe just kept staring at it like it was going to get him. He's a big ol' fraidy cat.

Hope everyone enjoyed their night as much as I did and that you enjoy this recipe as much as we did if you try it.

Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas

I have FINALLY found a recipe that everyone in the family loves equally. I actually want to make it again already even though it's not on my menu planner. It wasn't hard to make even though it was my first time making pan fried chicken. I could do it again in 20 minutes even though the first time took closer to an hour because I hadn't done it before. Trial and error, right?

List of ingredients I used:

4 chicken breasts

10 flour tortillas

Shredded Nacho Cheese (the mixed kind)

1 pkg Taco Seasoning

Sour Cream

10 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Olive Oil

More Ingredients I would've used if my kids weren't so picky:

Chopped Onions

Chopped Peppers

Chopped Tomatoes

Pico de Gallo

Salsa

That list of ingredients looks scary, but it's not I promise. These are still really quick. Next time I make some I'll take pictures. 

Instructions (Read all the way down if you're adding ingredients):

1. Get all your ingredients you want in your tortillas out and accessible.

2. Put a teaspoon of olive oil into skillet on high heat. Let it sizzle then turn heat to med-high depending on thickness of chicken.

3. Add chicken to pan. Sprinkle with light taco seasoning for flavor. Let it cook on one side about 4 minutes depending on thickness, then flip and cook 4 minutes on the other side. I cut mine through the middle to see if it was done.

4. Remove chicken and dice or shred. I diced because it was quicker. Set aside.

5. If you're adding ingredients you need to saute your onions, peppers, and whatever else you want now so they'll be ready. Just put one more tbsp of olive oil in the pan you already used and cook until they brown a little.

6. After Step 5 is done, in a different skillet heat one tbsp of butter until it is sizzling. I set mine on 9 on my electric stove which goes to 11.

7. Lay one tortilla onto the sizzling butter. Watch it because this is when you'll start moving quickly.

8. Sprinkle cheese onto the tortilla then add chicken. Layer other ingredients as you wish, add more cheese on top, then lay another tortilla over it. 

9. It's time to flip if the bottom tortilla has browned. This s the tricky part. I used the widest spatula I had. Pick up the tortilla, use your other hand to put another tbsp of butter in the pan, let it sizzle for a second, then flip and drop the tortilla into the skillet. It's easier than it sounds because the cheese melts and kind of holds everything together.

10. Let the 2nd side brown, remove, and serve.

***If you're adding ingredients other than the basic ones I used, between Step 4 and 5 you need to saute your onions, peppers, and whatever else you want so they'll be ready.

I cut ours into 4 pieces each and served with Spanish rice and sour cream to dip them in. (We're sour cream junkies.) One quesadilla filled us up, including the hubby who is a bottomless pit. Both kids devoured them and B asked if we could have them again the next night. Since he is the pickiest kid ever that makes it a huge kitchen victory for me. If you try them I hope you emjoy them as much as we did.

My Juicing Journey - Day 4

 I was down even more weight when I woke up in the morning! Woohoo! And I felt even better than I did on Day 3. Seriously, I could keep this up. As a matter of fact I plan to have a juice at least 3 times a week after the actual fast is over. Maybe throw in an entire day of juicing every 2-3 weeks. On this day I started with the Berry-A-Peeling juice. I added 2 entire oranges and another 1/2 of a lime after I tasted it. Not because it tasted bad but because I thought those flavors would go good together and I needed as much juice as I could get. This drink didn't make very much. I hoped it would get me through work. I could make something different for dinner.

Even raw this looks like a yummy snack.

This juice was good enough to drink throughout the day. I just drank a glass, then 16-20 oz of water, then another glass of juice. I was still running to the bathroom like a crazy person due to all the liquid consumption but that's what I wanted. Water weight was disappearing.

Now this juice actually looks tasty.

Well, I did have something different for dinner. A salad. :/ Not because I gave in but I was physically feeling sick. Not sick from juicing either. Just plain cold or virus. I had been sneezing, getting chills, and getting a sore throat the last part of the day at work. Then I started feeling queasy. And I couldn't stand the thought of throwing up with nothing in my stomach. So I had a light salad with raw broccoli. Thank The Lord, because later that night I did get sick. I was still running a fever when I went to sleep.

My Juicing Journey - Day 3

I felt SO great when I woke up. Seriously. Woke up earlier, didn't drag getting out of bed, fit in my clothes better... YES! I mean, look at this happy face.

That is a happy girl right there.

I was down another 1.5 lbs when I weighed in the morning. Excuse me, what? I lost weight while I slept? Yes, yes I did. Hallelujah, it's a miracle. I stuck with the Fruity with a Twist recipe because it made so much and was delicious. I did add spinach to it again. A little more than I had previously added actually. Since I couldn't taste it the day before there was no reason not to. Just extra healthy. Let me just add that when I say "I" here, I really mean my hubby because he got it all ready, juiced it, and cleaned up the juicer for me. He is a winner. I can't say it enough. Well, once more wouldn't hurt...

That's the hubs for sure.

Anyway, the day went well. Just kept up my rotation of juice and water. It was by far the easiest day. The only time I even wanted food was when someone was eating right in front of me. And at that it was only junk. I won't lie, there was a Chips Ahoy Reese's cookie that looked more delicious than anything I'd ever seen. But I didn't give in and I was glad at the end of the day.

Total weight loss for the day = 1.6 lbs

Total = 5.2

My Juicing Journey - Day 2

First off, I felt wonderful at the beginning of Day 2. I was afraid that since I was feeling a little bad the night before I would be feeling awful but I didn't. I made the Fruity with a Twist drink again for breakfast. My awesome husband went to the store and got me oranges and strawberries since we had forgotten oranges in our original shopping trip and didn't get enough strawberries. (I have one recipe that uses a lot of those.) I modified this one since even the thought of celery still makes me sick but I need some greens, not just fruit. I put 2 handfuls of spinach in it. It tasted DELICIOUS. Basically like I was drinking orangey-berry-pineappley juice. I couldn't taste the spinach at all. In regular dishes I love spinach, but juiced by itself it's not too good. Mixed in with pineapple it was fine. This recipe made a lot of juice. As in I overflowed my juicers pitcher and had to clean up a huge mess this morning before I could leave for work. It was still a good thing because I needed enough to take to work with me. It definitely did the trick.

It tastes way better than it looks.

I tried to drink a glass of juice then a glass of water all day. Probably about 14 oz each since my cup I was using was 16 oz and I put ice in each drink. I know that you're supposed to drink it as soon as you juice it but that was not feasible for me while at work, so I didn't. I made my juice and put it in a big jug and took it that way. Didn't even have to write my name on it. Can you believe nobody tried to steal it out of the cooler? Haha. I was running to the bathroom all day due to the liquid consumption but that's okay. Makes me feel like it's doing the trick.

Mom had to take some whole fruits and veggies to work to try to eat those. She was too sick to juice again in the morning. She was going to try to eat raw and juice again the next morning. I hope she feels much better so she can. 

I never did make more juice bc this drink made a lot. Enough to last me all day. I felt different than at the end of Day 1 and I know it was due to the spinach I added to the drink. I didn't feel bad, but I could tell I was detoxing more. Temperature was a little higher, I got occasional chills, and I was sweating more. 

Total weight loss for the day = 1.4 lbs

Total = 3.6

My Juicing Journey - Day 1

Okay, this day starts full blast. I woke up at 9 and started juicing. I made the Berry-A-Peeling drink first today before I did anything else. It's all fruit and since my trial juice made me sick last night from the celery in it, I thought fruit would be safer. It wasn't bad. It had apples, limes, and strawberries in it. The lime taste hung around for a while after. I think next time I do this one I'll just use 1/2 of a lime. I cooked the kids and hubs blueberry muffins for breakfast. One of my favorite things. I stayed out of the kitchen while they ate. I wasn't hungry, I just wanted one because I like them.

1st thing. Hair not brushed or anything. But proof I did it.

My mom did the Beginner Green and she has been sick all day. It is mostly green with lots of celery and makes you detox pretty quickly apparently. She also did the Berry-A-Peeling but since she was already sick it didn't help. I don't drink anything but water anyway so mine wasn't as bad as her. She has to have her coffee every day. Hopefully she'll stick with it because she felt bad enough to stay in bed all day and ended the day throwing up. If she wakes up feeling better tomorrow she'll start with fruit juice instead of greens.

My 2nd drink was a Green Lemonade. It had way more green than the first as you can see. It didn't taste bad. It has apples, lemon, kale, spinach, and cucumber in it. I am not a fan of cucumber but it wasn't strong in the drink. It was strong in the aftertaste.

Looks gross but didn't taste bad.

At this point the day started to get a little rough. I was honestly not hungry but we were supposed to go to my hubby's grandparents house for dinner. I sat that one out. TJ made me the Fruity Punch with a Twist before he left. Somehow even though we marked it off the list we forgot oranges, so he threw some strawberries in instead. I didn't get a picture (ops) but it was the worst looking of all. Best tasting though.

 Even though I wasn't hungry I felt like I needed to eat something. I never did get sick but I did feel a little blah. Some people say doing this has them running to the bathroom, but I didn't. Other than from the juice and extra water consumption. While the family was gone to dinner, I folded laundry, cleaned the house, washed the dishes, and drank juice and water. At the end of the day I was craving food. Anything. I would've been happy with a Saltine Cracker. But I didn't give in and I went to bed full. I hope Day 2 is a little easier than Day 1 with the cravings.

Total weight loss for Day1 = 2.2 lbs

My Juicing Journey - Getting Ready

I am actually really excited about this post. It's for betterment of body and mind. Maybe not while it's hapening because it's going to be difficult, but after for sure. I have a friend who decided to do a juicing fast. I have been inspired by his results to do one of my own. He says he's lost weight and feels better than ever, and since both of those things appeal to me I'm doing it. I'm going to shoot for 5 days. I'm going to put each day into a post and put what I drank, how it tasted, and how I feel. I will also be putting in my mom's thoughts since she is amazing and decided to do this with me even though we're in different states. Here's me being excited to start with my mini.

She's excited too because she wants to try all my drinks.

In preparation, I had to get a juicer since it's essential for juicing. I decided on a Breville Juice Fountain Plus. 

My mom is using a Dash. 

I also looked up recipes. My buddy Adrian recommended Juice Recipes as a good recipe source. He was right. They have their recipes broken into categories, including one that focuses on weight loss. These are the recipes we're using because we both want to lose a few extra pounds while we cleanse. I made a Word document and sent it to my mom so we could both print it. You can get it here. All recipes are copied straight from the website.

I also made a shopping list on the Anylist app for iPhone and shared it with my mom. It's a nice feature. We bought fruits and veggies and got ready. We decided to start on a Sunday since the detox can make people feel sick. We didn't want to be feeling crummy at work on the 1st day. Especially her since she can't have her coffee! Lucky for me I don't drink it. 

I tried my juicer out Saturday night just to see what I should be expecting. I made the Fresh Start drink off the website. My hubby tried it and didn't hate it, but I DESPISE the taste of celery which has an even stronger taste when juiced. I will be cutting down celery in most recipes if I use it at all and adding lime to cut the rest of the taste since just the taste made me sick. The process of using the juicer was easy. 

I had gotten a tip off a video somewhere that said to put a plastic bag in the pulp catcher so that you can just pull the bag out and not have to wash the catcher every time. GREAT tip. Even though if you rinse as soon as you're done it cleans easily anyway, using a bag makes it even easier. You'll be washing it a lot so every little bit helps.

I'm all set up for tomorrow and plan on doing a fruit juice for breakfast since the celery made me sick. I'll do a green juice for lunch.

Dinner is about to get easier.

I'm done! I'm finally done! Okay, I know that sounds like some dreadful task is over but it's not the "I'm done!" of relief, it's the "I'm done!" of excitement. Seriously. I know I'm a little sad for looking at my new menu planner and being super excited, more so than any other time in the past month almost, but oh well. It's awesome and I'm happy. I won't drag it out. Here's how it went down...

I saw the original post on Pinterest. I thought that it was an exceptional idea from The Thinking Closet. Hers looked so good, but I needed to make it my own because hers didn't match my style. I talked to the hubs and we decided the idea would probably work for us, so I started on a menu list. Nothing spectacular, just jotting down meals we like (and that I'm capable of cooking since I'm a novice) on a piece of paper when we happened to think of something. I've got almost 40 items on it so far and I'm still adding to it. Then we bought this stuff.

Magnetic whiteboard. I liked the sharp corners. Made for very clean lines on the finished product.

Card stock, medium clothespins, larger and smaller wooden letters that were paintable, acrylic paints, and some cheap paintbrushes. We also bought black fabric, patterned fabric, 3/4 inch ribbon, spray adhesive, and index card holders since all of our stuff is packed up for now.

After we bought that stuff, I sat on my bed and painted each one of these different colors. The OP had all the letters nice and uniform and a patterned background. My background is solid so I went with bright letters and decorations. 

I was a little disappointed when I realized that all the bigger letters weren't uniform in size even though they came from the same pack, but in the end they looked fine. Also, my smaller pack only had 1 "T". I had to make the other from different letters. Hopefully you can't tell which.

By the way, I don't know if I've ever mentioned but my hubs is top notch. No doubt. He helps me with anything I need help with. You'll see pics of him often. Here he is helping hot glue the fabric I got to the magnetic whiteboard. I didn't do like the OP and spray adhesive all over. I thought one day I may not want the menu planner anymore (doubtful but you never know) but the calendar would still be useful. 

Look at him go! He said "Don't post pictures of me doing this. I like my man card." haha... oops.

Here it is with its nice tucked in corners and tight sides.

I think we make a great team.

Then we added a border. We went with a solid color since our letters were different colors and we didn't want it to be too busy. We weaved it over and under for a nice pattern. There is hot glue under the 4 ends that are on the bottom of the weave so it can't be seen and around the back where the ribbon attaches to the whiteboard.

After that we hot glued our 4 larger letters to spell out M-E-N-U and one of each of the smaller painted letter to 7 clothespins for our days of the week. Here we are putting magnets on the back of our clothespins after we hot glued the letters to them. I know it looks like I'm not doing a thing but I promise I am! =] We bought a roll of adhesive magnets and cut our magnets to size so that they would fit on the clothespins without being seen.

The magnets cut down really easily. I cut them with a pair of my kids school scissors.

This was the result after all that.

Our next to last step was to put boxes on our board. I bought 3 index card holders and cut off the flaps that close them (I was going to make boxes from cardboard and have a layout if anyone would rather do that but these were easier and perfect size for my board), then cut my fabric to fit. I left about an inch hanging out all the way around the top and enough on the sides so I could fold the sides like I was wrapping a present. I sprayed adhesive all over the outside and stuck my fabric down. Once it was glued down I cut lines down the edges of the extra fabric at the top, sprayed the fabric with adhesive, then pushed it inside so that it covered the boxes completely. Then I stuck magnets to the backs instead of gluing the boxes down so I could take them down since anything open winds up getting dirty inside. At least I can shake them out this way. Or change fabric if I ever want to. I wanted 3 boxes so I could have one just for desserts. I like to make one or two a week. The 2 other than the dessert box are for menu cards. One for new recipes and one for recipes we've used. When the "new" box gets empty we just take the cards out of the "old" box and start our rotation over. As it looks right now we won't be eating the same thing for about 6 weeks unless we just want to. This was my almost finished result.

Then the time came for the menu cards. These were my least favorite part of the whole project. They weren't fun. Just typing. OP had already made a layout in Microsoft Word which I downloaded from her original post so I didn't have to worry with that. I just had to fill in the names of meals and ingredients. I covered them with packing tape and cut to size after I had them all printed.

Maybe one day I can add better quality pictures when i get my good camera unpacked. :/
The names of the recipes are on the front and the ingredients are on the back. Make sure you know how your printer prints and do left to right on the front, but right to left on the back so that they line up correctly.

I will eventually redo all of these cards because I plan on making my own recipe binder. Once I get that made, I'll reprint all the cards with a page number on them so I can easily find it. I don't have recipe books. All mine are from family, friends, or Pinterest. Now all I have to do for my weekly grocery shopping trip is pick out 7 cards, flip them over, and add my list of ingredients to my Weekly Menu Planner List which is printable and fillable in Word. I can choose sides to go with the entrees and get it all written down together. I also made a printable shopping list to go with it because I think the sectioned list works best for me while I'm actually in the store. So my end result turned out like this. Also, my menu cards are color coded. I have a different color for Easy, Red Meat, Chicken, Pork, Seafood, and Soups so far.

I'm 110% happy with it. If anyone decides to make one, send me pictures. I love different ideas. My supply list is below in case anyone was wondering. The whole project cost about $35 but could have been much less. Since we're moving all my craft stuff is packed up so I had to buy everything new. I also bought a more expensive whiteboard because I liked the bigger size and square edges. You can find them for around $9 all the time.

Supplies:
1 - 16X20 magnetic whiteboard
hot glue gun and glue
1 - yard black fabric
1 - 18in X 21in piece of patterned fabric
80 inches of 3/4 in grosgrain ribbon
wooden letters (large and small)
7 - medium clothespins
3 - plastic index card holders
spray adhesive
cardstock in different colors
packing tape

Good luck making your own!

-jFree <3

**UPDATE: I got my menu planner hung up in the new house and I love it.**

This thing is great!