Creamy Ranch Crockpot Chicken

Remember how I always say my favorite recipes are the easy ones?

This recipe is the epitome of easy.

Ingredients:

1 Package of Chicken Breast (I used just over a pound)
2 Cans of Cream of Chicken
1/2 Packet of Ranch Seasoning
1/3 Cup of Sour Cream
Cheese to Taste or as Desired (I used half a mozzarella cheese stick...think I'm joking? I'm not..we were out of cheese)

Instructions:

Quite literally just plop it together.

Ahh the beauty of crockpots.

I put my chicken in first, followed by the cream of chicken, sour cream, and then ranch seasoning. I added the cheese towards the end. Then I gave it quick stir and then stirred occasionally every 2 hours or so and Voila!

You can put it on pasta, rice, or even mashed potatoes. I used egg noodles because we always have more than enough of it to go around.

It cooks for about 5-6 hours on low and that's about it. Easy as can be.

It was almost too easy. I think next I'm going for the crock pot beef stew....Yum. One of my all time fall/winter favorites.

What's your favorite crockpot recipe?

Lemme hear em!

Delicious Red Velvet Cupcakes

Sometimes Mommy shouldn't drink while baking.

I don't know what it is but somehow I always manage to eff it up.

Like remember that time I promised you a Recipe . Yea...I may have had a glass of wine or two while attempting to make that abomination of a dessert as well.

Now here's the awesome thing about baking. It's REALLY REALLY hard to screw it up ...AND have it taste terrible.

Unless it is over-cooked or you used an abundance of one ingredient like 57 eggs instead of 3. But for the most part, you add a bit more oil, it'll be more moist, you add a bit more chocolate...well lezbehonest that's not an issue...It's more with your everyday cooking that'll really screw you over. Too much salt...too much garlic...too much hot pepper flake...all bad..very very bad.

So now I'm sure you're asking yourself what the hell it was I actually did...

Welppp, I added too much of the one ingredient that Paula Deen holds dearest to her heart.

Butter.

So how much did I add?

A half a stick.

Not bad you say to yourself...how much did it call for in the recipe?

Well...therein lies the issue.

None.

Not even a little.

So where the hell did I come up with the idea of putting the butter in?

Well, if you ask me the box is stupid.

And to a perfectly coherent person it's probably fairly easy to comprehend, but when you've had a little to drink and you're excited at the prospect of eating red velvet cupcakes...when read quickly the directions can be misconstrued.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

The FROSTING requires a half a stick of butter, because somebody had their wheaties the morning they decided at the Duncan Hines meeting that they were going to INCLUDE frosting in this particular box.

GENIUS.

AND it had a fancy frosting bag so I could get all badass cupcake-decorator on those suckers.

Now normally adding butter to something isn't necessarily a bad idea.

Except for the fact that recipe already called for a bunchhhh of oil. And generally speaking in terms of baking a recipe will call for EITHER butter or oil..not both.

So I then proceeded to follow the rest of the recipe accurately.

I threw them into the oven, crossed my fingers, and prayed to the cupcake gods that I didn't just totally eff up my glorious dessert.

When the timer sounded I half expected them to be these gloppy nasty oily red blob things. But they were perfectly formed cupcakes.

Still skeptical I waited for them to cool (which was nearly impossible mind you) and frosted them.

I tasted the first one with my eyes closed like I was about to ingest a live bomb and you know what?

It wasn't half bad, in fact, it was tasty. Really tasty. Moist...a little rich, but definitely tasty.

I've discovered I actually LIKE the taste of butter in it. Would I add that much? Oh hell no.

But what I'm proposing is cutting the recommended amount of oil and adding a quarter stick of butter.

These would make DELICIOUS moist not too oily or rich, buttery yummy cupcakes.

Yum Yum!

Try it with your favorite cupcake recipes and tell me what you think!

Mommy Popsicles

Remember that thing I had mentioned a little while back about the easier the recipe the better?

This simple refreshing cocktail popsicle is the epitome of easy.

To be honest I bought the popsicle mold with the utmost intention of making these bad boys:

Strawberry Cheesecake Popsicles

orrrrr maybe these:

Nutella Coolwhip Popsicles

But lets be real here for a second....nutella and cheesecake are great and all....but wine...wine is my kryptonite.

So that's when I decided to make these instead...

These would be EXTRA delicious with pieces of fruit added in....buuuut our fridge happens to be lacking in the fruit department right now so these simple ingredients sufficed.

The amount of the ingredients really depends on your taste...I did 2/3 OJ to about 1/3 of wine. But any number of juices and wines would work nicely together. Experiment a bit and get creative.

They're the perfect summer outdoor mommy treat.

Refreshing, delicious, and... wine...did I mention there was wine? :)

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Crispy And Buttery Golden Potatoes

I like to think that I'm a lady of many trades....

I LIKE to think that...it does not in fact mean it's true.

But when I find something I love...no matter what it is...usually I dive into it prettttty whole heartedly.

Well the same goes for recipes I love. When I find something I really like that's easy to make, well lets just say that makes me one happy mama.

This recipe is almost too easy. There are almost no ingredients and most of those ingredients many households have on hand at all times. WONDERFUL.

Count my ass in.

So here it is:

Ingredients:

1 Bag of Golden Potatoes
3 Tablespoons of Butter
1 Can of Chicken Broth
Garlic Salt, Salt, & Pepper to Taste

This Recipe is so easy you can't really mess it up to be honest.

So first you need to wash the potatoes and cut them into good sized chunks, I cut mine into about 6 pieces.

Place them along with the butter into a deep pan (preferably cast iron as I'm sure they would cook and crisp much better but a standard nonstick pan worked equally as well for me). Now each potato should touch the pan on at least one side, that will work best for when were in the browning state, this is why the amount of potatoes to use can vary slightly. I used less than 1 bag for this recipe.

Add chicken broth or stock half way up the pan, which was about half a can for me, salt (easy on the salt because its a fairly salty dish) ,pepper, and garlic salt, place a cover on the pan at medium to high heat and let cook for about 15 minutes or until tender.

Remove the cover and allow the remainder of the broth to evaporate for 15-20 minutes.

Once all the liquid had been cooked out allow the potatoes to brown on each side.

Voila!

Delicious, super flavorful, crispy, buttery, savory, easy-peasy potatoes. A PERFECT side for any chicken dish and makes about 4 servings.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Lindsay's Bruschetta Pasta Salad

The following recipe comes per my friend Lindsay and for the record it IS as delicious as it sounds.

I think the best part about this recipe is that it's simple. And not just simple in that it's easy to make but simple also due to the lack of ingredients. Color me crazy but recipes that I tend to lean toward generally have fewer ingredients.

And if you're wondering...yes I AM one of those nit-picky people. There are a lot of things I do not like for example: onions, olives, mushrooms, ANY seafood, MOST cooked veggies. If that makes me picky...then fine so be it. However, I've lived my whole life eating plenty of really delicious food that does not include any of the aforementioned foods. So recipes that have simple ingredients are what attract me most and THIS is one of them. Five ingredients, people...five.

Ingredients:

1 Box/lb of tri color rotini
1 1/4 cup of diced tomatoes
3/4 cup of shredded fat free mozzarella
2-4 finely chopped fresh basil leaves
Roughly 7oz of Balsamic Vinaigrette (to taste)

And that is IT. I'd like to make two notes.

1. You CAN used diced fresh mozzarella as well however Lindsay likes the continuity of the shredded. Plus lezbehonest it makes for a much easier and faster prep.
2. When Lindsay was texting me the recipe her phone autocorrected "tomatoes" to "panties". And for me that too is worth noting.


Prep:

Cook the rotini until tender (or al dente as I prefer it), throw in a bowl and mix with remaining ingredients.

It's THAT easy. And for the record, pretty damn healthy too.

If you try it, maybe for your fourth of July parties (hint, hint) be sure to let us know what you think!

Philly Cheese Steak Salad

This recipe I kind of just came up with on the fly.

It's super simple but really delicious.



This salad is like half wedge salad half Philly Cheese Steak.

I used:

Iceberg Lettuce

Tomatoes

Green Pepper

Shredded Cheese

Shredded Steak

Bleu Cheese

I did not use onions as I do not like them...but they would probably work well also



I quickly cooked up the shaved steak and seasoned with this guy:





A little fun fact for ya about green peppers. Male green peppers have 3 bumps (like the pepper on left) they boast fewer seeds and are best used for cooking. Female green peppers have 4 bumps (pictured on the right) they are sweeter and best eaten raw. Thank you, Pinterest.



This salad was super easy and super yummy. Let me know if you try it, ladies and gents. Comment and subscribe!

And as an added bonus!



BUGFACE!

Now we're off to enjoy this beautiful day!

Summer Sangria

Now...let me preface this recipe by saying that the dessert I made yesterday I did WRONG. It was tasty...but wrong nonetheless and I will be waiting to post it until my mommy mush brain can READ THE DIRECTIONS CORRECTLY.

But I will not be leaving you reicpe-less because that would be cruel. So instead I will leave you with a kickass sangria recipe that I threw together yesterday with a couple of the girls.

Sangria is SO easy to make...and you can play with it a lot which is what I truly enjoy about making them. You can come across some really great ones just by putting things together that you like.

THIS sangria was easily one of my better ones.



So for this recipe you will need:

Bubbly Peach Wine (or any peach wine...we just happened to use a carbonated wine because that was what was on hand)
Malibu Sunshine (which is DELICIOUS...it's citrus infused malibu)
Orange Juice
Sprite
Strawberries

Now here's where I probably differ from most.

Generally speaking with a sangria I like to make them by the cup instead of a giant batch. Primarily because everyone is different and may like more of one thing over another, so I made these individually.

I first cut up one GIANT ASS strawberry in quarters and put 2 pieces in each glass.

I then filled my wine glass about 1/3 of the way full with the peach wine.

I added about 2 oz of OJ, a splash of sprite, and about 2 oz of the Malibu.

It was PHENOMENAL.

Super easy to make, not many ingredients, and very very summery. And summery is always good in my book.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Garlic Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

Aren't you glad you waited for this? Trust me...you are. These little pieces of heaven are worth a try. And SO simple. If I can do it...ANYBODY can. De-freaking-licious. So what you will need:

3-4 medium red potatoes, cut into small wedges
3 TBS olive oil
1/3 C parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp paprika
sea salt to taste



Now this is the recipe as listed at http://imperrfections.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/parmesan-roasted-potatoes/
It may be my taste but I do NOT need to add salt...between the garlic salt and how salty parmesan is, it was totally unnecessary for me. Also, it says that this serves 2-3...not true. These are way too delicious to only serve 2-3 people meaning I always make more than the recommended serving. SO here's how we make these life-altering, mind numbing, yummy pieces of awesome.

Wash those bad boys up. They grew in the ground...and never got washed. So unless you like dirt on your potatoes, give those babies a bath.

And Here are your ingredients.

Cut your potatoes like so

They'll look like this once chopped. Then put your chopped potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil and mix.

Mix together your dry ingredients and dump that shit on the potatoes and toss and mix it all together. This is when the magic starts to happen. These ingredients smell like heaven on freakin earth.

Throw them on a baking sheet and in the oven at 425. Make sure they are in a single layer. Put them in for 25 mins then turn them over (which I am still working on exactly how to make them not stick) for another 10 and then prepare your tastebuds for THIS awesomeness:

Once I can figure out how the hell to make them not stick it'll be perfect. But these pictures do ZERO justice to how they taste. OH MY LANTA. They are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and the flavor is just out of this world. If you do not try them...I PROMISE you will regret it and it will haunt you for all of eternity. Go ahead, you know you wanna try em ;) And when you do let me know what you think!

17 Lights

There are 17 lights on my way to work. Yep. Today I counted them. There are also 4 of those flashing yellow blinky lights. Now I guess this wouldn't be a huge deal if my work were say...30 or even 20 miles away. So how far away is work for me you ask?...6...6 damn miles. That is the most ridiculously stupid thing ever. Which means, according to how my life works I hit anywhere between 80 and 90 percent of them. Who, may I ask, even thought to put THIS many lights in such a small freaking area? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.


And what's more the people in my town are (understandably so) fed up with this clusterfuck of lights, that they blow through them...ALL.THE.TIME. I have never seen people run red lights like they do in my town. EVER. It's insane. When a light turns green, it is suicide to Mario Andretti your ass through it...because GUARANTEED there is at least one...if not TWO people about to run the red light going in the opposite direction. Suicide I tell you. And I can't say I never run red lights...cause I totally do, usually not out of spite for the number of red lights I need to sit at. Normally when I run a red light it's one of those, "Oh the light turned yellow but I'm going too fast to stop in a normal manner so that the person behind me doesn't rear end me" (I always picture cars that stop too fast in cartoons and the rear end of the car lifts up from the force of the stop. Awesome visual, I know.) And of course I've had the occasional times where I'm like "Fuck it, I'm going"...and we all know what makes those moments awesome...When the person BEHIND YOU also runs the red light. Because you know YOU ran it...that guy like BLATANTLY ran it (like a boss)...and his ass is grass if the cops are around, and yours is safe. Score.

Welp, today's a big day for me..I'll make sure to share sometime later on ;). And tonight I will be following up with the most delicious-fantastic-mouthwatering-lifealtering recipe EVER. Prepare accordingly.