I *heart* U

Four days ago, Daniel and I celebrated our 5th Valentine's Day as a couple. Each Valentine's Day, we've exchanged cards and Daniel has given me beautiful flower arrangements- always with red roses- and something chocolatey. This year he gave me the best 'assortment' box ever! Dove chocolates: peanut butter meltaways, dark chocolate filled with milk chocolate and chocolate caramels..... Yummmy!! Over the years, I've given him different gifts to celebrate the day and this year I took the phrase "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" to a whole new level.
For breakfast, I made him delicious, from-scratch, heart-shaped cinnamon rolls. This was a true labor of love because even though I made the dough, sliced it, and placed it in the pans, I still had to wake up to pop them in the oven and make the cream cheese icing. This meant waking up when Dan's 5:30am alarm went off and not immediately falling back asleep! The recipe I used is from this blog. To get them in the shape of a heart, you simply roll the dough from both sides and meet them in the middle.

For lunch, I made some heart shaped breadsticks and calzones. I used Pillsbury breadsticks and pizza crust, both found in the refrigerated section of the commissary. I added some melted butter, garlic salt and Italian seasoning to the breadsticks for extra flavor.

My heart-ish shaped calzone.

I also made some extra special sweet treats for desserts. The first creation was a large batch of peanut butter chocolate hearts (think Reese's cups!). I used this recipe and instead of rolling the peanut butter mixture into egg shapes, I used a heart shaped cookie cutter.
Dipping them into the chocolate was by far the hardest, most challenging part of the process. Though the peanut butter hearts had been refrigerated overnight, the chocolate thinned with Crisco, and I was using my fancy double boiler from Pampered Chef, it was not easy to make them look pretty and have them evenly covered with chocolate. The original blog post says she used a skewer to dip them, but I found a carving fork (like the one from this set) sprayed with a little Pam worked the best. It allowed for the hearts to remain secure and not fall to pieces and the Pam helped to slide them off onto the wax paper for cooling.
The last thing I made was a batch of super-moist chocolate cupcakes. I got my inspiration from this blog:

Source: glorioustreats.blogspot.com via Kelly on Pinterest

Though I didn't use the recipes for the cupcakes or the icing, I did do the heart-shaped decorating technique. This was definitely the easiest thing I baked all day! I used a double fudge chocolate cake mix from a box and canned thick and creamy vanilla icing (Betty Crocker). I used a couple drops of food coloring to turn the icing pink and when the cupcakes were cooled, I sliced the 'dome' off of them and cut out the hearts with a small cookie cutter. Then I simply iced the flat part of the cupcake and replaced the dome. I didn't use powdered sugar, but I was pleasantly surprised that my cupcakes looked a lot like the ones in the picture!

Daniel enjoyed everything- and said he probably gained about 10 pounds! It was an extra sweet Valentine's Day for us- our last one as a family of 3. Anna also got to taste everything I made, though I think her favorite was the lollipop that came with her flower & teddy bear from her Daddy.

Our little love bug enjoying her sucker.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

For everyone who wants this recipe, here it is! And to answer Jeff's question, no, it does not contain crack or any other addictive substance! This recipe comes from my mom, who is the hostess with the mostess and knows how to feed lots of people delicious food!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:
(first numbers gives you 6 quarts, numbers in parentheses will give you about 3 quarts)

• 4 (2) chicken breasts
• 4 (2)cups of Frank's RedHot
• 8 (4) cups of cheddar cheese [I used 4 cups of mild and 4 cups of sharp]
• 4 (2) 8oz. packages of cream cheese
• 3 (2) 16oz. bottles of Ranch dressing [For an spicier version, you can simply reduce the amount of Ranch you add. Daniel said the 6 qt version had a pretty good kick with 2 bottles, but the 3 bottle variety had a broader appeal.]

Directions:

• Trim the chicken and boil it until it's thoroughly cooked through.
• Cut the chicken up into chunks then put the chunks into a food processor until it's finely chopped.
• If you're making a big batch, I recommend you make it in a slow cooker on High. If you are making a smaller batch, you can make it on the stove top in a large pot on medium heat. If you have a really big pot, feel free to make the larger portion on the stove top, too.
• Combining the ingredients:
• Add the cream cheese and cheddar cheese, stir them together and allow them to start melting together (the melting part is more for the stove top version)
• Add the RedHot, chicken and Ranch dressing
• Continue to stir occasionally until everything is combined into a beautiful light orange dip that is simply irresistable- especially to Class 12006. :-)

This was the food table from Drop Night- the beautiful Stacy is
cutting up King Cake next to the big crock pot filled with Buffalo Chicken Dip!

• It took about 45 minutes in the slow cooker for everything to melt and combine. Be sure when you stir it in the slow cooker that you stirring everything on the very bottom or it might start to burn the stuff on the very bottom. Once it was all cooked, I turned it to warm since I was serving it immediately.
• For the stove top portion, I'd plan for about 20-30 minutes of cook time before it's ready to serve.

Serve hot with tortilla chips- Tostito's Scoops work very well! [6 qts will require about 4 large bags of chips.]

Refrigerate any remaining dip in a covered container.

Enjoy!

Super Easy, Super Yummy Crock Pot Chicken

Since Daniel had the day off on Monday, it felt like an extension of our weekend so I didn't do my normal cleaning/errand running/etc routine. We had this easy meal for dinner and it was sooooo yummy, I had to share.

Shredded Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients:

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (this gave us plenty of leftovers)
• Meat tenderizer
• Montreal Chicken Seasoning by McCormick
• Buns (whichever kind you prefer, but we like fresh hard rolls for these sandwiches)
• A crock pot :-)

Directions:

1. Place the chicken breasts in a crock pot
2. Sprinkle the meat tenderizer and montreal chicken seasoning generously over the chicken
3. Add about a 1/2 cup of water to keep the chicken nice and moist.
4. Cook on HIGH for about 4 hours, check that the chicken is cooked through, then turn to LOW until you're ready to eat.
5. [Optional] Ladle out some of the excess water.
6. Take 2 forks and shred the chicken breasts. They will fall apart so easily!
7. Put some of the shredded chicken on your bun and you're ready to customize your sandwich!

I'm sort of a "Plain Jane" and like just the chicken on my sandwich, but the great thing about the seasoning used is that it's pretty versatile. Here are some ideas to try (all tested and enjoyed by my husband):

• BBQ Sauce
• Chicken-Parm Sandwich (Shredded Italian cheese mix with some spaghetti sauce on top)
• Chicken & Cheese- melt some American (or whatever kind you prefer) on top of the chicken.

I didn't take a picture of the actual meal because we ate it before I thought about it but it's not really about presentation with this meal- it's about something super easy that people can make their own through toppings and such.

Enjoy!

Monday=Funday!

Today started out well and has continued to be a really nice time with my sweet Anna. Daniel has been MIA all day but since he's in a course right now that is taught in a SCIF (Secure Compartmented Information Facility), I'm not surprised by the fact he didn't come home for lunch.


We started our morning with a trip to the Dunkin Donuts (a recent addition to Pass Rd that caused quite a buzz among the Keesler spouses) with a new friend, Kelley, and her 2 boys. After Anna enjoyed her 'spinkoll' donut, the two of us split a bottle of milk and delicious cinnamon raisin bagel while talking with Kelley. Her boys (4yo and 7 months) were very well behaved and thankfully, so was Anna. Kelley and I both have sewing projects we're working on, so we hit up Hancock Fabrics for a little shopping which was a miss for Kelley (no boy owl patterns in cotton- only fleece!) and was a so-so trip for me. I found a few fat quarters with which to start Anna's big girl bed quilt to coordinate with the nursery colors. (More posts on that to come!)


Once the inevitable pre-naptime crankiness hit, we knew it was time to leave. Anna and I swung by Winn-Dixie for a few things we couldn't find at the commissary yesterday and came home shortly afterwards.


After a quiet lunchtime with Anna napping and Daniel not home, I was able to get some laundry started before my little girl woke up. And that's when the fun in the kitchen started!


After seeing a facebook post from a friend about food-based, homemade fingerpaints, I was curious. Thanks to this Pinterest post, I found all the needed ingredients in my pantry and got to work. Anna helped by pouring in ingredients into the pot. It didn't take long at all to make, but it did need to cool before little fingers got to painting.


While it was cooling, I decided to make some homemade taco seasoning by following this recipe (another Pinterest find). I'm making Daniel tacos tomorrow, so we'll see how it turns out!


Once the paint was cooled, I put it into 4 containers and added food coloring (red, blue, green, and yellow). I stripped Anna down to her diaper and we went to town fingerpainting out on our back porch. Here's a look at my budding artist!

Once Anna got a bath after this fun (but messy) craft, we headed out to the park to swing.

It's been quite an enjoyable day with my sweet girl. I'm soaking up these Anna & Mommy moments before our little girl is a big sister. I know that the fun and the love will only multiply with our new baby who will arrive in a few months, but I want to make sure we do lots of fun things together in the meantime!

Simple Italian Dinner- Healthy Chicken Parm

I've started planning out our meals weekly (at least more regularly) thanks to a great menu planner/shopping list (second PDF shown) I found via Pinterest. Along with being great way to figure out shopping, it also gives me more flexibility to switch meals around as needed. For instance, I was feeling a bit drained and didn't feel like cooking a whole big dinner on Thursday so we had leftovers instead of my planned chicken parm meal. This was no big deal, but I had bought fresh Italian bread to go with the meal and I feared it would get stale by the time we had the chicken parmesan (tonight, Saturday). In a stroke of genius, I decided to use it to make homemade garlic bread. I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com and I modified it a little bit. Below is my modified recipe, along with how I made my chicken parmesan (healthy version) and Italian roasted potatoes. They're all very simple and very tasty (at least in my opinion!).

Garlic Bread
Ingredients:

• 1 load of Italian bread
• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 1 1/2 to 2 bulbs of garlic (NOT cloves- whole bulbs!)
• 1 tsp of Italian seasoning
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 to 2 Tbsp of shredded cheese (I used Sargento 6 Cheese Italian mix)

Preheat oven to 350. Slice the tops off the garlic bulbs. Place them on a cookie sheet or on a mini sheet (made of a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil) and drizzle with the olive oil. Roast for 30 minutes or until garlic is soft.

Slice the bread in half, horizontally and set on a cookie sheet, sliced sides up.

Squeeze garlic out of its skin and combine with butter. I found it easiest to use my little food processor for this because the garlic was soft but not very willing to be broken out of its clove form.

Spread the garlic butter paste over the 2 halves of bread, sprinkle the Italian seasoning and shredded cheese over top.

Set your oven to "Broil" and broil the bread until it is nice and toasted! Allow to cool a bit and slice it up!

Italian Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium to large potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Garlic salt
• Italian seasoning

Preheat your oven to 500. Dice your potatoes into roughly 1" square pieces. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil (this will make clean up A LOT easier). Spray the foil with Pam or another non-stick spray.

Place the potatoes in a single layer over the sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Generously sprinkle garlic salt and Italian seasoning over the potatoes. Bake for 25 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown.


Before baking



After baking- golden brown & yummy!

 For me, the potatoes are the first thing to be finished so here's a trick to keep them warm until dinner time.

Take a ceramic bowl (I use my Corning ware) and run very hot water over the inside until it feels warm even after you take it away from the water. Dry it out and transfer the potatoes. To keep the heat in without having the potatoes get mushy, place a paper towel to absorb the steam over the potatoes before covering.



Healthy Chicken Parmesan



Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Traditional Tomato Sauce (I use Prego Traditional- close to heresy in my Italian family, but I use it infrequently enough that I can't justify the time to make a huge vat of spaghetti sauce like my mom.)
• Shredded Italian Cheese (Sargento 6 Cheese Italian mix is my preferred cheese because the variety gives it a lot of flavor)

I find that it speeds up the cooking process if the chicken breasts are tenderized and flattened a bit. To contain the chicken juices I place the breasts in a freezer bag, seal it, then tenderize it.

Once that's done, I trim the excess fat and cut the breasts in half to make smaller portion sizes.

For super easy grilling, I use my George Foreman grill, but a grill pan over the stove will work just as nicely. Grill the chicken until thoroughly cooked through.

Transfer the grilled chicken breasts over to a cookie sheet (I used the same foil-covered sheet that I used for the potatoes to save on clean up time). Spoon sauce over each piece and generously sprinkle the cheese over top of it.

Broil the chicken until the cheese is melted and golden brown.

Enjoy your meal with a nice glass of wine and toast to a dinner well made!