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!

Back for 2012... and hopefully more regular posts!

So it's been quite awhile since I posted, but here's a quick recap on where we are:

• We moved to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS in August for Daniel's new training (Undergraduate Cber Training).
• We LOVE our new home on base and have made lots of good friends over the past few months.
• We're expecting a bundle of joy in mid-March and couldn't be happier about it!
• We hosted our first Thanksgiving in our home when Daniel's parents & brother came in for the holiday.
• We spent Christmas and New Year's in Pittsburgh and are now home and back to 'normal.'

Over the past month or so, I've discovered a love for Pinterest which is an online 'pin' board to help keep all the cool recipes, ideas, crafts, etc I find online organized and in one place! I'll be sharing some of those ideas here (and how successful (or not) I've found them to be) and some that I've come up with on my own. Hope you'll join me!

Just a slice of Air Force life...

I promised to make 2 coffee cakes for Class 11-11's Red Carpet breakfast tomorrow. They are simply scrumptious coffee cakes and I can't wait to share them with my friends but.... I didn't have bundt pans!

I enjoy baking and have a plethora of pans but still haven't purchased a bundt pan, but I knew I could still make the promised cakes "with a little help from my friends." I know lots of wonderful ladies on base and many of them are better bakers than I! So I contacted 2 of my friends and within about 10 minutes, I had walked to their homes, picked up their pans and caught up with them.

While I know that this kind of thing happens in neighborhoods, apartment buildings, etc all over the world, I want to point out that I've known these great friends for less than 6 months (one of them I just met in May!). Despite this short time frame, I have connected with and come to love these women. It makes me so sad that I can't count on living within walking distance of these friends that I've made but they say "It's a small Air Force" and I sure hope it's true!

And while the "see you later"s are inevitable, I'm going to soak up the warm fuzzies that I get when I text someone about helping me with a "baking emergency" and have them respond with "of course!"

Think Pink! (Blog Giveaway!)

Since my break from blogging, a lot of things have changed and one of the most significant change has been my new business! I became a Mary Kay independent beauty consultant in November and love it! There are a lot of reasons but I'll just name a few:
1. I get to stay at home with Anna and still use my brain for work!

2. I get all my personal use products at wholesale cost!

(Pictured: Timewise Miracle Set- MY FAVORITE!)

3. I get to spend time with my amazing girlfriends, making them feel pampered and earn income at the same time.

We are closing out our Seminar Year 2011 and are slotted to be the #1 unit in all of Mary Kay! We have just a few more days left and if you want to help us secure the top spot, visit my website! When you check out with a purchase of $20 or more, make sure to write "blog giveaway" in the comments section for a free lipgloss! If you know which shade you want, be sure to put that in too! If you're unsure about which shade would look best, I'll give you a call and we can figure out the perfect one for you. I always ship for free, our products are backed with a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee and I just know you'll love them if you give them a try!

And I'm back!

Greetings everyone! It's been a very long time and I thought I'd take this post to explain my hiatus and catch you up on our life.

Back in September, things got a little crazy with Daniel's Air Force career and pilot training sort of stopped for us. He was dizzy all the time and we were freaking out about possible reasons. The medical personnel were less than helpful and suggested everything from dehydration to a brain tumor but after 2 and 1/2 months, someone diagnosed Daniel in 45 minutes with a slight problem with his ocular-vestibular connection (between his eyes and his brain) and gave him exercises to fix it. And he's been 100% since January- Alleluia!

After that, it was on to figuring out what was going to happen to pilot training and after a very long process, it was decided that Daniel would be removed from UPT with the understanding that the door was still open for reapplying in the future- once he was asymptomatic for 12 months.

In the mean time, the USAF would reclassify him so that he'd have an official job which would be beneficial to his overall military career. While we had to play the waiting game (the military's FAVORITE) for a few more months, we finally have some information on where we're headed and what Dan will be doing!

He found out on Thursday that he'll be a cyberspace operations officer and it looks like we'll be PCSing (moving all of our stuff there) to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi! We're really excited about the next step in our great big adventure!

I think I've rattled on long enough- I'll post more soon, promise!

Travelling with Anna

So it's been a really long time since I posted and for this I apologize. Anna and I had a great trip and I couldn't imagine the flights or car rides going any smoother! Daniel drove us to OKC Airport early Saturday morning and after checking bags, Anna and I headed through security. I had borrowed a Snap'n'Go stroller that Anna's carseat fits into from a friend, along with a 'gate check' bag for the carseat and base so they wouldn't get filthy during the flights. These were 2 essential items! Thank you Allison and Jamie!

I 'wore' Anna using a Moby wrap which was great because once we were on the plane, it folded up easily and fit into my diaper bag. I was a little nervous about Anna and the plane ride, but she did wonderfully! I was able to feed her on both legs of the trip getting to Myrtle Beach Airport and she got some cat naps in during the flight from Dallas to Myrtle. The toughest part was eating for me! Since our flights were so close together, I grabbed a water bottle and fries (so healthy, right?) from McDonald's in Dallas (12:30) after eating some Cheerios for breakfast at 7:00am. Needless to say, I inhaled the Sonic combo I got in Myrtle Beach while Mom, Anna and I waited to pick up my grandparents at the airport.

The longest travel day for us was heading to Pittsburgh after a great week at the beach. It was a 14 hour ride (usually 12 but we hit some major traffic) but Anna only cried for 10 minutes of it! We stopped more than we usually do but that's because of Anna's eating schedule and who wants a hungry baby crying in the car? Not us! It was a tight squeeze and every seat was occupied in my Dad's Acadia, but we made it safely to Pittsburgh!

The trips to Chicago from Pittsburgh and then from there to Oklahoma City were smooth as well. Both of those flights were on Southwest and since they don't assign seats, we got to choose our own. This was great but we received a lot of unpleasant faces as the other passengers boarded- I'm sure they were thinking "Oh great, a baby. Let the crying begin!" But our little girl proved them all wrong! She was the happiest passenger on the plane, playing with Tigger and smiling at the flight attendents.

After three weeks away, Anna and I were both so happy to see Daniel back in Oklahoma. We stopped at Cracker Barrel where we had some great 'home cookin' and found Anna a cute little dress for the fall.

I'll be posting pictures and more details about the three weeks soon. But this post was just to fill you all in on how well Anna did on her first 4 flights (and one long road trip) in 3 weeks of travels.

And they're off!

Daniel has successfully transitioned to Phase II- Flying the T-6! He took his dollar ride yesterday and had another flight this afternoon. It's exciting to be moving on with training but now begins his mandatory 12 hour days. Both Monday and Tuesday dinners have been eaten after 8 but I don't really mind. I love sharing meals with my husband (of 1 year and 3 days- we celebrated our first anniversary on Sunday) and my little girl. Anna obviously can't eat the meal but we sit her in her Bumbo seat and she joins us at the table.

Anna and Tigger in her Bumbo seat.

They say the first fifteen days of each phase are the hardest so it's probably good that Anna and I will be gone for the next few weeks so Daniel can focus on flying.

His class is broken into 2 flights. Daniel is in C Flight (or Cobra Flight) in the 8th Flying Training Wing. His classmates are a good group of people and we enjoyed a Friday night party at one of their houses off base. Since they aren't allowed to leave the flight room while on formal release, I've decided to bake them some treats to fuel their energy as they study and prepare for flights. Tomorrow I'll deliver some chocolate chip cookies before a trip to the commissary and BX.

I can't believe it's already Wednesday! I've been mentally preparing for our trip but now I need to start packing! Thankfully, I was able to get the laundry done today and I will be packing tomorrow. I am so excited to get to the beach! Only 4 more days!!