Yum Yum Raspberry White Chocolate Bars

Raspberry White Chocolate Bars

Aka: YUM YUM bars. OH. MY. Lanta. these are insane! I think I ate half a pan of them insane. Did I mention easy? With just a few things you probably already have on hand you can make a ridiculous dessert in no time.

These bars are kind of a mash up of a few recipes I had found online and just made my own.

I know I had mentioned before that we were on a diet. Emphasis on the "were"... Ugh.. Heavy sigh... I'll be fat forever... sad face... ANYWAY! These are delicious. I don't recommend eating an entire pan in one sitting because they are really sweet and will surely send you into a diabetic coma.. That's just not my idea of a fun time but if that's your thing then rock on. LOL. Here's the recipe.. Go NOW. RUUUUUUUUN to your kitchen!

Raspberry White Chocolate Bars

1 cup white flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 stick-o-butter (SOFTENED)
1 cup raspberry jam (seedless is best, really...)
1 small clam shell fresh raspberries
1/2 package white chocolate chips

Preheat Oven to 350F. Yeilds 8 large bars. Bake for 40 minutes.

1. In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients and the butter. Blend well with a pastry blender until the mixture looks like small peas. I have found that if it looks just a bit too dry I put a cap full of vanilla extract in to moisten it just a bit.
2. Line a small glass pyrex with NONSTICK tin foil. Like all the way lol. Line the hell out of it.  Seriously it eliminates greasing the pan and potentially scorching the corners.
3. Press 2 CUPS of the dry mixture into the bottom of the pan to make the crust.
4. Pour jam over top ( I find that heating it slightly in the micro works well for spreading. Like 30 seconds)
5. Sprinkle the whole container of raspberries over the jam and sprinkle half the white chocolate chips over the raspberries.
6. Top with remaining dry mixture. Spread it evenly.. 
7. Lastly you have the option of just throwing the white chocolate chips on top and baking that way or melting them and drizzling them on top. I'll definitely do that next time!

Set the timer for 40 minutes and ENJOY!!!!!

Smokey Lemon Chicken Noodle

Smokey Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

Hey there folks. I feel like it has been forever since I have posted a new blog. It's been a bit cray cray round here. My in-laws were in town, my oldest lost her first tooth and J got the ole snipperoo! That's right folks. We are officially done!! So that means we have had lots and lots of down time. To tell you the truth I am kind of going stir crazy. I'm used to being go - go -go so it's really weird to be home. However, I have had PLENTY of time to do some cooking. Which is what I am about to share with you today!

I am no stranger to soup. We're homies. My favorite being chicken noodle or, as it is affectionately known in my house, Cherkern Nerdle. I know... I'm weird. I've accepted it. So today I switched it up a bit. It all started at the rotisserie chicken stand in the deli. I was looking for the garlic flavored one when I came across "smoked chickens". After I was done giggling at my mental image of someone rolling a chicken up and trying to literally smoke it I thought why not.. we'll give it a go. Then I thought it may be a bit too smokey so maybe some lemon would help balance the smoke flavor. OH YEAH.. This was gooooooooood... My kids ate it. No really they did. It wasn't even deep fried or made from a potato!!! Shocking I know!

 So here's the recipe and I'll post the directions with pictures below.

1 Rotisserie (Or Smoked) Chicken  (If you cant find it smoked a tsp of liquid smoke works)
1 bag no yolks egg noodles
5 stalks Celery
3 large Carrots
1 Red Onion
7 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Chopped Parsley 
1 packet Onion Soup Mix
2 TBS chives
1 TBS oil
1 stick Butter
4 TBS chicken base
8 cups Water
1/2 Lemon (juiced)

Garnish:

1/2 Lemon (ZEST ONLY)
1/2 cup Parsley
Pinch - o - Parmesan 

1. Chop everything into uniform sizes. Shred chicken and reserve the juices.
2. Pour oil into large soup pot / dutch oven along with butter and melt.
3. Throw in chopped veggies (not garlic) and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add onion soup mix, chives, chicken base and water. Stir.
5. Add in chicken. parsley, lemon and garlic and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce to a simmer and add in the whole bag of egg noodles.
7. Cook on simmer until the noodles are soft and tasty.

** I salt and pepper as I go so it is up to you to do that. I like things salty.. Do what you want..

I garnished with a bit of parmesan, lemon zest and parsley. 

I like to get everything laid out and chopped ahead of time so that I can assure everything goes smoothly. AKA I don't burn shit.

I put all the dry stuff together so I can just throw it on in.

All the veggies together. I have also decided that I need a pair of those onion goggles. Those would be sweet so I don't have to cry eyeliner into my soup.

mmmmm... Butter. Handy TIP ** Pouring a bit of oil into the pot while you're melting your butter will keep it from burning.

You only want to cook the veggies until they are tender. Not too long or you'll end up with a weird pureed looking soup.

I used 7 cloves of garlic because I really like the flavor to come out (and you know... vampires... the struggle is real)

Aint she purty! I LOVE SOUP. Almost as much as I love lamp. 

That's all for tonight! See you on the flip side folks. 

 here's one more for the road.

French Onion Chicken

 Oh look at that. Ain't she purty?!?!

I got a little carried away with the mushrooms but hey, they're my favorite fungus so it's cool.

Hey there loyal followers. All 3 of you!

Today I have a real treat for you. Like so good you're going to lick your plate when you're done with thirds kinda treat!!

 May I present.....

French Onion Chicken

yep. YUM! I mentioned before that we are on a diet. I saved my calories today for this culinary masterpiece... Though it really isn't that bad so theres some good news.. 
You want to know an amazing secret??? Campbell's french onion soup. I was pretty shocked when I tasted it but it's LEGIT. Seriously.. This stuff tastes pretty close to high quality homemade, took 3 hours, soup. It's really good. Did I mention it's good? Yes.. Well it is. I licked the pull off top of death. I risked slicing my tongue open! Which is no surprise because I'm just that hardcore..

So here you go blogland. Enjoy! I took a few pictures of the process but I'll explain along the way.

French Onion Chicken:

1 pound chicken breasts (fileted)

1 can Campbell's french onion soup

1 package crimini mushrooms

1/2 cup chicken stock (my favorite is Kitchen Basics. It's rich and flavorful) 

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup flour 

salt and pepper

chives for garnish

1. filet your chicken breasts. Make sure they aren't like paper thin. Cut in half should be plenty fine. Salt and pepper each side of the chicken filets. 

2. Heat oil in a big skillet (I used cast iron) on medium high heat. Dredge your chicken in the flour and shake off the excess. Place them in the pan and cook until they are a nice golden brown. Flip them over and do the same. As soon as they're brown stick them on a plate to hang out until the sauce is ready. Its ok if they aren't cooked through. We'll get to that in a minute. 

3. throw your *sliced* mushrooms into the pan and cook until browned. 

4. Deglaze the pan by pouring in the soup and chicken stock and cook for about 1 minute to bring everything together. Scrape the bottom of the pan to get up all the yummy chicken bits that are hanging out.

5. Place the chicken back in the pan and flip once to coat in the sauce. Turn heat down to medium and allow to simmer until chicken is cooked through and the sauce starts to thicken. A good rule of thumb for reducing sauce is if it coats the back of a wooden spoon it's ready.

6. Give your self a high five because you just made dinner LIKE A BOSS!

Ok so I got to this point and I was like "Hey, Self, you should really be taking pictures right now because this is going to be the bomb!" Yes. I do talk like a teenager from the 90's in my head. I'm 27... I swear. 

Anyway. This is while deglazing the pan...

Adding the chicken back in... 

Little bit-o-garnish.. 

So this is another little gem from my kitchen to yours. I take out the chicken as soon as it's done rather than leaving it in the sauce while I get the plates ready. This keeps the chicken nice and moist.... Yuck. I hate that word. Even tying it give me the creepy crawlies. 

 Lonely sauce... 

Here she is. the first bite.... Hello my love... ANNNND that just made me think of Lloyd Christmas from dumb and dumber when he drops Mary off at the airport.. GOODBYE MY LOOOOOOVE! lol 

Anyway. Goodbye my loves. Until we meet again enjoy this recipe. It was damn good! My kids ate it and my 2 year old only eats pizza and crayons so that's saying something!

Pot Roast

Not so MISSISSIPPI pot roast

We're on a diet :(. So I am trying to come up with ways to still eat the stuff I love but still lose weight. I have been struggling with my blood sugar since I was pregnant with my third child so it's getting to that moment where its like either do it, or die. I like to live so I'm going with option A. J thinks he's fat too ( AHAHAHAHAHAHA) so he's joining me on the diet express. He's hilarious! Anyway... I love pot roast and I have seen all over Pinterest land these recipes for Mississippi pot roast (I feel like I am 5 again every time I write that word! I get all sassy up in my head. Yep. I'm 5.)  So I figured out a way to skinny it up a bit. It's not perfect but it's actually really good!

Also I was super sick for a few days. Like I'm dying, Seriously I'M DYING!!! sick. I still kinda am but I'm pretty much in denial so I thought a crock pot meal would be the best way to go (and not have to eat eggs for dinner because that's all J can cook).

So here's the recipe:

1 BIG sirloin pork roast

2 packets onion soup mix

1 packet ranch

1/2 cup chicken stock

5 pepper things ( I dont care to look up the proper spelling) 

Cilantro

Buns of choice

Herb Butter (as follows)

1 stick butter (margarine is what I used but I think butter would work too) 

1 tsp chives

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dill

1. Place that big ole roast in your magical machine that is known as the slow cooker. Basically throw everything on top of it lol. I mixed the herb butter together then placed it on top so there wouldn't be any clumping

2. Cook on HIGH for about 6 to 8 hours. After about hour 6 you should shred it and put it back in the cooker. 

3. Take it out and put it on your buns of choice. 

4. ENJOY!!

Hello little ingredients! Get in my cooker!!!

 Garlic Herb Butter. Um yum. 

 

We used some buns I found at IGA. That is also some fat free (flavor free) swiss franken cheese. 

 

  There you go. Dinner. It wont break the calorie bank either. Unless of course you eat ALL of it. Which is very possible!!

PS. Did anyone notice some pretty sweet tile on our backsplash? J finally finished it this weekend inbetween loads of laundry.. Thanks Flu.

Chevron Table and benches

Hello all. 

Theres something you should know. I am a serial re-doer. It's a problem... I know... I get tired of things fairly quickly and I just decide to re-do them. It happens. Sadly our table was the latest victim of my disease. I hated how I had to scrape kid food junk out of all of the cracks between the wood so I asked J if we could take it apart and put liquid nails between the boards so maybe I could just wipe it out. It was a big fail. Like stuff was stuck worse than ever kind of fail. So back to the drawing board it was. I had seen on pinterest a blog post where a lady made a chevron headboard out of plywood and 1 x 4 boards that she had stained individually in different colors. COOL! I thought I must have one. So after literally no thought about it at all I was sending J to Lowes to get the loot.

He picked up 4 - 1x4's, 3 - 1x3's, 2 tubes of liquid nails, 3 different stain colors (we had a ton already), a giant tub of wood filler and a big box of finish nails. You know cuz we are too old school to buy a nail gun lol. 

I was so worried that this would be a huge fail again so I didn't really take a whole lot of photos of the process but I'll show you what I have. 

Here's our table before: 

I know super awesome instagram photo. This was a year ago. When we finished the top. It was a regular old farmhouse style made out of 2 x 6's. I loved it. Till recently lol. 

Here it is 2 years ago!: 

The very first redesign of the table. Just 1 x 8's pocket holed together. 

Here it is today. Again I didn't really take any photos of the process because I was worried it wouldn't turn out well. 

Yes that is mac n cheese on my floor. My daughter was sleeping and she picked it up after her nap. Thats how we roll. 

See. Clean floor.

This is so blurry but oh well. I did a 90 degree corner in the middle and just went from there. I knew I wanted it to be centered on the table so I just measured and cut as I went. I glued and finish nailed each piece to our existing table top. I wood filled every crack between the boards and trim. That was a b**** but it's a dining table that has 4 kids at it every day so I didn't want to do ANY more scraping. Nope. Not gonna.

I stained each board individually with an artist brush. It was time consuming but worth it. 

I used MINWAX: ebony, red mahogany and english chestnut, RUSTOLEUM: weathered grey and mineral green. 
I also sealed it with Polyurethane. About 9 coats!! Again. Kids...

We are in the process of building two benches to go on each side for the kids. We used an Ana White plan for the frame and we winged it for the top since we wanted the chevron thing to keep on going. So here are a few pictures of the top. 

If it were up to me I would keep it like this and just paint it to look like a sweet scaly dragon or something. J wouldn't be too impressed... Ahh marriage. 

Here he is scraping some junk off after the first time I mis-measured the trim. Whoopsie. It happens pretty much all the time. Atleast I try :D 

 

It sure did turn out awesome though!! 

I love it! 

Now we just have to finish them and get a top put on the other bench. Because no one likes a topless bench.