Project 365 Week 4

Last week was rough. Everybody in the house was sick, I didn't even get a picture for January 25th. I'm really disappointed, but the last thing I was thinking about that day was getting a picture. I'll do a recap of last week, but here's the pictures for week 4 of Project 365.

It was cold and icy, I wish I was able to get a picture that truly showed how icy it was out.

Buffalo Chicken Salad. Greg and I have this for dinner several nights a week. and we have been since October. We're addicted. They're so good!!

The boys playing in the basement. I moved the date stamp so you could see that Evan was licking his toys. Crazy boy.

This was taken about 8 or 9 in the morning. This is how foggy it was. You can't see anything past our deck. It was so weird.

The boys never sit this close without rough housing. It was so cute to see them sitting side by side, nice and calm.

Storytime with Mamaw.

Stuffed Peppers

A few years ago, I tried a very basic and simple stuffed peppers recipe that I got out of a Weight Watchers cooking magazine. The magazine was called something like "5 ingredients or less and ready in 15 minutes or less" so it was good, but a little plain. I recently found a stuffed peppers recipe on Pinterest that looked good and decided to try it. After I printed it out and was going over the ingredients, I noticed it was missing some things that I wanted, so I decided to do something I NEVER do, I decided to just add the things I like from both recipes to create my own recipe. . I always go by a recipe and use the exact measurments. I thought they turned out really good, especially the filling. I didn't precook the peppers and they ended up being little overwhelming, so next time, we'll precook them so they're soft and not as strong tasting.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Ingredients

4 large green peppers

1 onion, chopped

1 lb hot italian sausage

1/2 jar of spaghetti sauce or marinara

2 bags of 10 minute rice

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

mozzerella cheese

Preheat the oven to 375. Cook rice according to directions. Trim the bottom of the bell peppers so they have a flat surface to stand on, and hollow the insides out. Take the extra bell pepper you have from cutting the tops off, the onion, and the italian sausage and cook in a pan until sausage is browned. Add sausage mixture to bowl. Add rice, oregano, parmesan cheese, and marinara sauce. Mix well. Add mixture to peppers. You'll have extra, I used a 9x13 baking dish, so I would have room to cook the extra filling. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and add mozzerella cheese to the top of each pepper and the extra filling. Cook for an extra 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted.



Week Recap

As you saw from the pictures I used for my project 365, last week was rough, but we did do a lot of fun things also. Tuesday night I had my Mom's Night Out with MOPs and we had craft night. We made these fun, fleece scarves and sat around and talked. Wednesday we had a playdate with the little girl next door. That was the first day of the boys officially being on one nap a day. Thursday, we had a MOPs playgroup in the morning and a pizza making party playdate that afternoon. Friday, we ran some errands and took it easy. We rented "Rise of the Apes" to watch that night, and I really liked it. Greg and I have been renting a lot of comedies lately, most of them not being very good, so a drama was a nice change of pace.

I didn't get a lot of picture last week, but here's Carter after the pizza making playdate. Greg and Evan were at the gym, and after I got home, I decided to add a couple more toppings to the pizza. Carter was my little helper. He helped put toppings on and he taste tested the toppings to make sure they were good.

Then, he decided it was fun to throw the toppings on the floor.

Saturday, we took the boys to Chik-Fil-A in the pj's for free breakfast. Our Chik-Fil-A does family activities a lot and it was a fun excuse to get out of the house. We came back to the house to let the boys play a little bit, then headed out to the gym. After working out, we came home, fed the boys lunch and put them down for their one nap. It's a bit of an adjustement going from two naps to one, for them and us. After they woke up, we ran to Sam's Club and came home and I made stuffed green peppers, I thought they turned out great and I'll post the recipe here in a couple of days. After the boys went to bed, we watched the movie "Courageous". I've been wanting to see it since it came out in theaters. I thought it was really good but it had some really sad parts.

Evan and Greg in the morning. Evan never sits on our laps for more than a few seconds and he sat with Greg for a long time, I had to get a picture.

The boys at Chik-Fil-A, enjoying their free chicken mini's.

I couldn't get this picture to turn right.

It was really dreary the entire day. There was hardly anybody out. Greg had to get his haircut on the way home, the boys and I waited in the warm car.

Waiting on daddy.

Ice on the trees.

Today, we woke up, got ready, went out to breakfast, and then to church. We've really wanted to try some churches around here to find one that works for us so we can start going every Sunday. Now that the boys are on one nap a day and don't mind if we leave them in the nursery, we've started our search again. The church we went to this morning actually has a few different locations, so we're going to try out a different location next Sunday. The service and environment was more Greg's cup of tea, it  had a more contemporary feel with a christian pop band and laid back atmosphere. I prefer a more tradtional service, but I'm just happy to be going to church. I completely forgot to take pictures, but the boys looked cute in their khaki's and polo shirts and Greg even wore a tie. The boys are napping now, and when they wake up, we're hoping to get to the gym again. I'm making grilled southwest chicken wraps for dinner and if they turn out good, I'll post the recipe here.

I hope everybody is having a good weekend.

Project 365 Week 3

This week has been exhausting, I didn't do very good with my project 365. I took a picture every day, but they weren't good pictures. Hopefully, I'll do better nextw eek.

We hit some really good sales and stocked up on coffee for my Keurig. This raspberry chocolate flavor is a seasonal flavor and I got the last two boxes Target had. Kohl's was already sold out.

Carter throwing a tantrum. It's been that kind of week, you'll see from the other pictures.

This is the day that I read up on aperature and tried out some new settings on my camera.

I think the boys look so handsome in their polo shirts, this is an instagram picture from my iphone.

Yes, this is gross, but it's the ONLY picture I took for the entire day. I was trying to get a picture of his black eye. The snot does help convey how my week was going.

I got out some stuff to donate to a yard sale at the church and the boppies were some of the items that I was donating. Evan decided to make himself comfortable. I thought he look so cute.

And this picture pretty much sums up the ENTIRE week. It's been a rough one. Some days are just going to be harder than others and this week was full of them. I'm SO happy that it's the weekend and I'm able to recharge a little bit.

Menu

In trying to keep up with my goal to plan my menu for the week and shop efficiently, I've been looking through my recipes trying to decide what to make for next week. I finally picked out the recipes I wanted to make, a mix of new recipes and some tried and true classics. The boys and I are going to do our weekly grocery shopping tomorrow morning while Greg is at work for the first time. We normally do our grocery shopping on weekends, but we've been skipping the morning nap the past couple of days (which is why I haven't posted in a few days) and we need things to do in the morning to keep us busy. I'll post a recap of our week soon, but for now here's our menu for the week.

Friday

Salsa Chicken

Source: chefmommy-brandao.blogspot.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Saturday

Stuffed Green Peppers

Source: kalynskitchen.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Sunday

Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps

Source: melskitchencafe.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Monday

Leftovers

Tuesday

Creamy Italian Chicken

Source: the-girl-who-ate-everything.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Wednesday

Poppyseed Chicken

Thursday

Homemade Pizza (bbq chicken and tomato basil)

Source: scissorsandspatulas.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Friday

Crockpot Chicken and Dressing

Source: mangiodasola.com via Samantha on Pinterest

It's been an exhausting week here, I'm hoping to post a recap of the week tomorrow or Friday. I hope everybody is having a great week.

Weekend Recap & Jalapeno Popper Chicken

Greg got off work on Friday at 9:30 and had Monday off, a 3 and 1/2 day weekend and I have no idea where it went. It seemed to go by so fast and we didn't really do much. Friday we went to lunch at Panera and then the gym. Saturday we took the boys to get their hair cut. This was Evan's 4th or 5th haircut and Carter's 2nd. We hit up some good sales. Sunday morning, we went grocery shopping, Greg took the boys to the gym and I met a friend for lunch. We ended up sitting and talking for 3 hours and it was so nice to have that adult time. Monday, I cleaned house, we went to lunch, and ran some errands. It was so cold this weekend, so we couldn't really do anything outside.

Here's some pictures of our weekend.

Snip-It's has a Melissa and Doug train table that the boys love playing on while we're there. It was pretty busy and we ended up having to wait a little bit (we usually don't have to wait at all) and the boys played good the whole time.

Evan before the hair cut.

 

 The boys woke up early on Sunday and so we decided to go ahead and get our grocery shopping over with. This is what time we were loaded in the car and on our way to Kroger. Way too early!

The boys at Lowe's on Monday. You can see their fresh haircuts.

 Harris Teeter had boxes of Keurig coffee on sale for 4.99!!! I was so excited.

These pictures are all out of order, but here's Carter climbing his piano.

And here's Carter throwing a tantrum. The transition from two naps a day to one nap is not easy and makes for some fussy babies.

I've been trying to sit down and read my Nikon D60 for Dummies, but it's hard to get motivated to sit down and tackle that big book. I found this photography course on a girls' blog where she's writing about a new thing each week. She breaks down the basics and makes them so easy to understand. This weeks' course was on Aperture. So, she gives her readers an "assignment" to try at home to learn more and see how it works on their camera. I took several pictures using different settings, the first one is on the lowest aperture and the second one is on the highest. I'm looking forward to next week's course.

Notice the difference in the backgrounds? Too bad there's not a camera setting that hides the mess on my counters.

And for dinner on Saturday we had one of my favorite dishes, Jalapeno Popper Chicken. Taking this picture is what made me go online to look for information on taking better pictures. The lighting is horrible and it looks like crap. But, the chicken tasted so good and I like to have a picture to go with the recipe. (that's corn and macaroni in the background, it's not one big huge yellow side dish)

Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Chicken

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
4 strips of bacon, diced
4 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (I used regular bread crumbs and seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder)
1. Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crispy. Drain on paper towels. (I used microwavable bacon--easier and tastes just as good)

2. Stir together the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon, and jalapenos in a small bowl.

3. Cut a pocket horizontally through the thickest side of each chicken breast, and fill with 1/4 of the cheese mixture. Secure with toothpicks.

4. The original recipe says to fry chicken in a pan, but I just bake mine in the oven at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

Greg and I both love chicken and dumplings. It's one of the things he always tells me to ask my mom to make when we visit. I've never attempted chicken and dumplings before. I've seen so many different types of recipes, ranging from making the dumplings from scratch (which I don't have time for) to using canned biscuits for the dumplings. I was always hesitant to try the easy recipes because I figured there's no way they could taste good, if they did, why would anybody spend hours making this dish? Well, I saw an easy crock pot version on Pinterest and decided to go ahead and try it. It was so easy and cheap, I figured if it didn't turn out good, we weren't out much. I was shocked at how good it turned out! We both loved it. It was simple and delicious. We both agreed it'd be yummy to add some carrots or celery but it's fine the way it is. Besides the biscuits, we usually have all the ingredients on hand for this. The recipe called for 4 biscuits, but 8 come in a container, so we added 2 extra biscuits to the crock pot and cooked the other two to serve with the soup.

Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

Ingredients:

1lb of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (3-5)

2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter

2 cans (10.5oz) Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

1 can (14oz) Chicken Broth

1 medium White Onion, diced

4 Large Flaky Refrigerator Biscuits

Place chicken in crock pot (I put mine in frozen) and top with butter. Add cream of chicken soup, chicken broth and diced onions. Cook on High for 4-6 hours.

Remove chicken from crock pot and use a fork to shred. Return chicken to the crock pot. Cut each uncooked biscuit into 9 pieces and stir into the chicken mixture. Continue to cook on High for 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Makes about 6-8 servings.

I couldn't get a good picture of the finished product, so here's the picture from Pinterest.

Source: polishthestars.com via Samantha on Pinterest