Sunday, August 9, 2015

Outback Potato Soup

I found a Pinterest recipe for this knock off potato soup. It was seriously the easiest potato soup I have ever made, and it was delicious! I'm using the Blogger app to post this and I am not sure how to do links, so I just did a screenshot from the blog that pinned it. It took me all of about 5 minutes to throw it in the crock pot and that was pretty much all there was to it! 

 

I just added a dallop of sour cream, some mozzarella cheese, and ritz crackers to my bowl. I plan to do this one many more times, especially when we have games or practices and will be coming in late but wanting a good meal!

Today for lunch we are having lasagna soup. I'll report back on it soon!

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Short post tonight!

Because my people like most Mexican dishes, I did a Pinterest version of Taco Bells Crunchwrap Supreme.  Considering that I don't like Taco Bell, nor have I ever had a Crunchwrap Supreme, I found supper pretty much disgusting. Joey and Hunter scarfed theirs down and Dalton and I fed ours to the chiweenies! Definitely won't be doing those again. I snapped this pic of one before I got it wrapped. 

Alright, that's all I've got for today! Trying to watch the GOP debate. Donald Trump needs to go away. He gets on my last nerve. 

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Dinner Was a Winner

I've had this pesky little allergy/cold thing going on this week and let me tell you...I am SO over it. My eyes have itched, my throat has had that annoying tickle that makes your eyes pour water, and now my nose is all stuffed up. It's summer. Give me a break!

So tonight I did another really yummy meal that was sooo simple!! Chicken Philly Sandwiches. Let me tell you, I put all that in the crock pot and by the time I did some stuff around the house and ran to the post office to mail some bows and came back in the house the smell in here was to die for. I am blogging from my phone app and I don't have my usual linking tools at my disposal, but if you want to see the actual recipe you can click my Pinterest link at the right of my blog under "My Social Media."  My food board is called "yummy for the tummy" or something like that. Ok, anyway, here is what I did. You wil need:

A couple of pats of butter
An onion
A bell pepper
1lb of chicken breasts (I used three big breasts.)
2 tbsp steak seasoning (literally they have this at Aldi's for $.99 and it is so good)
Hanburger buns (it actually calls for sub rolls but I just got buns)
Mozzarella cheese

Throw all of that in the crock pot on low until the chicken is done. I put my chicken in frozen around 9:45 and at 5:20 when I checked back it was good to go. I took my hand mixer and just quickly shredded up the chicken mixture.  I took a 1/4 cup measuring cup and put a scoop on to each bun and put a little shredded mozzarella on top of the chicken mixture. I buttered the top bun and put it all on a pan and put it in oven on broil until the cheese was melted. We just had chips for our side dish tonight. It was really good. Both Joey and Hunter ate three a piece! 


I've got to decide in the morning what I want to do for dinner tomorrow night. Im torn between buffalo chicken casserole and chicken pot pie. Decisions, decisions. 

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Tuesday Ramblings


So, tonight I made a copycat version of Outback's Alice Springs Chicken.  That is my favorite dish there.  In all the times I've been to Outback, that's the ONLY meal I've ever had there!  So, I was happy to find this recipe on Pinterest.  I did make a video, but it was long and so I just decided to forget it today!  Here is what I did, though.  It was only the four of us tonight, so I had four chicken breasts.  I put a little oil in a pan on the stove top and put the chicken in it.  I sprinkled the chicken with some "table blend" seasoning and just cooked it slowly until it was done without getting crispy.  I transferred it to a baking dish where I coated it with honey mustard (I made it from scratch and will add the recipe for it down a little further).  The boys had bacon sandwiches for lunch so I saved 4 pieces and crumbled them up and put them on top of the chicken.  Then I sprinkled some cheddar and mozzerella cheeses on top.  I put them in a 350 degree oven until the cheese was good and bubbly.

Here is the recipe for the homemade honey mustard....well, technically it's not a recipe because I didn't measure anything, but it's really easy anyway.  Four ingredients:  mayo (and here in the south we use Duke's and Duke's only), mustard, honey, and seasoning salt.  I was using it on 4 chicken breasts, plus I wanted to have some extra for dipping, so I did three big spoonfuls into a bow (I'm guessing maybe 3/4 of a cup of mayo?), then I added some mustard...maybe a couple of tablespoons, a good bit of honey..at least a half of a cup, probably more.  I used a whisk and mixed it up.  You can sort of tell by the color if it looks like honey mustard you have eaten before...you can also just taste it to see if it tastes right.  Once I get the color that I know it should look like then I just shake a good bit of seasoning salt into it and stir it.  It's sooo good if you like honey mustard.

For sides with our chicken I did oven roasted corn.  Here is the recipe I used. I have lots of corn from the garden in the freezer and so I just pulled out some and did it in a baking dish.  I didn't just love it the way that the person who pinned it did, but it was good.  I still think I like it better boiled.  It was dryer than I am used to, but it still had a good flavor and there wasn't any left over.  I also did garlic mashed potatoes.  I did mashed potatoes from a box and I added garlic salt and some parsley and salt and pepper.  Lastly, I did some crescent rolls and made some cinnamon honey butter to go with it.  To make the honey butter I just put a scoop of butter into a bowl, added about 1/4 cup sugar (just to give it a little grainy texture), some honey, and a few shakes of cinnamon and took the hand mixer and whipped it up.  It was yummy!  The boys loved it.

After dinner we went to my in law's house at the lake.  Hunter wanted to fish and my father in law had pulled a big watermelon out of the garden and they wanted us to come and have some.  It had a good flavor and everybody loved it.  I'm probably one of the only people I know that doesn't just love watermelon.  I like the flavor ok, but I can't stand the water part in my mouth.  It reminds me of how you feel just before you throw up and sometimes I just can't make it go down lol.  Anyway, I ended up walking down to the water with the boys and their cousin, and Dalton wanted to get in the water.  It was still so muggy and I didn't have my swimsuit so I just threw caution to the wind and jumped in with my tank top and leggings.  Hunter told me after that he thought somebody was drowning and that I was going in after them. hahaha  In the midst of all that, Dalton tells me that he thinks he's got a tooth ready to come out...well not one, but two teeth were ready and so both came out at the lake tonight.  He had four teeth that the orthodontist wanted out before we come see him again in November and if they weren't out by then we would need to have them pulled.  So two down and two to go!  He will get his braces most likely sometime in between November and April.

I'm down to the last bit of planning for our school year to start.  All I lacked getting together was a grade book for each boy and our first couple of books with guided reading questions.  Finally got the books picked out and the guided reading questions printed out today.  Public school starts back here on the 18th, which is two weeks from today.  We are going to start a week from tomorrow.  Dalton's birthday is on Monday, the 10th and then we are going to just enjoy one last day off that Tuesday and we'll get back to the grind on Wednesday the 12th.  I can't believe it's time for school to start back!  Seems like just yesterday we were sitting in a Mexican restaurant celebrating the last day of school. 



Time flies!! 

Monday, August 3, 2015

Sweet Summertime

We are winding up our last week and a half before school starts back for us...trying to squeeze out the last ounce of summer before it slips away.  I love summer.  And I mean loooooove summer.  Now, I'm no fan of the God awful humidity that we have here in the South, but there is nothing better than sitting in a shallow area of cold river water and hearing the rushing of the water.  It's so peaceful and relaxing.



There is also nothing better than spending weeks by the sea. If it weren't for my family, the boy's friends, etc, I would seriously consider living there.  I absolutely love it and am always sad to leave and I always look forward to the moment that I am there again!  We ended up in Garden City this summer with two of Joey's cousins and their families and we had a great time. We went the week of the 4th this year and let me just say that watching fireworks on the beach is highly overrated.  There are certain rules for fireworks depending on the city that you are in, but in GC fireworks are allowed so everybody and their brother were shooting them.  Like 5 feet in front of you, typically while holding a can of beer.  lol  All I could think was please don't let one of those bottles turn over and launch a missile towards us!  I was much more content to watch them from the balcony at our house.  At least we can say we had the experience!  Here's a video of Dalton boogie boarding.  Oh, how I miss it!


I do look forward to certain things about fall, like fall baseball, hoodies, boots, college football, and Friday night high school football.  As much as I love summer, I do enjoy the change of the seasons.  I get quite tired of the cold, grey days of winter, but a typical southern winter isn't too bad and we only have a few days of bitter cold, sometimes not at all. 

My meal planning has gone really well.  I added the video of the steak, broccoli, and beef rice on Saturday.  On Sunday I made a breakfast casserole and fixed a pot of cheese grits as a side.  



The recipe I used was really simple.  

8 slices of bread cubed
1 lb of sausage (browned and drained) 
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese
6 eggs beaten
1 cup whole milk
a good squirt of mustard (I added this myself bc typically everybody in my house likes mustard on sausage)
salt and pepper to taste

Cube the bread (as shown in the video I just tore it and tossed it in lol), top with the browned sausage, add the cheese.  Beat eggs and add the milk, salt and pepper, and the mustard (if you opt for that) and pour over the cheese.  Bake for appx 40 mins at 350. 

It was really good.  I made two big dishes and a large pot of grits and it was basically all gone.  My parents, sister, niece, my two boys, husband, Hunter's friend Garyson, and myself all ate it and we all ate as much as we wanted. Was a great meal!

Sunday after church we just came in and made sandwiches because we were planning on going to the water during the afternoon.  As soon as we made the sandwiches, I quickly assembled a crock pot lasagna so dinner would be ready without much effort later.  The recipe can be found here.  As usual on the weekends, I had a houseful..same crowd was here as on Saturday and we cleaned out the lasagna!  It was soooo good!!  We had salad and Texas toast with the lasagana.  

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I haven't figured out why my videos are only a small blip in the middle of the YouTube screen instead of full screen.  I'm using an app called Video Merger to combine the small blips of video that I take to make a whole video.  So I'm not sure if that's the issue or not.  If anyone knows, feel free to comment and tell me!  

We have had five pretty full days..last Thursday Hunter spent the night with a friend and Dalton had a friend spend the night, then Hunter had a friend spend the night on Friday and the same friend of Dalton's stayed one more night, then Saturday and Sunday night Hunter had another friend stay over and we ended the day with a wiffle ball birthday party in Clemson for another of Hunter's friends.  Tomorrow we have no plans and I plan to float a good bit of the day!  Tomorrow night I've got a version of Outback's Alice Springs Chicken on the menu.  I'm quite excited about that one!  

I'll end this entry with one of my favorite quotes about sweet summertime.