Somethin' Smells Good!!

You know, if I had an endless amount of money, an incredible and huge kitchen, and all the time in the world, I could probably stock up my kitchen with all kinds of amazing ingredients and experiment until something good happened. But, that is just not reality so I generally go recipe hunting to find a yummy, healthy dish that doesn't require 80 ingredients that I will never use again that end up costing me $150. I also usually aim for something rather quick and easy. That is not always an easy task, especially because Cooper is SUCH a picky eater! So, when I see something that looks like it fits all my criteria, I jump on it! Welllll, low and behold, I'm on Pinterest the other day and I spot a yummy looking picture. I immediately click on it to find out that it is a simple little crock pot meal!! After reading the ingredients I realized, this was right up my alley! 
Here is the picture of the dish I found on Pinterest: 

I decided that it sounded like something that Cooper would eat and definitely something that fit into my budget and time schedule! 


So, the next morning I went to the store and got the ingredients: 

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 bag of red potatoes (you only need 4-6, cut in half)
• 1 bag of baby carrots (you only need 1/2 bag)
• 1 bag of shredded Parmesan (you only need 1/2 cup)
• Italian Seasoning (I used Paula Deen's)
• 1 16 oz bottle of Italian dressing (I used low fat and I had to get the Newman's Own Organic Italian  because Cooper insisted!)

As soon as I got home from the store, I got to work (not that it was much work). I got out my trustee ole crock pot and put a slow cooker liner (genius invention) in it. I then did exactly what the recipe said....  I poured a little of the dressing in the bottom of the pot, put in two of the breasts, put on a little bit more of the dressing, and sprinkled on some cheese and Italian Seasoning. Then I put the other two breasts in the crock pot (you gotta try not to stack them directly on top of the other two if possible), sprinkled on the rest of the cheese, dumped in the carrots, poured on some more Italian dressing, sprinkled on some Italian Seasoning, and then dumped in my potatoes followed up with the rest of the bottle of dressing and a little more Italian Seasoning. I put the top on that sucker and put him on low for 8 hours and BOOM, dinner is done! 

Here is how mine turned out: 

Although it doesn't look as pretty as the picture from Pinterest (nothing ever does), it was so delicious and tender, when I tried to get the chicken out of the crock pot, it literally fell apart! I served it with a lemon/olive oil salad and, Voila, a healthy dinner that Cooper and I both loved! Definitely something that everyone should try... You could definitely make it your own by throwing in different spices and herbs (not that it needs it) but the dressing definitely does a great job at flavoring the chicken AND keeping it from drying out! 

Thank you to The Cook for blogging this recipe! 

So... What's it supposed to be???

Last night I was on Pinterest, yet again, and I saw this great crock pot chicken recipe that I wanted to try (which I did and will write about in a later post) so I got up early this morning to go to the store to get the missing ingredients. Well... Of course you can't just go in Wal-Mart and only get what you originally came for. So, I got a few things to do a craft with. I actually got two clay pots and three different sized clay pot saucers.

Let me start off by showing you my inspiration...

Here are the supplies I had...

Now, I already had the paint and the painting supplies.... So I painted the outside and bottom of the saucers and the clay pots chocolate brown. Then, I painted the inside of the saucers turquoise.



Once everything had dried, I stacked them as shown in the picture and I just didn't like the way it looked... It looked a little too "homemade" to me. At this point I remembered that I had some little $1 candle sticks in my craft cabinet so I decided to use those instead.... here is how it turned out!

I think it turned out pretty dang cute except the way the glue dried on the candle holders! I don't like that you can see the white, foggy glue on the inside! I am trying to think of a cute way to cover that up.... Please comment your ideas!!

Ready... Set... Craft!

So, since the whole Pinterest thing has caught on, I, like every other girl in the world, have become obsessed! I mean, it is getting bad. I started with one thing a few months ago, then I started another project a few weeks ago. Today, though, I have tackled two brand new ones in one day. And I am sitting here planning my next one (or 50)! So I am going to start blogging about all of my attempts and what I have found to be the realistic outcome of the "oh so simple" projects posted to Pinterest. Now.... Let's get started, I've got a bit of back blogging to do here!