Olde Cape Cod Chipotle Ranch Chicken w/ Butternut Squash & Green Beans

 

Ingredients:

For the Chicken:

2 or 3 Chicken Breasts



Olde Cape Cod Chipotle Ranch Dressing
Olive Oil


For the Maple & Cinnamon Butternut Squash:
Butternut Squash diced into squares (I bought mine already diced at Food City)
1/4 cup Maple Syrup
Ground Black Pepper
Cinnamon (as much as you want)
Coconut Oil to fry it


Green Beans:


I'm lucky enough to get canned green beans from my Husband's Grandmother! They are delicious, but you can buy some can ones at your local grocery store. To season them I use Goya Ham Concentrate.


Directions:
For the chicken, I cut it up into small squares because it seems to hold more flavor that way. I added some Olive Oil in my frying pan and cooked it until it was no longer pink ( usually 20 min). After it was fully cooked, I added the Chipotle Ranch dressing to it (I just estimate how much to put on). I know salad dressing isn't the healthiest, but it's better than mashed potatoes, pasta, bread, etc. I use salad dressing on chicken when I am in a hurry...or when I am lazy : P
Let the chicken simmer in the dressing for a while on low heat (until the butternut squash is done cooking).




For the Butternut Squash, I dumped everything in a bowl and mixed it --the maple syrup, black pepper, cinnamon & squash. I then put about a teaspoon of coconut oil into the frying pan and fried it for about 15 minutes or until the squash got soft.

The Butternut Squash was my favorite thing about this dinner! It has so much flavor to it, and it's healthy but doesn't really taste healthy-- that's a win-win for me!!

Here's a photo of how it all turned out:

Bell Pepper Taco Beef Boats

Last night I made Bell Pepper Taco Beef Boats! They were so good! I get tired of the typical chicken and veggies for dinner and so I came up with my own version similar to this one, which I found on Pinterest: http://cookingandcooking.com/recipe.php?recname=Bell-Pepper-Chicken-Nachos

Above is a picture of the ingredients I used: Black beans, Rotel Tomatoes, Mexican Cheese, Taco Sauce, Jalapeno's, Sour Cream, and optional Taco Bold & Creamy Spicy Ranchero Sauce (I didn't put this on my taco boats).

First, I browned my Ground Beef Chuck meat, and while it was browning I cut my bell peppers up into 4's. {Side note: I thought the orange and red ones tasted best, but the green ones seemed to hold more filling}.

Next, I added the browned meat into the boats, and followed with black beans (which I cooked on the stove), Jalapeno's, Rotel, and lastly I added the cheese on top and then stuck in the oven. I only left them in the oven for about 10 min (enough to melt the cheese).

Here's a look at my final result:

I gave each my husband 4 boats and myself 4 boats (which was DEF enough). It's a lot more filling then it looks. Zach added the special Taco Bell Sauce on his, but I just added the normal taco sauce to cut down on calories.

I also treated myself tonight with a Zevia Cream Soda. It has no calories or caramel color. Sometimes I just get tired of drinking unsweet tea, water, coffee, or almond milk...so this is what I had!

















Monogrammed letter "wreath" for your front door

Things you will need:


1). Hot glue gun with glue sticks
2). Fake Flowers
3). Letter (I got mine from Michael's)
4). Twine


So...I've had the materials for this project since January but I just never got around to doing it until now. I get tired of the normal wreath for a front door so I thought I would try a monogram. This project cost me about 20 dollars to complete (I borrowed a glue gun from my mom). It was also easy; I finished it within an hour. The hardest part was figuring out what to hang it with. I used twine and made a bow out of it. You can cover up the twine with additional flowers if you want (you probably can't tell in the picture but you can see twine going through the middle of the M). It doesn't bother me though because twine sort of compliments the look I was going for.

This is how the letter looked before I added the twine. I also wish I could have found a bigger letter, but Michael's said this was the biggest they had. If anyone knows where to find a good sized letter, please let me know!!! : )

My Bridal Shower

Here are some pics from my bridal shower back in September of 2014. I LOVED the way my bridal shower turned out--the decorations were gorgeous (Thank you sister and mom)! Most of the decorations were homemade, although some of the decorations were bought from the dollar tree. We love the dollar tree/dollar store in my family! They have some seriously good party decorations.

The first picture you see above are the bridal shower gifts I made for my bridesmaids.
I got the glass jar cup at Old Time Pottery, and then I just hand  painted the jar cups. After the cups dried, I put little goodies in them (socks, lip balm, pop rocks, and a picture of each bridesmaid made with me). I had the pictures printed at Walgreen's and then I hot glued a pop-sickle stick to the picture and put it down in the middle of the jar cup. I got lucky and found those cute colorful socks on clearance.

Here is a pic of how I displayed them at my bridal shower! I think they turned out really cute!

Decorations

So, I made this picture really big because I wanted everyone to be able to see the awesome banner my sister made by hand!!! Is it not awesome? We used it at my bachelorette and bridal parties!

So, Once again, my sister made the LOVE letters by hand! She bought the letters at Hobby Lobby, then picked out colorful scrapbook paper and glued the scrapbook paper to the letters (I'm assuming that was pretty tough considering you would have cut out the scrapbook paper to match up perfectly with the letters)! Anyway, I used these letters in mine and my husband's bedroom. They are beautiful and will last a long time I think. The picture on the right was a gift!!!! I love creative gifts like that. I really did think that was the coolest thing.

 I really loved how all the food turned out. Everything was fall-themed/bride themed. I made the cupcakes and underwear cookies. My sister made the owl cookies, and my mom made my awesome wedding dress cupcake cake. I really recommend trying to make your own food decor because A). You can make it look how you want and B). Make it taste how you want and C). Pay what you want.

I really enjoyed being able to help decorate my own bridal shower, mainly because I love event planning and decorating. I like to have control of how everything will look which is why I helped with some of the food and decorations.

Alright, well I hope you guys enjoyed the pics from my bridal shower and that I have inspired others to DIY! 

Thanks,

Ms. Monday : )

Top Round Steak with Red & Green Bell Peppers and Onions

Top Round Steak with Red & Green Peppers and Onions

Ingredients:
 
1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper
1 sweet yellow onion
2 top round steaks (I got mine at Food City, and it 2 came in one package..it cost like 4 dollars).

Directions:

Set oven to 350 degrees, and bake the 2 steaks till they are cooked pretty thoroughly (about 20 mins)
While the steaks are in the oven, cut your bell peppers into cubes and also cut up your onion.
Place the bell peppers and onions in a greased skillet (I used olive oil) and I honestly just kind of guess on how much oil to use.
Let the peppers  and onions cook on the stove with medium heat while covered.
After the meat has cooked for about 20 min, place the meat with the peppers (This will add lots of flavor to the meat).
Cook the meat with the peppers and onions for about 10-15 extra minutes, or until the peppers and onions are tender.
Also, if you are cooking a side--You can just turn the stove down to very low and leave the peppers and onions with the meat until your  side dish is ready to be served.

Sides

Sweet Potato Fries - ( I just bought some in the organic section at Kroger, I think the brand was Alexia).

Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower- I bought the Steamfresh brand. I cooked it on the stove though, and once it was tender I put cheese on it. I used Campbell's Cooking Cheddar Cheese Soup, which has a ton of sodium in it (not good)! I would recommend using real cheese, I just had this in our pantry and it was quick and easy.

How to make an "I DO" Door Sign for your Bridal Shower

As you know, I am a newlywed and I am super excited to share with you how I saved money on my showers, decorations, food, etc. Let me just say this--DIY projects are so much more fun then just going out and buying whatever it is you need (depending on the time you have). I literally did this project with stuff I had that was lying around the house. I used cardboard (you can use cardboard from a shoebox, cardboard box, poster board, etc), glitter in a bottle, Elmer's glue, stapler, ribbon, wreath hanger, tulle, twine, and flowers.

As you can maybe tell, I cut out the letters free hand. After that, I rubbed glue with my finger all over each letter and poured glitter over the entire letter. I did this one letter at a time. I recommend letting the letters dry overnight.

After the letters have dried, get out your wreath hanger and a long piece of ribbon and tie the ribbon to the wreath hanger.

After the ribbon is on the hanger, either staple or hot glue the letters to the ribbon (or any other way you can think of to get the letters on there).

Next, if you have tulle, you can staple it to the top part of the ribbon where the flowers will cover the staples. The tulle kinda gives the "Bride" look, but it can certainly be eliminated and the sign will look just as good with just the flowers.

For the flowers: You can get a bundle of flowers at the dollar store, just pick out ones that look very full. Next, I would tie the flowers together tightly with twine and tie a sturdy piece of ribbon or twine around the tightly tied flowers and then tie the flowers to the hanger. LOTS of tying, but you can use a bow or ribbon to cover the ties.  You will need to make sure you tie it very tightly. I really recommend the brown burlap looking twine because even if it shows, it still looks really good--like you wanted it to show on purpose.

I feel like looking at the finished product is really the easiest way to explain how to do the project--if that makes sense. Just have fun with this project! I know I did! 
 

DIY: Upholster an Old Chair

Hello There! Today I wanted to show everyone the awesome new chair I created with only a couple of tools and a little material I bought from Walmart.
 
For this project I borrowed 1 tool from my parents, and the rest I had at home. I used a drill, hammer, staple gun, and material I bought from Walmart(only $7.24)!

I will lay out the directions in steps:
 
Step 1: Turn chair over and drill out screws that hold the seat to the chair. Take the seat and set it to the side. It will look like this once you do this step.

Step 2: Measure out the fabric (I just guessed) and cut enough material to cover the back side of the seat so that none of the old seat color shows. You will need someone to help you pull the fabric tight while someone else staples it. As you can see, the yellow color is the old fabric and the chevron is the new! All you do is just staple all the way around the back of the chair. I would put a staple in almost every inch around the entire backside. So one staple, then another inch you would put another staple in and so on. Also, Make sure to do the corners last! If the staples don't go all the way in you can hammer them in the rest of the way.

 

 

 Step 3:Reattach the seats to the chairs. Turn the legs of the chair upside down on a table and place the upholstered seat in it and begin drilling the screws back in. My end product looked like this:

 

This was such a fun project and it was easy!!! I was sort of scared of the staple gun, but it wasn't bad at all! The best part of this project is that I basically have a new chair that only cost me $7.24!! How awesome!

 

Here is the before and after pic:

 

 

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask!! : )