Amazing Herb Roasted Chicken!!!

Herb Roasted Whole Chicken

Last night's dinner was deemed "Deloycious" by Sweet Husband.  He is a man of few words, and displays excitement subtlety.  Saying dinner was "Delyocious" was the greatest compliment ever! I made the Herb Roasted Whole Chicken compliments of The Pioneer Woman  =) This is an easy - let me say that again - EASY recipe!!  You can prep in about 5 min, pop that lil chick in the oven and then be on your merry way to do as you please for the next hour and fifteen minutes.  Here is how my lil bird turned out: 

 You need to put this recipe in your Toolbox so you are locked, loaded, and ready to go on a night when things get crazy busy.  

Creamy Lemon Pasta

The herb roasted chicken was served on a bed of pasta with mushrooms.  I love the phrase "served on a bed of pasta."  However, I do not like mushrooms - I choked on one as a kid and ever since mushrooms make me skittish. I wanted to make linguine with a cream sauce so I found another pasta recipe on The Pioneer Woman and used the section for the sauce.  The recipe is under Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta.  I did not add chicken or basil - I just made the sauce.  I changed a few things in the recipe becuase my asthma goes nuts when I have too much dairy.  You can make her sauce just like the recipe - I just substituted some non-dairy products and the sauce was delish! Here is what I did:  

1.  Heat 1/2 stick of butter 

2. Add 3-4 Lemons (I only used 3, the sauce was very strong so a 4th would have been too much but you can always add more at the end if needed)

3.  She calls for 1/2 cup half and half and 1/2 cup cream.  I used 1/2 cup cream and a 1/2 cup Soy Milk (Silk Very Vanilla).  

4. I added a cup of Rice Cheese. This is the greatest non-dairy cheese ever.  It melts like, tastes like and has the texture of real cheese.  Here is a picture of what I buy - usually only Dierbergs carries it.  It is a little pricey but you can get coupons on line by registering online.   I LOVE this cheese. 

 5.  Then you just whisk the sauce, add salt and pepper.  

Grad School

There are many things I love about being in grad school - learning incredible information, having stellar professors, seeing Jordyn Gehret every single day.  But the one thing that I do not love about grad school is the amount of time it takes away from my ability to blog.  I think I am going to have to start blogging once a week on Sunday afternoons.  I am sad about this because I enjoy blogging - but when I prioritize based on what I need to do vs. what I want to do...relaxing and blogging come after school.  Oh prioritization.  This is only for a season though, and what a season this shall be  =)

I do need to get to studying....but before that, there is a book I would like to recommend - I think I am going to get it.  My friend John and his wife Anne Marie gave this book to a good friend of ours that does not like to cook.  The book is The $7 a Meal Healthy Cookbook.  It has 301 nutritious, delicious recipes that the whole family will love - all $7.00 and under!!! I am very excited about this book and I look forward to making some recipes from it!  

OK, study time.  

"If we had no winder, the spring would not be so pleasant:  if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." 

Anne Bradstreet, British Poet. 

Sweet Daffodils to Sit On

So today I took on my first painting project for a free awesome find!  I found these wood folding chairs outside by the dumpster in Cougar Village.  

That is right - by the dumpster.  

Now lets just kick off our stilettos and get serious - Drop your fear of checking out your neighbors junk.  If you have a fear of picking up awesome things next to...or sometimes inside....a dumpster you are really missing out!  I wasn't sure what to think the first time Sweet Husband pulled out a huge pillar from a dumpster filled with demolition stuff.  This thing was huge, white, and filled with nails.  But my heart skipped a beat after I saw it all cleaned up and painted the most luscious red.  It now stands in our living room forever reminding me of how someone's trash is truly your treasure  =)  

OK so on to these lovely chairs!  I found them by the dumpster and they have been our porch chairs for about a year but I never painted them.  A few weeks ago I was in Aledo, IL, Sweet Husband's hometown, and saw similar chairs painted yellow.  

That was it - I went to Home Depot and hunted down the perfect yellow:  

Dazzling Daffodil.  

This is the Before shot.  One of the chairs was worn down to the wood.  The other chair (on the right) had paint and some lacquer still in tact.  I used some sand paper to lightly rough up the wood/lacquer and also to remove flaking paint.  

Now here is a key product that you need when painting on wood that has lacquer on it (you can also use this for many other surfaces!)  You need:  Glidden Gripper Primer. This primer helps the new paint stick to the wood/lacquer.  If I didn't use this primer the paint would not have 'stuck' well to the chair.  This primer is amazing and I highly recommend it!!!

 

Next Step:  Start Painting!!!!!

Next Step:  Take a break and take a pic of how hard you are working!!!

It took me about a half hour to prime and then a half hour to paint each chair.  

And then they were D-O-N-E

Lovely porch chairs for Sweet Husband and I

What you should know about making Tea

I love Iced Tea in the summer.  And I love it with some sugar and fresh squeezed lemons.  Since the weather in IL has been rainy for the last month I haven't been able to make sun tea.  So instead I heat up water for tea in my cheery red tea kettle. I like having the tea bags in the kettle while it boils so I get every last drop o' tea out of the tea bag.  Frugal yes....smart....well I thought so, until this happened.  

While cooking a lovely dinner I asked Sweet Husband, "Do you smell that?  Does it smell like something is burning?"  Sweet Husband sniffed the air and agreed something was burning.  I checked the oven.  Negative.  I checked the pasta I was boiling.  Negative.  Then I looked at the tea kettle....the papers on the tea bag were on fire.  Sweet Husband came to the rescue and put out the fire for me.  Lesson Learned:  keep a shorter string on the tea bags. 

Worst Dinner - to date

I came up with a snazzy little recipe for Baked Ginger Lemon Chicken:

• Chicken Breast
• 2 Inches Ginger
• Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
• Olive Oil
• Bake at 400

I let the chicken marinate all day and then baked it.  The chicken wasn't dry, but it was as bland as a room without some hot pink.  Dinner ended up in the trash - there was no reviving it.  Sweet Husband was, well, very sweet.  He hugged me as I was near tears and said, "Babe, it's OK, you worked really hard and I am really thankful for your hard work."   

Sweet Husband always makes me feel good even when dinner is an epic failure - he has had a lot of practice encouraging me through many less than delish meals!  =)  So instead for dinner we had PB and J with veggies. 

Deceiving Snow Peas

Last night I dusted off the rice cooker and made some yummy Chinese stir fry.  A tip about rice cookers - if you have not purchased one you should!  When you buy one make sure it has a veggie steamer tray on top - this makes dinner a cinch.  I cooked up some rice and steamed the veggies as it all was cooking.   I plated our dinner and was excited to see my husband's reaction.......I was pretty certain that this would be a hit! Little did I know that snow peas need to be popped out of the hard, bitter covering before you eat them.  Next time, I will know.