Healthy Ice Cream

Good Morning! First off, I must live in a cave because just yesterday I heard about the plane that has been missing. Clearly I need to read/watch the news more often!

Last night Kendal and I rented a movie and I wanted a snack to munch on while I watched but I'm really trying to stop eating like I'll never gain weight. A friend had mentioned she makes 'ice cream' out of bananas so I gave that a try. It was really good, even Kendal liked it!

I had 2 bananas in the freezer that I peeled (that was pretty impossible at first, but I got the hang of it) and cut into slices. Throw those into the blender with some almond milk (or regular milk would be fine), I added a little more than 1/4 Cup of Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. Once it was all blended I put it in the freezer for a few minutes and then it was ready to eat!

Ours tasted pretty banana-y but I'm sure you could add fresh or frozen strawberries, chocolate syrup, or other toppings to add some extra flavor.

Anyone else have some heathy alternatives for sweet tooh cravings??

Cheesy Chicken Tatertot Casserole

Happy Monday! Our oven is finally being delivered Wednesday, so for the last week and a half our crockpot has been in high demand. Saturday I made this recipe I found on Pinterest and it was another hit with both me and Kendal! I followed the recipe pretty closely, but there are a few things I will do differently next time I make this.

 

Cheesy Chicken Tatertot Casserole
1 bag (32oz) tatertots
1 bag (2 cups) shredded cheese of choice
1 lb cubed uncooked chicken
1 lb cooked bacon
3/4 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

The recipe suggests a bag of precooked bacon bits, but we had bacon in the freezer, so I cooked up the whole pound and used all of it except for a few pieces. I also used more chicken, about 1.5 pounds.

 After cooking the bacon you layer the following: tater tots, bacon, cheese, chicken, bacon cheese, tatertots, bacon cheese. Pour the milk over everything and cook on LOW for 4-6 hours.

I cooked this for about 5 or 6 hours and everything was done just right. Kendal mentioned the tater tots that were on the bottom got pretty soggy, they kind of turned into a potato hash. So, next time I am going to try not putting any on the bottom to see if more of them will be crispy. Overall we really liked this and it will be moved to my 'Successful Recipes' Pinterest board!

Chicken and Dumplings

Good Morning! It's supposed to be in the 40's tomorrow and then snow more..Happy Spring.

 I found this Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings recipe on Pinterest and we LOVED it! I think this is one of the first Pinterest recipes I was 100% happy with the outcome. It even inspired me to organzie my boards a little so I created a 'Successful Recipes' board. Check out my Pinterest here, I have a million and two recipes I haven't tried, so lemme know if you have!

Anyway, of course I did not take one picture..but the finished product was pretty similar to the picture on the recipe. Kendal even commented that it looked like something Nala puked up last week...yum.

I made a few minor changes so here is what I did:

Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings
4 chicken breasts (I have no clue if it was anywhere near 1lb)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 14oz can chicken broth
6 Refrigerator biscuits

Put everything, but the biscuits, in the crockpot and let it cook on LOW for 7-8ish hours. By the time I got home from work I think it cooked for 8.

After 8 hours, shred the chicken. Cut up the 6 biscuits, I cut each one like a little pizza so 8 pieces each. Throw those in the crockpot (I made sure they were spread out a little so they didn't all stick together) let them cook on LOW for 1 more hour.

Thats it, this was one of the easiest things I've made! When it was all done I added a pinch of salt, but I'm not really sure it was needed because of all the salt in chicken broth. The original recipe says it serves 6-8 but I think Kendal and I will be able to make it into 4-5 meals.

The only thing I would change for next time is maybe add more chicken, like I said I have no idea how much I used, I just know it wasn't quite enough.

Only 1 more week of crockpot recipes before my new oven arrives :)

I bought a house..and it sucks

Buy a house they said..it will be cheaper than renting they said. Well, that may be true but then the furnace broke the day we moved in. The downstairs bathroom SINK was clogged with what looked like hotdog chunks and the upstairs bathroom toilet would not stop running. Give me the papers and I will put this place back on the market!

Luckily, I have a very handy dad so all of the above problems were fixed, but not before it dropped down to 64* and I was home alone frozen. To top off the cake I tried to be a nice girlfriend and bake some brownies, until I opened the oven to put them in and realized it was cold. Awesome. Handy dad swooped in again and we decided it would be best to just buy a new oven. So now I'm ovenless for another week and its surprisingly hard to think of things to make for dinner that don't require an oven! I've got some Chicken and Dumplings in the crockpot for tonight, I found the recipe on Pinterest so we'll see how that turns out.

Stay warm, and pray for no more snow!

Polar Vortex 2k14

Lets take a second to talk about how awful this winter has been.  I've lived in Iowa my entire life, and ususally winter sucks. But, this year I feel like it is the worst one yet. It's been dangerously cold..like -40*, SO MUCH SNOW and I'm really over it.

 

K and I just bought a house and we are moving in 9 days..I was hoping I would not have to purchase a shovel/snow blower until next year but it's looking like we will be getting one this year.  Luckily, at the beginning of this whole process, I agreed to make all of the phone calls as long as K would shovel for all of eternity and mow the lawn the first 5 times.  I hope he enjoys this huge corner lot we are going to be living on!

 

Other than the snow I'm starting to get excited that this house will be MINE! I can paint whatever I want, tear down whatever I want..and try to convince K we cannot survive without a hot tub.  I'm also really excited for Nala, shes never had a yard to run around in. So, this will be fun for me her..I'm hoping she gets a lot of her energy out in the yard, instead of all over my brand new couches.

 

She looks so sweet when shes asleep

Good luck to everyone in the Midwest trying to survive the Polar Vortex..only 40 something days until Spring!

 

 

Antarctia & Cheesy Chicken Penne

Aloha! It has been quite awhile since I have actually posted..or even tried a new recipe. So, Kendal and I tried one on Monday that we both really enjoyed!

First of, Iowa has been a frozen tundra lately and it's been pretty awful. Here is a picture I took on my way to work earlier this week:

And this was only the actual temperature..it felt like -37 with the wind chill :)

Onto the recipe! Kendal sent me a link for cheesy chicken penne that sounded fairly easy and quick.

Here is the recipe we used. A few mistakes I made that I'd change for next time:

1. Asking Kendal to help me...never again. There was cheese all over the stove and hot butter on the floor.
2. I got impatient and told Kendal to add more flour to the sauce because it wasn't getting thick. I should have waited because I had to add milk when I re-heated this for leftovers.
3. It makes A TON. I think this is for a double recipe or for more than 2 people. I ended up giving 2 containters of this to my mom after I was sick of eating the same thing. The recipe mentions splitting it into 2 pans and freezing one, I'd do that next time.

Yes, I still drink out of a princess cup, sue me. Other than that, it was GOOD. It was much better than the Worlds Best Chicken we tried from Pinterest. That was TERRIBLE, I would not suggest anyone, ever try making that recipe.

Now I'm off to Meixco for the week to escape Antarctica, and of course its supposed to be 41* on Sunday..practically a heat wave.

Finish the Sentence Linkup

 

1. My favorite Christmas was....The year I begged and pleaded for a 'My Size Barbie', as I was groveling at my parents feet I left out the part that I only wanted it for the dress she was wearing. The second my dad released her from the 10,000 plastic twistie ties I ripped the dress off of the giant Barbie and put it on myself. For the rest of her life in my house she sat in the corner of my room wearing some of my clothes.

What little girl wouldn't want that dress?!

 

2. The worst Christmas I had...was when I had been asking for an "Easy Bake Oven'. My parents kept telling me I would not be receiving one because it was too much of a mess. Christmas morning rolled around and there was an Easy Bake Oven from Santa, I rubbed it in my parents faces that Santa loved me more than they did, and they acted very mad that Santa didn't listen when they said I wasn't allowed to have the oven. They even took it away from me and pretended they were going to send it back to Santa. I got it back a few days later after they 'had a chat with Santa', but I'm pretty sure I was the worst person to be around for the rest of the day.

 

3. That one gift that made me scratch my head and say, "Hmmmm" was...my highschool boyfriend bought me this necklace that he thought was the greatest thing. Well I am here to tell you it was not...we had gone to Disney World earlier in the year for band and I guess he had been hiding it since then. Someone should have told him not to buy anything from a stand at the exit of the Dueling Dragons ride...

Yes, I still have it, we're still pretty good friends and I like to
send a picture of it to him every once and awhile

 

4. One year I....ate so much Pumpkin pie and candy I got sick, thats been about 15 years ago and I haven't had a bite of pumpkin pie since then

 

5. I think the worst gift to give is....jewlery, unless I have gone into the store and picked it out myself.

 

6. At Christmastime I typically....park myself on the couch and watch Its a Wonderful Life as many times as possible.

 

7. Typically, family Christmas....involves a lot of wine, our karaoke machine and some sort of trivia game that we ban my grandma from playing. That woman knows everything and it is completely unfair to the other teams if she is playing, she typically stands off to the side and mumbles the answers under her breath.

 

8. If I could change one thing about the Holiday season....all companies would give their employees 2 weeks off like John Deere does. I miss being in college and having a whole month to do nothing but sleep until noon and drink with my roommates.

 

9. It is so hard to buy for....my boyfriend, he has everything! He is so bad about going on a huge shopping spree right before Christmas. Last year he mentioned some Hawkeye sweatpants he wanted, and I planned on getting them. Later that week we were at the mall and he was going to buy them, I threw a huge fit in the middle of the store and told him I already got them for him. Well, I had not gotten them, and ended up driving to the store in the middle of the biggest snow storm of the winter just for those stupid sweats.

 

10. My favorite Christmas tradition is...getting together with friends the weekend before Christmas. We all wear ugly sweaters and go out to the bars.

 

11. Santa, baby, bring me a ....new car, iPad, St. Bernard Puppy and the perfect swimming suit for my trip to Mexico!