what's cooking

When we got married I set a goal for myself to make 1 new recipe a week for the first year of our marriage and I’m happy to say I succeeded, with a few exceptions J

I was always afraid to try new recipes in case they didn’t turn out or we wouldn’t like them, but really who cares? If it doesn’t turn out or you don’t like it – order a pizza, right?!

Through that year of trial and error we stumbled upon a handful of recipes that have become favorites and I thought I’d share them with you.

This year I’m trying to do better with my meal planning in attempt to cut down on our eating out budget. I have always done some sort of meal planning/thinking ahead but I’m working to be more intentional this year. So I thing I started doing was actually writing down our menu using a framed menu that’s in our kitchen and stands on top of the fridge. That way Jimmy knows what we’re having and I know what I need to set out and/or prepare for that night’s meal ahead of time. It has worked really well for us so far and now I just need to focus more on weekend meals as we tend to get lazy and eat out 2-3 times during the weekend!

our menu (we were out of town for the weekend hence no weekend meal plan:) )

Anyways – here’s some of our favorite recipes!

Feta Chicken

4-5 Chicken Breasts

1 Green Pepper

1 Red Pepper

7-8 green onions

1 container feta cheese

Kosher Salt - to taste

Pepper - to taste

Red Pepper Flakes - to taste

Fresh Garlic - to taste

Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Put small amount of olive oil into skillet on stove. Cut chicken into small pieces and place into skillet on the stove -cooking until no longer pink. While the chicken is cooking chop and add in the red pepper, green pepper, and green onions. Add kosher salt, pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes to taste - light on the red pepper flakes at first, adding more to taste.

Once chicken is cooked remove from heat and pour all contents into a greased 8*8 pan. Stir in the feta cheese and bake for 25-30 minutes, until cheese is melted and all blended together. Enjoy!

Lemon Garlic Chicken – super easy and healthy!

4 chicken breasts

Garlic - to taste

Minced Onion - to taste

1 Cup Fat Free Chicken Broth

Lemon Pepper Seasoning

Parsley - to taste

Salt

Lemon Juice - to taste

Coat chicken with lemon pepper seasoning and salt and place into crock pot. Pour in the rest of the ingredients covering the chicken breasts. Cook on low to medium for 4-6 hours until chicken is cooked.

Smores Bars – not so healthy but so so good!

1. 1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker

2. 1/3 cup melt butter

3. 1/4 cup sugar

4. 1/2 cup butter, softened

5. 1/2 cup shortening

6. 3/4 cup sugar

7. 3/4 cup brown sugar

8. 2 eggs

9. 1 tsp vanilla

10. 2 1/4 cups flour

11. 1 tsp baking soda

12. 1 1/4 cups mini marshmallows

13. 1 bag chocolate chips

14. 3 Hershey Bars

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together items 1-3 and place in bottom of greased 9*13 pan. Bake for 7 min.

Cream together items 4-7, blend in eggs and vanilla (8 & 9) Stir in flour, salt and baking soda. Then by hand mix is marshmallows and chocolate chips.

Spread mixture over graham cracker crust. Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and top with individual squares of Hersheys and bake for another 10 minutes.

Served warm with ice cream is the best!