Easy Foil Pack Dinners!

I decided this week that we have to start eating better! This might just be the healthiest and easiest way yet to fix a dinner and fast! You can do so many different things with these foil pack dinners, but this is what we did last night and they turned out really good and very moist.

Place two or three frozen chicken tenders (I like these because chicken breasts are normally too big for us) on a large sheet of foil.

Sprinkle with your favorite seasoning (I used Bob Tallman's Ranch Rub Seasoning.. you can get it HERE, he has several different seasonings, wich are all really good on anything from veggies to meats!).

Slice fresh squash and green onions, put on top of chicken.

Wrap the foil up like this, to form little packets and place on a cookie sheet or jellyroll pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until done (if chicken is frozen).

Open VERY carefully because they will be filled with VERY HOT steam.
Place chicken and veggies on plate and there's your dinner!
...easy clean up, just toss out the foil!

SOO easy and SOOO healthy and fresh! I think I might do these again tonight, but use some zucchini and a little spaghetti sauce, topped with some light mozzarella cheese!

Other veggies that work well with this: carrots, grated and placed on top of chicken with fresh onions and a little lemon pepper. You can also use fresh red or green peppers with the chicken or you can also do something similar with fresh fish! Oh the possibilities!

BerryHills and Shopping

Hubby had to go to Houston for work this weekend, so I had him drop me off at my mom's for the weekend. On Saturday, we met my friend Amy and her mom at one of our favorite places to eat...Berryhills. They have the best fish tacos....mmmmmm so good!!!

Me and Amy

My lunch...fish taco and a spinach enchilada. So good! After we ate, my mom and I spent the rest of the weekend doing what else....shopping!!!!

Does this not just make your mouth water??? My friend Valerie ordered one of these from my mom. It's a German chocolate cheese cake....soooo yummy! I brought it back to give to her this week and I am doing all I can to try and stay away from it!!!!!

Mmm, Mmmm, Good!

Shrimp Etouffee

These pictures really don't do this fabulous dish justice! I just need to start using our nice camera instead! This is what we had for dinner last night...and we'll be having it again tonight!

1 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups chopped celery- 3 ribs

1 large green bell pepper, chopped

1 can chicken broth

2 cups water

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

Dash of garlic

2 pounds shrimp...peeled, deveined and cleaned, of course!

1/2 cup chopped green onions

Hot cooked brown rice

COMBINE butter and flour in a large Dutch oven, cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, 8-10 minutes or until roux is caramel colored. Add celery and green pepper, cook 4 minutes. Add chicken broth and the next 8 ingredients, bring it to a boil and cover. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring every now and then.

ADD the shrimp and green onions and cook until shrimp are done (they will look pink and should be in a "c" shape). Serve on top of brown rice...it's a little healthier!

Not sure why it looks so green here, it really is not that green!

I love these bowls, wish you could see the base of them!
So good!

"Healthy" Brownies??!!

Well, probably not so much, but when one of the ingredients is zucchini, we can at least pretend that they are healthy, right??!! I LOVE Southern Living and I came across this recipe for Zucchini Brownies and I had to try it! I found it in their Southern Living: Homestyle Cooking cookbook. (This is my favorite cookbook right now!) Here is their recipe!

3 Cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 cups grated zucchini (I used one large zucchini, about 3/4 pound)

1/2 Cup butter, melted

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate morsels

1/2 Cup walnuts

COMBINE the first 5 ingredients in a bowl, stirring well. Combine zucchini and butter, add to flour mixture, stirring well. Combine sugar and next 3 ingredients; add to zucchini mixture, stirring 2 minutes.

POUR batter into a greased 15x10 inch jellyroll pan; top with chocolate morsels and walnuts. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

(I used a 13x9 pan because I like my brownies a little thicker and I dusted them with some powdered sugar.)

These are SOOO yummy and the zucchini makes them very moist! They were really more cake-like to me than a brownie. (Ya'll like how I tried to make the plate fancy? Ha! The chocolate was too thin, oh well, I tried and it tasted good, so there ya have it!) Oh, and incase you were wondering, you'd never even know that there was zucchini in these delightful little things!

Show Us Your Life: Wedding

I decided to participate in Kelly's Show Us Your Life...wedding day edition! I'm so excited about this because, well who doesn't love weddings?! I don't really have any good pictures of our actual ceremony, but here are a few that we took pre-wedding and post wedding.

We had 9 bridesmaids and 9 groomsmen, 2 jr. bridesmaids and a ring bearer....yes, we had a HUGE wedding party! We simply have too many very close friends to not include everyone that we wanted to! Our colors were pink and brown. The boys wore chocolate brown tuxes and I loved the way everything turned out!

We were married on July 21, 2007 at a local Presbyterian Church. We had an old family pastor marry us. He was the former pastor of my grandparents church and even baptised me when I was a baby. We thought it would be special to have him do our ceremony. My neighbor from back home sang at our wedding and the organist was my aunt's sister. I really wanted people who were special to us and who know us well to take place in our ceremony.

Our wedding party, wish I had a better picture on my computer!

"Why are you taking my picture holding these flowers?" This is Colin, my Godbaby!
I loved our flowers! We used a florist that has a shop two doors down from my parent's candy shop. She offered to do the flowers for me AND drive them TWO hours to our wedding! WOW!

The Girls!

My best friend and college roomate, Corby was my maid of honor. One of my childhood friends...from our baby days, Melanie was also one of my bridesmaids. C's two sisters, Chrissy and Candice were also two of my bridesmaids. My friend and another college roomate, Kerri was a bridesmaid as well as two good friends, Lindsay (she and her hubby actually introduced me to my hubby!) and Paula and my friends, Jenny and Leslie, from high school were also bridesmaids. My jr. bridesmaids were girls who I babysat...I was their first babysitter!


You can't really tell from in this picture, but in my bouquet, I carried an antique change purse that was my great grandmother's. It has her initials engraved in it and from the day she gave it to me, I had always told my mom that I wanted it to be a part of my wedding!

I absolutely can't wait until next week to share reception pictures! Thanks for stopping by! Have a fantastic weekend!

Yummy Chicken and Rice Casserole!

We had this yummy dish a few nights ago, it's easy and it makes quite a bit! It's kind of like chicken and rice with a kick!

1 1/2 cups diced cooked chicken

1 1/2 cups of cooked rice

1 cup chopped celery

1 can of cream of chicken soup

2 teaspoons finely chopped onion

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3/4 cup of mayonnaise

1/4 cup water

paprika

Combine first combine the first nine ingredients. Combine the mayonnaise and water, stir with wire whisk until smooth. Add mayonnaise mixture to chicken mixture.

Spoon mixture into a greased 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with paprika and then bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until bubbly. Enjoy!

Road Trip!

We took a little road trip this weekend to Louisiana. C's FAVORITE aunt and uncle have a lake house, so we took an 8 hour road trip to go and visit!

Are we there yet?????....almost!!!! It was such a pretty drive on the way up to the lake!

We're here!!!!!!


Their house is so neat! It has several different decks and the house itself is nestled in with the trees!

That's the boat house where we got to stay! It's decorated like something you'd see on HGTV, so neat!

We took a boat ride shortly after we arrived! This is C's cousin's family...aren't they a cute family?!

Our Captain...aka, the favorite Uncle Ted!

The family on the boat!

C with his grandma...she's so cute!!!! I LOVE their upper deck furniture!

C's mom and dad

C's favorite aunt, Aunt Cindy...aka my snort sister...yes, we both are snorters when we laugh, Marissa and Grandma!

I just love this guy!

You be easy on my husband Uncle Ted!!!!

After MUCH convincing and a pinkie promise with Uncle Ted, I agreed to try the tube with my sister in law, Candice! I'm a chicken people!

The pinkie promise was kept the first time and then I was eventually convinced to try it by myself and oh my, that's all I am going to say!!!!

Justin and C

That night we went to The Myrtles Plantation (click to read the story of this plantation), it's on America's top 10 most haunted houses list!!! CREEPY!!!! (see the orb just below the sign on the lower left?) It's been on the History Channel and on the Travel Channel. It was built in 1796 and is said to be very haunted by several different people and after our experience, I totally believe it!!!!

Side view of the house....

Sittin' on the back porch....

This is the only spot inside of the house that you are allowed to take pictures. Images are in these pictures friends, do you see them???? Look above that flash? Do you see the bonnet and the face?

Can you see the face??? It's there, for real!

On my camera, in this picture, you can see the figure of a woman looking out the door!!!! (She is on the right side of the door, just above the lock and the door knob, it's very hard to see on here, but yoiu can see an orb right below her on the door.) When the photo is enlarged, you can see it a little better. I can't wait to print these pictures!

The girls(another orb can be seen above us in the window)...inside this room, something stepped on my foot and it was not a "real" person, I totally freaked out! (no one was standing in front of me or next to me either!)...I sure did get laughed at though when I yelped!

Great, I know you people are going to think I've lost my marbles now!!!!

The front of the house at night.

We had such a good time and it was a nice little get away for us. I'm totally ready to go back, I would LOVE to go to Mississippi and tour some of the really big plantation homes, those just fascinate me!!!! Thanks Aunt Cindy and Uncle Ted for having us!!!!!

Funny!

I saw this on a friend's blog and had to share! Too funny, if you have a few minutes to watch! I could not imagine going to a wedding in a church and seeing this at the beginning of the ceremony! Crazy!

That's When We Said I DO!!!!

...Two years ago today, July 21st, we were married! I can't believe it's already been two years, I can't say that they've been long years...they've have flown by it seems! Here are some pics from our wedding and honeymoon!

The Mrs. and the Mr.!!

Colin, my God Son...

The Girls....We only had 9 Bridesmaids and 2 Jr. Bridesmaids!

My cake...kind of a blurry picture, but you get the idea!

We are all about floating the river during the summer...the Groom's cake!

What's a wedding without the YMCA?! (Our DJ had head pieces for each of the YMCA characters...)

C's friends from back home...

The wedding party!

Our Honeymoon...Rivera Maya, Mexico

The past two years have been great, I can't wait to see what the next few have in store!!!!