Recipe #56: Honey Baked Chicken

I made this a couple of nights ago and am just now getting around to posting! Lets just say once school gets back into full swing this is going to be pretty hard to keep up! :)

This recipe came from a cookbook of family recipes we made for my sister a couple of years ago when she was getting married. Then it became a regular dish in my other sister's house and after eating it there a couple of times, I finally made it at home!
The recipe said to use a whole chicken, cut up and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes which was probably the thing that made me always turn the page quickly, I never have that much time to get dinner ready, but using chicken breasts cuts the time almost in half!

You need:
3 chicken breasts, cut into smaller pieces--I cut it into 3 pieces. You can also use more because there is plenty of sauce
1/3 cup melted margarine
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp prepared mustard
1 tsp salt
1tsp curry powder

• Preheat oven to 350
• Arrange chicken pieces in a 9x13 dish
• Mix the rest of ingredients together.
• Pour over chicken and make sure chicken pieces are coated.
• back for about 40 minutes or until chicken no longer runs pink.

We had a lot of sauce with ours, but then it tastes really great with the rice so if you just do three pieces of chicken and don't like a lot of sauce you could probably half it, or just do more chicken so you have more leftovers for the next day! :)

Recipe #55: Breakfast Parfaits

After making the fruit tarts last night, i had some leftover cut-up fruit so decided to make a parfait this morning!

You need:
yogurt. I used greek vanilla yogurt
fruit
All bran cereal, granola would be nice too, but I don't have any of that right now!

In a bowl layer yogurt, fruit, then cereal add one more layer of each.
Of course this is the way to make it look pretty! It tastes just as good in a big bowl mixed together!

Recipe #54: Fruit Tarts

I think I could have eaten these for dinner instead of the curry, but I resisted! :) Super easy to make and just fun!

You need:
pie crust
fruits of choice--I used  peaches, strawberries, and frozen blueberries
whipped topping

• First i used a muffin cup to find a similar size circle object. my baby bowls worked perfectly. I used those to make circles in the pie crust.
• put the circles inside of the muffin tin and pat the sides down. poke some holes in the crust with a fork.
• I preheated the oven to 450 and then put it in about 8 minutes before it was done preheating and it came out perfectly.
• while it is in the oven i cut up the fruit. 
• take the crust out immediately and let cool.
• once they have cooled add the fruit. Add whipped cream right before you are ready to eat!

ENJOY!

Recipe #53: Yellow Curry

I love curry, all different kinds, so watch for several different recipes.
Yellow curry is one of our favorite Thai foods and so I found a variation that tastes pretty good! I had it from a Woman's Day magazine ages ago, the recipe can be found here.
Of course I didn't have all of the ingredients so here is what we did.

You need:
2 chicken breasts, boiled and shredded
1/2 onion
1 green pepper
10 baby carrots, cut in half long way
4 potatoes, cut into small pieces
2 cans coconut milk
1/4 cayenne pepper
4 Tbsp yellow curry powder

• start the rice cooker with some rice!
• Saute the onion and then once soft, add the green pepper
• add coconut milk, cayenne pepper and curry powder stir well
• add carrots, potatoes, and chicken.
• cover and allow to simmer until sauce thickens. I doubled original sauce recipe because we like more sauce!

Baby Food: Zucchinis!

Well it has been almost a month since Alex first started eating zucchini, I just haven't had time to post about it! One day I realized I needed to finish up some zucchini before it got to old, so I decided to let Alex eat some too. I went to my trusty guide to baby food found here, which is where I got the idea in the first place. It is, as making any baby food is, really quite easy.

I used about 3 zucchinis. Chop off the stem, cut in half and then cut each half into long, thin pieces.
Cover with some water and then let boil until they are really soft.
Transfer to the mini food processor with about a 1/4 cup of water. puree until there are no chunky pieces.
Put in trays and freeze!

i think he liked it!

The zucchini puree is really watery. I usually mix one cube of zucchini with one of carrots or sweet potato to give it a little more thickness.

Side Dish #4: Luggage tags

Okay, so the little mister and I went on a plane last week to go see his grandparents one last time before they head to Japan. I needed to mark my suitcase and his car seat that we were going to check in so I decided to make some luggage tags! The little things that make my day! :) I had actually made some name tags several months ago for Alex's diaper bag so that they would know it was his in the nursery at church Then I made some for his two cousins as well, but had to go back to the store to get new tags since I had no idea where my leftover one was!

You need to buy some self laminating luggage tags. I found them at hobby lobby and office depot...I am sure you can find them almost anywhere. On the tags check out to see how big they are. Then in microsoft office, open a text box that is just a bit smaller than the tag. I downloaded some fun fonts from here. They have a ton of REALLY cute fonts, also doodles, which is what I used for the little pictures. Print it out and follow the directions on the package to make your own unique luggage tags!

Recipe #52: Puppy Chow

We had to bring snacks to work today, so I decided to make Puppy chow. Don't worry, it is not for dogs, but a delicious treat for people! It is super easy to make.

You need:
9 cups of Chex cereal (or just the whole box)
1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• Measure out the chex into a large bowl
• In a small sauce pan melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter
• Pour chocolate over chex mix. the best way is to pour a little bit at a time so that you can mix it up and get the chex evenly coated.
• In a 2 gallon ziploc bag pour in the powdered sugar. 
• Carefully add the chex in, close up the bag and shake it up until the chex has been evenly coated with the powdered sugar.
• Pour out onto a wax-paper covered cookie sheet to let it cool. Once cooled put in an air tight container and enjoy!