Weekend Wrap-up

I think I made the right decision on not going home last weekend considering this was the scene at our house...

13 inches - C-R-A-Z-Y!! Fayetteville has gotten more snow this year than Columbia, AND more snow than I can ever remember! I think I need to move back to stop these crazy weather patterns. It must all be because I moved away. ;)

I had a nice little weekend to myself while Eric was in Memphis. I battled some snow flurries and rain on Saturday to travel down to the Lake of the Ozarks to do some shopping. It ended quite quickly though after I fell in love with Marshall's/HomeGoods and had a whole cart full and more...so much for making some other stops at antique stores. ;)

These pictures aren't great (I just snapped them running out the door this morning), so please excuse the lack of fabulous photos. I think I'm going to have to have Aunt Cindy teach me more about using my camera at the wedding in a few months!

I picked up a couple of pillows for the couch (gold and blue shown)...

This awesome chair and table set (only $99 and exactly what I've been looking for!). It looks a little "blah", but trust me, I have big plans for our little porch! More photos on that soon.

A couple of framed flowers...

And this little cute sign for the kitchen.

PLUS - 5 new spring blouses! It was amazing - I may just have to make another trip soon. And very affordable, too!! If you have one near you, you're lucky! (Although I'm a little glad I don't have one too close because I'd spend way too much)

I've got a new recipe to share, too...I tested this out over the weekend and it didn't turn out as pretty as that picture, but it's really good. Just make sure to put it back in the freezer if you don't eat it all, otherwise it'll melt a bit. :)

Strawberry Whipped Sensation
4 cups fresh strawberries
1 - 14oz. can Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 - 8oz. Cool Whip (thawed)
8 Oreo cookies
1 TBSP butter (melted)

Line a bread loaf pan with foil. In a large bowl mash 2 cups of the strawberries with a potato masher. Add the Eagle brand milk to the strawberries--stir. Add lemon juice--stir. Add 2 cups of the Cool Whip--stir. Pour the strawberry mixture into the foil lined bread loaf pan. Crush the Oreo cookies finely into a small bowl--add the melted butter--stir. Spread the cookie mixture evenly over the top of the strawberry mixture. Use the back of a spoon to lightly press the Oreo cookie mixture into the strawberry mixture. Cover the top of the loaf pan with foil. Freeze the entire thing overnight. The next day remove it from the freezer, remove the foil from the top, and invert it onto a plate--if any of the foil sticks to it, peel it off. Frost the loaf with the other 2 cups of Cool Whip. Slice the remaining 2 cups of strawberries and arrange them on top of the Cool Whip frosting. Slice like bread to serve.

P.S. - Eric has an internship interview tomorrow! Cross your fingers and say a prayer! :)

Bummer.

Just when spring was a day a way and you thought you were done with snow for a good 250 days or so... the weather decides it's going to snow again.
Really?! Come on. :(

Eric and I had plans to split paths this weekend and go each home, but after getting new tires this week, packing the car all up and planning on leaving after work, I'm actually staying in Columbia now because of the 1-3+ inches that's supposed to hit NWA. Frustrating. Especially in mid-March. With my luck now, it probably won't even do anything to the roads down there and it will be fine. But, we can't afford more car repairs right now so I'd better not take a chance - I think my 2 week trip to the service center, Eric's new brake pads, my new tires, and the small windshield cracks that we need to get fixed ASAP are enough for the this month. I'm surprised we still have some savings left after all of that.

So, with Eric on his way to Memphis right now, what's a girl to do with a whole weekend to herself?
Looks like I'll be catching up on some painting, working out (I've slacked on The Shred all week!) maybe doing some cooking, getting groceries, and hopefully some shopping...hopefully I don't break the bank with that. ;) Maybe it won't be so bad.

This week was pretty uneventful. Here are the recipes we tried this week from e-Mealz...

Meat and Three
1/2 to 1 lb top round steak, trim & cut in chunks
1 can French-style green beans, drain
1 large potato, slice thin with skin on
1 small onion, slice thin


In crock pot, layer 1/2 cup water, then all of the steak. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1 can green beans, 1/2 of onions, 1/2 of potatoes. Repeat onions and potatoes. Cook on low for 6 hours.


Chicken and Brocolli Stir Fry
1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts
1/2 bunch of brocolli
8 oz can sliced water chesnuts


Stir Fry Mixture:
1 can chicken broth
3 T corn starch, 1/4 c orange juice, 3 T sugar, 3 T soy sauce, 1 t ginger, 1/2 t garlic powder, 1/2 t salt)


Slice chicken and broccoli florets in bite size pieces. In large non-stick skillet, saute broccoli and chicken on med-high for 2 minutes. Cover and let steam on low for 5 minutes. Pour stir fry mixture over chicken and broccoli and stir constantly until thickened. Serve over steamed rice.

And that's about it, really. Hope you all have a good (and hopefully snow-free!) weekend!

Our Weekend in Photos...

We did our usual Friday night Wal-Mart run. At least we tried to make it a little fun...would you buy him? ;)

Stopped by a flea market and Goodwill on Saturday. I got some frames to make this little necklace board (see my art blog for full "tutorial!"):

We did a little spring cleaning...

And I organized all my shoes. (From left to right I've got sandals, work flats, heels, causal/non-work shoes, and tennis shoes...Hopefully, that'll make getting dressed for work a little easier in the mornings)

Then we went to go see Alice in Wonderland (in 3-D of course!)

For dinner, we tried a new slow cooker recipe - orange chicken! It was a little too orange-y, so perhaps the 4oz vs. 8 oz of orange juice will work better in the future. The recipe is below with the tweaked / less amount of OJ.

2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1/2 cup flour
olive oil, for browning the chicken
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 ounces (1/2 can) frozen orange juice concentrate (no pulp), thawed
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons ketchup

Use a 4 quart slow cooker for best results. Dredge the chicken pieces with the flour, and shake off the excess. Go ahead and throw away any remaining flour, we won't need it. Heat olive oil in a large skillet on the stove and brown the chicken on all sides. There is no need to fully cook it, just sear it enough for the flour to stick and get a nice coating.

Plop the chicken pieces into your slow cooker. In a small mixing bowl, combine the orange juice concentrate, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, salt, and ketchup. Taste. If you'd like the chicken to be a bit sweeter, add a touch more sugar. Pour sauce mixture evenly over the chicken, and toss gingerly to coat.

Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3 to 4. Serve over white or brown rice.

And went to church on Sunday. Of course, I had to go pick up the paper for coupons afterwards!

Then we went to the park! Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo of the two of us to document that fun run, but it's FINALLY warming up outside!!! :)

Hope you had a great weekend!

Weekend Update

Happy Monday! Hope your weekend was went well and didn't feel as short as our's! :)

We had the delight of several tasty meals this weekend, including a new recipe we tried out. Friday dinner was delicious Ruby Tuesdays (I'm in LOVE with the way they cook their broccoli! I never ate broccoli until this past summer and now I'm addicted!). Saturday lunch was the wonderful Harry & David chicken noodle soup mix...



Saturday dinner Eric cooked steak and potatoes...





And Sunday we tried out this new recipe:
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Chicken and Pineapple Slow Cooker Recipe



Ingredients:
-2 Chicken breasts cut up into cubes
-1 can of canned pineapple chunks
-1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Teriyaki sauce
-Dash of ginger
-Dash of cayenne
-Thawed bag of sugar snap peas (we used mixed veggies above)

Directions:
Mix pineapple, chicken, Teriyaki, ginger, and cayenne in slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours. Add in sugar snap peas for the last 30 minutes.

*NOTE: I couldn't find a bag of just sugar snap peas at the store, so I picked up a mix of veggies. It was really good, but ended up being a little too "busy", so you might try to swap out the pineapple chunks with either juice or of larger pieces of pineapple.
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On Sunday, we got a nice little surprise outside our back window (that even almost made us late to church we were staring for so long!)
Eric opened up the blinds to find this...



Look closely or click to enlarge...
You'll see 5 deer hidden in the trees! :)



We've never seen them behind our building before - it's always been behind some of the other buildings. One of them actually got so close that I thought he was going to fall off the edge of the brick wall and land in the alley!







Speaking of church, we went to The Crossing again yesterday. It's a Presbyterian-based contemporary church that started in 2000 (that's always filled to the brim!), and to be completely honest, it's been a lot different than what I'm used to. Very casual, a lot of technology, and a more "loose" structure to the service. The church has theater seating (much more comfortable though than Catholic pews! :), screens everywhere, coffee bars in the lobby (and everyone drinks coffee during the service) and a large stage. No altar, no pulpit, and I don't even think there was a cross on the stage this week. I'm still not used to the lighting effects and amped-up musicians. The service consists of a lot of singing, a few readings/prayers, and the sermon. They pretty much always have a really good message, but I'm still warming up to the whole "pop concert feel on a Sunday" idea...I'm much more traditional.

In other news, I'm currently working on some blog updates (you'll notice I got the comments link to work thanks to Kalyn pointing it out!, and I've added labels to the left) so be looking for more little changes soon! :)

Happy New Year!

Happy 2010!

I don't have a whole lot of interesting things to blog about - it's been a fairly uneventful weekend of staying in town and catching up on cleaning.

Clayton came over to watch the Mizzou game with us on New Year's Eve (they lost, unfortunately), and Eric and I's evening was spent making a quick trip to Wal-Mart. It was so exciting that I fell asleep on the couch at 9:00 (no joke!). Needless to say, neither one of us made it up till midnight. Friday we went to the movies and I made chicken cacciatore in the crock pot for dinner (mmmmm...!). I even tried the recipe my mom gave me for roasted broccoli. See below...

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(it's so hot in the picture you can see the steam!)

Chicken Cacciatore
{my slightly tweaked version from the original recipe which I'll post later :) }

Ingredients:
-2 chicken breasts, thawed
-1 can Hunt's diced tomatoes
-2 cans Hunt's tomato sauce
-Dashes of pepper, garlic powder, oregano, and thyme - I don't really measure it out, I just dash it in :)

Cut chicken into small cubes. Combine above ingredients in crock pot. Cook on low for 8 hours. Serve over pasta.



Roasted Broccoli
Ingredients:
-Fresh broccoli
-Parmesan cheese
-Olive oil

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Break up broccoli into small clusters on a large pan and baste with olive oil. Cook for 15 minutes. Take pan out and flip broccoli. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on each piece. Cook an additional 5 minutes.
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The rest of the weekend was just spent running errands and relaxing at home (and watching the hogs' LUCKY win). I think we're both about to freeze to death here with the below-freezing temperatures. This morning it was -3...I've never experienced so much pain from being cold in my life. My office has been heating up for 3 hours now and still isn't to 70, too. Brrrrr. Apparently my closet isn't good enough for this weather! Here's at least a pretty picture of Jesse Hall on campus in the snow... I tried to get a quick shot as we were driving to church.



And Charise, this is for you! Eric in his Christmas sweater...



Happy New Year!

Delicious Recipe

I thought I would start the week off by sharing one of my (newer) favorite recipes! Granted, I don't cook very often because I have a wonderful husband that would rather cook instead :), but I got to take over the kitchen and make this over last weekend.

Although the original recipe is from Real Simple (see link here), I like to tweak it a bit and make it more of my own...

Caroline's Favorite Orange Chicken and Potatoes Slow Cooker Recipe
(serves 2)

Ingredients:
-2 chicken breasts
-salt and pepper
-6 red potatoes
-1 orange, cut into slices
-1 can Campbell's chicken broth
-1 tablespoon honey
-dashes of thyme, basil, and oregano

Directions:
-cut the chicken into small squares and season with salt and pepper
-combine broth, potatoes, chicken, honey, and seasoning in the slow cooker
-place orange slices along the top layer of the food
-set the slow cooker to high and cook covered for 2.5-3 hours
-enjoy :)