Dinner : Crock-Pot Sesame Chicken!

OH MY GOSH!

Have you tried this?  It is so yummy! And it was quite easy.

I found the recipe on Pintrest.  The link matched up to chef in training blog.  She is gorgeous.  I followed the recipe as written, only thing I changed up, was I cut up the chicken while it was still chilled prior to putting it into the crock pot, so I didn't have to do it later when it was messy. 

I will also say, I took the sauce out of the crock-pot, and put it in a pan to try to reduce it.  COMPLETLY forgetting that I had the corn starch out for some reason.  Once I realized the err in my way, it was quick and easy.

I served it with some steamed broccoli, and some brown 'asian' rice from Uncle Ben's.

Again, it was SUPER delicious!  You should try it, and tell me all about it!

Dinner : Chicken Enchiladas!

Let me just say, I have never made Enchiladas before.

They were actually really easy!  I used some shredded chicken that I had made before by putting a bunch of chicken breasts in the crock pot, and then shredding it all and freezing in roughly 3 cup portions.

So, on my way home today, I grabbed some enchilada sauce, and cheese at the store.  I had tortillas, salsa, beans, and some taco seasoning at home.

So what I did, was I took the chicken, mixed it with some salsa, taco seasoning and finely shreded cheese.  I poured some enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan, and then I took the tortillas, added about a quarter cup of filling, and rolled them.  Put them seam side down in the sauce, until the pan was full.  Then I poured the rest of the enchilada sauce over them, and topped with cheese, glorious cheese.

I put them in the oven for about 20 minutes, covered, and then took the foil off for about 10 more minutes

While they were baking in the oven, I made some 'mexican style' rice from the box, and threw some corn in those.

Served them with some sour cream, and devoured.

I would like to say, they are really filling.  We will have left overs for a few days.  I don't know if they will freeze well, but hopefully we will be able to eat most of them before I throw them away.

Bachelorette Party!

I am officially down to the very last month of my engagement. Yes, my short engagement that has lasted, a little over a month. (more about that here.)

And so, in keeping with tradition (because I am completely traditional) my sister suggested a Zombie Pub Crawl!

In her mind/idea she thought we would all dress up as brides, in my mind, I would dress up as a bride, and everyone else would have brides' maid dresses on.  I couldn't find a bride's dress at any of my favorite thrift shops, and ended up wearing a more brides maid dress.  Little sister wore a white summer type dress, and her friend (well, a family friend really)- wore one of her older sister's wedding dresses. 

I made a Zesty Italian Crock-Pot Chicken, I found it through Pintrest, but here is a direct link to the blog I pinned it from.  It was easy to make, I used 6 breasts instead of 4, and put the raw chicken in the freezer for about 20 minutes and pulled it out, cut it up into 1/2 cubes, and followed it the rest of the way.  I made bow tie pasta like the blogger did as well.  It fed us all, and there were leftovers too.  There were a couple of dips, and crackers and veggies out too.  But this was the main bit of sustenance for us all.  From what I remember, it was pretty tasty!  I would make it again, I think I would add a little milk at the end to make it a little runnier, but, well, I had a lot of 'Pimp Juice' by the time it was ready, and wasn't the best hostest at that time.

Little sister's friend made what she called 'Pimp Juice' and brought that.  Well, let me just tell you.  I don't remember much.  I do know the Fiance drove 4 of us down and we jumped out, and one of my best friends drove and brought 3 with her.

I also remember that I biffed it off a curb, (to my defense, it was dark, and the curb was curved, everyone was waiting to board buses to leave Zombie Island, and I didn't see that I was halfway on/off the curb), I also remember, that at the end of the night, we were trying to get a cab, a van pulled up, people piled out, and I was like, c'mon ladies, I got us a cab, and the lady in the van, looks at me and was pissed, and said - 'Get out of my van, this is not a taxi!'  I am a happy friendly drunk, and was like - 'Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry.' And then started in to my reasoning why I jumped in, as my sister and friend pulled me out.

Either way, here is a photo of our un-dead crew.  As you can see, we had a pretty good drinking crew.

The 'Un-Dead'

This is a picture of my two best friends at Zombie Island, and myself on the right.  The girl in the middle and a better photo of her in the lower right, she did all of our scabs. She did a really good job.  :)

Oh, and the most annoying thing of the night?  DMX didn't show up.  So rude, and they were the ones I really wanted to see. 

How was your Bachelorette Party?  Did you sit around and have high tea?  I am heading back to the couch to sleep the rest of this off.

*18NOV Update*
We set a world record that night!  Pulled from the Guinness Book of World Records site:

Record Title: Largest gathering of zombies

Attempt Text: The largest gathering of zombies involved 8,027 participants and was achieved by Zombie Pub Crawl (USA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on 13 October 2012.

Record Title: Largest gathering of zombies

Attempt Text: The largest gathering of zombies involved 8,027 participants and was achieved by Zombie Pub Crawl (USA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on 13 October 2012.

Record Title: Largest gathering of zombies

Attempt Text: The largest gathering of zombies involved 8,027 participants and was achieved by Zombie Pub Crawl (USA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on 13 October 2012.

Record Title: Largest gathering of zombies

Attempt Text: The largest gathering of zombies involved 8,027 participants and was achieved by Zombie Pub Crawl (USA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on 13 October 2012.

Record Title: Largest gathering of zombies
Attempt Text: The largest gathering of zombies involved 8,027 participants and was achieved by Zombie Pub Crawl (USA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on 13 October 2012.
And I think I read somewhere that DMX did show up, but really late, and I guess they were rude about how many white people were there.

Visitors and the Museum

The Boyfriend's car had some sort of serious issue this week.  I am not a mechanic, and quite frankly, not going to lie, I don't really care what the problem was.  His best friend and his son came over on Friday night and started to fix the issue.  Now, the Boyfriend's best friend's kid is like 9 or something. I have no idea really, old enough to the point where he should be able to control himself, or at least figure out how to be calm.  He doesn't.  The kid isn't a bad kid, just has a hard time being good.

On Friday the kid and I played Uno, and there was a little bit of cheating going on, so, I had to end that.  Otherwise the kid wanted to talk about his DS game.. not sure which one.. but he is very passionate about all the cool things it can do.  I asked him if he wanted to go find the park or something, but he replied he was more of an 'indoor kid'.  I asked what that was, he said I just like to be indoors, I asked why, he said because that's where all his video games are.  Well, that does make sense.  He said his grandma will sometimes tell him to go outside though.  I asked if he had ever been out of breath before, he asked what that was.  Slight problem there..

But anyways, the guys weren't done playing car mechanic on Friday night, the Boyfriend had to work on Saturday, so I knew the kid would be heading over with his dad, not a huge problem, but I have to figure out how we are going to be entertained together, I figured he was old enough to cook or something, so I hatched a plan.

When they came over, I heard some more about his video games and what not, and then I asked him if he liked to cook.  I am not saying everyone who is an indoor person has to like to cook (but what the heck are you doing inside all day if you aren't cooking?!).  But I figured if we worked on creating something, rather than being destructive, than it was okay in my book.  What is one of the simplest things to make?  Well, heck, Rice Krispies!  But, I didn't have any of those, what I did have though, were Peanut Butter Cheerio's that did not have a very strong peanut butter flavor.  So, let's make PB Cheerio Bars!

Behold, the magic of peanut butter!

It's basically the traditional Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Bar Recipe but made with Cheerios instead.  I had him measure out the marshmallows and the cheerios. And stir it all together.  You can see the full PB Cheerio Bar recipe here.

I had to put them in the freezer to get them to harden, because it didn't take the Boyfriend and his best friend to finish whatever it was that they were doing.  I was baking some boxed cupcakes to hopefully frost with the kid too, but he left before they were really ready.

I had made some Crock-Pot Chicken Taco meat earlier in the day, threw in some extra jalapenos to use to make Chicken Tostadas, I had some cilantro, and threw on some extra salsa and Queso Blanco for extra goodness.

Chicken Tostadas

I asked if anyone wanted any, no one did, it was 7pm, and I was starving, more for me then!  So I ate mine, it was SO filling!! You kind of eat it like a pizza.  When the Boyfriend ate some later on, he crushed up the tostadas, and poured everything on it, threw on some regular shredded cheese, added some sour cream, and ate it that way.

I also frosted those cupcakes once they were cooled.  I used my ultimate favorite Rainbow Chip Frosting by Betty Crocker, which is surprisingly hard to find where I live.  When I go down to Southern Minnesota, I stop in at a store in Bricelyn to pick some up.  And since I was there last weekend, it only made sense that I would come home with some.  But that means, I needed to use up an older container that I bought apparently in the Spring, since it was called Spring Chip, date was good, so let's slap it on some cupcakes.

Yellow Cupcake with Spring Chip Frosting

I ended up bringing the cupcakes with me to a picnic with my little sister and her son.  We went to the Children's Museum on Target's Free Sunday.  The Children's Museum was listed in Parent's Magazine 10 Best Children's Museum in 2011.  It was good entertainment for the Nephew (he's just over 2 now).  I will say this, I wish I could go when there were no kids there, then I could get everything to work like it should.. me and my adult sized brain can figure it out all on my own! 

After the museum we went back to the parking ramp, and ate sandwiches, veggies crackers and juice and my cupcakes.  Yes, we ate IN the parking ramp, in the corner on a blanket, next time I think I will suggest bringing outdoor chairs.  I sent her home with some extra PB Cheerio Bars to share with my dad.  I transported the cupcakes in upside down Tupperware.  You can sort of see it in the photo.  It worked out decently.

On a side note, my older sister had her 3rd kid on Wednesday. So now she has a 12 (girl), 6(boy) and newborn(boy).  That's really all there is to say about that.

Do you have a better way to transport goodies?  Do share!!

Fantastic Weekend!

My weekend was great!  I hope yours was too!

Yesterday my dad came over and brought my treadmill to me, and he ate Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos with me for dinner.  They were pretty good. 

Literally just 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, a jar of salsa, and taco seasoning.  Turned the crock-pot on high for 4 hours.  Pulled the chicken out to shred, and then added some canned Jalapenos at the end, but, I really didn't notice them. 

I saved a couple cups of the shredded chicken to make Chicken Tortilla Soup later too.

After that, the Boyfriend and I went to my friend's house and had some adult beverages, and played that corn hole game.  I like it, it's that beanbag/toss in the hole cut out.  And then we came home, and I watched my CBS Sunday Morning, and my little sister sends me a text asking what I am doing in the afternoon, and perhaps she and her son would like to come over.  So I offered up dinner, and that set in motion the rest of my day!

Once the Boyfriend awoke, I let him know we would be having company for dinner, and that we would be needing to go get groceries sooner than later. Because I wanted some time for my salads I would be making to marinate. 

We ended up with Corn on the Cob, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Creamy Cucumber Salad, Broccoli Salad.



A FEAST!

It was all super good.  And then after all that, of course we needed dessert!  I had baked the 4 layers on Saturday morning.  But I needed to make the frosting and assemble this mammoth thing!

My first attempt at a gradient cake with ombre frosting.

I am not going to lie, I used 2 box white cake mixes, and added blue and violet food coloring to the Buttercream Frosting I made.  There was a lot of frosting, I made 3 batches, and used it all.

For both the cake and the frosting, I used more food coloring for the dark blue then I did for the lighter blue layers.

The frosting was Wilton's Buttercream frosting recipe.  I used a basic ombre technique I found here.

My 2 year old nephew poo'd blue the next day...  :)

Have you made a gradient cake or ombre frosting?  They are all over Pintrest - I would love to see or hear about your creation!