Tonight's Dinner

This morning I came across a recipe on Pinterest and had to try it. Here's what we had for dinner:

Crock Pot Chicken Tacos- Click HERE for recipe.

It was SUPER easy to make, and tasted delicious! If you don't have energy to cook at the end of your day (not the case for me, but I'm just saying), this is perfect. I've made a few Crock Pot recipes that require a lot of "prep work" like cutting veggies, peeling potatoes, and even cooking the meat on the stove BEFORE you put it in the Crock Pot. This recipe requires none of that. Put the ingredients in the Crock Pot in the morning, and eat dinner in the evening when it's done. Enjoy!

--The recipe makes a lot! The original blogger suggests several other dishes to make with the leftovers, or you can use fewer chicken breasts. We will be freezing part of our leftovers to enjoy later.

Happy Cooking!

Britt's Wedding- NYE 2011

This is a tad bit late, but I wanted to do it anyway. Brandon and I spent our New Year's Eve in Texarkana for Britt and Dustin's wedding. It was a really fun weekend! Here's the background story...

Britt and I have been friends for about 4 years, and it's one of those friendships that takes you by surprise and changes your life for the better.

It all started when we sat by each other on the first day of ASL506 (American Sign Language). After that we spent hours upon hours signing attempting to sign to each other, practicing until oh-so-late for our exams, laughing, talking, eating breakfast tacos in the business school, more laughing, and dreaming about that 'one day' when we would both get married. We had no idea that that 'one day' would be here before we knew it!

Here's a photo recap of the weekend...

Welcome bag!

Thursday evening- Kick-off BBQ

Britt had a brunch for all the girls on Friday. So sweet of her!

Rehearsal..

Rehearsal Dinner

Happy New Year!!



Love him!



Me and the bride :)

Britt & Dustin- I couldn't be happier for you two! Your wedding was absolutely perfect! I'm so happy that I got to be a part of your day :) Love you!!

Cookie Attempt

Since I've been sharing all of my cooking successes with you, I figured it's only fair that I also share the failures. Today I was feeling a little bored, so I decided to bake B some chocolate chip cookies (his favorite). I mixed the dough, let it chill in the fridge for 2 hours (the recipe said to do that), and then put them in the oven after we ate dinner.

This is how the first pan turned out:

Super crumbly. Fell apart in my hand.

When I took the pan out of the oven, it looked like a cookie cake. No big deal, they just weren't pretty. Then when I tried to cut them and take them off the pan, they completely fell apart. I ended up with chocolate chip cookie crumbs.

I put another pan in the oven, this time with smaller cookies so they wouldn't touch. Pan #2 turned out like this:

Paper-thin, and gross looking.

Even worse than the first pan! I can't figure out what the heck I did wrong. I have never seen cookies turn out like this before. And each pan was so different! My dad is wondering if the ingredients weren't mixed well enough, since each pan was so different. And Mom thinks one of my ingredients may have been bad. And I'm sure B will be laughing at these cookies for a while :)


On a side note-- The dough tasted amazing, so instead of attempting a 3rd pan of cookies we've been enjoying the dough. If when we both end up in the hospital with food poisoning, I'll let you know where to send the Get Well flowers.

My First Roast!

Tonight we had a roast for dinner, and as I told Michelle 'It was pretty darn good!' Ive never made a roast before, so it was definitely a learning experience.

Before I went to the grocery store on Monday, I flipped through a few cook books trying to find something new and yummy to make this week. I found this roast recipe in a Crock Pot cook book that Brandon's Aunt Lavonne gave us at one of our wedding showers. She gave us the Crock Pot, too. Thanks, Lavonne!!

The recipe called for a 2 lb. boneless chuck roast. When I got to the store, I realized I had NO idea what that was (Mom, don't laugh!). I walked through the meat section twice, and then realized that I didn't know if I should be looking in the beef section or the pork section (Seriously, no laughing!). I called my mom to ask her what the heck I was supposed to buy, but she didn't answer. I'm not at all afraid to ask questions, so when I spotted a meat-section-worker (not sure what his real title was), I waved him down. "Sir, I'm making a roast for the first time. My recipe calls for a...(digging out my list to remember what it's called)...2 lb. boneless chuck roast. Do you know where I could find that?" He smiled, chuckled, and politely found exactly what I was looking for. (It's with the beef, for those of you who were also wondering.)

So after getting home with all the ingredients, the plan was to eat the roast on Thursday night. I had skimmed the recipe to see how long it was supposed to cook, but I didn't read it too closely. I woke up Thursday morning, and was excited to get the roast cooking! As I gathered the ingredients I read the first step: "Marinate roast and first two ingredients in refrigerator for at least 8 hours, turning occasionally." 8 hours! If I marinated the roast for 8 hours and cooked it for 10 hours, we could eat dinner at about 3:00a.m. on Friday morning. Well, that wasn't going to work. So I put the roast and seasonings in a large Zip-Lock on Thursday evening and ordered us a pizza. (So much for Goal #2.)

Finally, after following all the directions and putting everything in the Crock Pot, my first roast was cooking early this morning! I checked on it throughout the day and could not wait to taste it! I also loved how yummy our house smelled all day :) Brandon got home from work, and I added the last few ingredients. We sat down to eat, and it was delicous!

As I looked at our meal, I thought "This is something my mom would make." And if I can make something that my mom would make, then maybe I'm turning out to be an okay cook ;)


**Please, no judgements on the pizza. I've been fighting a cold since Monday and had no energy to make anything else. And it's okay to indulge every now and then, right??

2012 Goals

2011 has come and gone, and I can't imagine how 2012 could go by any faster. We are more than ready to see what this year has to offer! Here are a few changes (I'm not calling them resolutions, becuase those usually don't last) we are making in 2012:

1. Become more active: In 2011 we spent WAY too much time sitting. Our goal is to find things we enjoy that allow us to move around and keep our bodies strong. **This includes Pirincess. We've noticed her cute belly getting a little bigger, so she will be doing more walking and less napping :)

2. Make healthier food choices: We are starting off slow with this one. Too many times we have tried to make drastic changes to our diets, and we have not been able to stick with it. So this time we are taking baby steps. Brandon has started by cutting out fried foods and decreasing his soda intake. Those of you who know him know that french fries and Dr. Pepper are his favorite, so this may be tough! Since I do the grocery shopping and most of the cooking, my goal is to buy and cook more fresh/less processed foods. **Healthy dinner ideas would be greatly appreciated :)

Now I know that's only two, but I think it's a good start to the new year. I believe in making small, achievable goals, and once those are accomplished we will make new ones. If you're reading, I'm counting on you to hold us accountable!


-- Since I didn't blog about it, we had a great Christmas! Brandon had a week off, and we spent it in Yoakum with our families. I'm writing this blog from my new IPad that was NOT a Christmas gift from Brandon, because we agreed that we were NOT exchanging gifts this year. Thanks, B ;)