Crock Pot Lemon Pepper Chicken

I've got a short and simple post for you today featuring chicken I cooked in the crock pot a little while ago. I like to cut back on carbs during the week, so a lot of the time I will just eat meat for lunch or dinner.

For this quick chicken dish, here are the ingredients I used:

Great Value Lemon Pepper Marinade

Lemon

Black Pepper (not pictured)

Thin Sliced Chicken Breasts

My husband and I actually prepared this together, so we placed the chicken breasts in the slow cooker, along with about half of the bottle of the marinade, some water and black pepper. I then sliced the lemon and placed the slices on top of the chicken.

We let it cook on low for 8-9 hours, and this is how it turned out:

I really liked the way this chicken turned out! It was full of flavor, and it was so easy to make and take for my lunch at work. I like my chicken tougher, so the texture to this chicken turned out to my liking.

What do you think of this chicken recipe? What's your favorite slow cooker chicken recipe? Thanks for reading!

Taco Bean Dip

I've got another dip recipe for you today. I have been obsessed with dip recipes lately, mainly because if I can dip a chip in my food, then I will. :)

My friend Amanda made this Taco Bean Dip for this past New Year's Eve party at her house, and I loved it so much that I've been wanting to make it ever since.

Here's the recipe she sent me:

This is what I used:

You can see that I used 12 oz. of plain Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream, because any time I can substitute Greek yogurt for mayonnaise or sour cream, I like to because it has less calories and has more protein. I also like the way Greek yogurt tastes 'lighter' than mayonnaise and sour cream.

I absolutely loved this dip! The hardest part was just mixing the taco seasoning with the Greek yogurt, and that didn't take up much time. So there was a layer of re-fried beans, a layer of the Greek yogurt/taco seasoning mixture, and I used the whole package of shredded cheese on top of the yogurt. I then diced tomatoes and jalapenos for extra color and taste. 

The combination of taco flavor with the beans and the coolness of the yogurt was delicious. Add cheese on top of that, and you have a winner! I will definitely make this one again!

Fresh Homemade Guacamole

I have recently in the past couple of years found out that I love avocados. I especially love them in homemade guacamole. The combination of avocados, limes, and peppers just tastes so fresh.

Here's a recipe for homemade guacamole I made this week:

3 avocados, peeled, removed from the seed and diced
The juice from 2 limes
1 vine tomato, seeds removed and diced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeds removed and diced
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Seasoning/Salt
Cilantro

I mixed everything in a bowl and added the salt, pepper, and garlic seasoning to taste. I like a lot of it. I didn't have any fresh cilantro, but I did have dried cilantro flakes that I used instead. Fresh cilantro would, of course, taste better. I mashed the avocados and mixed and mixed until I liked the consistency.

The creaminess if the avocado paired with the sourness of the limes and the little kick from the jalapeños makes this one of my favorite dips and I crave it about once a month. The red tomato adds just the right pop of color.

Here is how it turned out. Thanks for reading!

Super Cheesy Bean Dip

     A couple of weeks ago I put together a cheesy bean dip that I thought I would share with you today! I was really craving some cheese and beans, so here is how I made it.

     I turned my slow cooker on low, and added a block of cream cheese, a can of chili beans, and a jar of the Tostitos Bean & Cheese Dip, and let that cook on low for two hours, stirring intermittently. After two hours, I added two packages of Cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese blocks, stirred them in the mixture, and then let it cook for another two hours.
     After four hours total, it was wonderful! It was so cheesy, and if you are a bean lover, you will love this. My parents and I ate this dip all weekend.

   

Cheesy Black Bean and Corn Dip

     This past weekend I was really craving the black bean and spinach dip from the ESPN Club restaurant in Orlando, Florida. I was browsing through recipes, and I found this from wegottaeat.com:

     I planned on making this recipe, but then I didn't think spinach would be good in this dip, so I did a little bit of tweaking. Here is what I used:

1 jar of Herdez salsa

1 package of Mexican Style Taco Cheese

1 can of black beans

1 can of corn

8 oz. of cream cheese

I mixed all of the ingredients together. I used half of the bag of cheese in with the mix, and the other half I used to top the dip and I baked it at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

 Before:

After:

     I really enjoyed this dip, and my family loved it! We ate it on Saturday for lunch, and then again on Sunday after church. It makes a ton! It's really cheesy  and the corn adds an extra flavor that I think complements the cheese.

     What do you think? Have you ever tweaked a recipe?

Super-Easy Slow Cooker Italian Chicken

     Last night I needed a quick slow cooker meal to start cooking before I went to bed, so that I could eat it for lunch today and tonight for dinner. When my mom made Italian chicken when I was younger, I always liked it, and my husband will sometimes make chicken for himself that has been marinated in Italian dressing, so I used those ideas to make this meal.
     I used a bag of Tyson chicken breasts, almost a whole bottle of fat-free Italian dressing, generous amounts of Italian Seasoning, salt, pepper, and a little bit of garlic seasoning and water.

     The chicken cooked for 8 hours on low, and it was very tender and easy to pull apart this morning. I loved how easy this was to make! This tasted great by itself, not too much seasoning, but just enough. This chicken would also be great shredded and over a salad! 

     What are your favorite slow cooker recipes? Thanks for reading!

Heavenly Harvest Pork Roast

     I've been wanting to bring out my slow cooker again for a while now, and I decided to try this pork roast recipe that I found in my slow cooker cook book!

     My husband brought this slow cooker cook book to me after a trip to the store, because he knows I love slow cooker recipes. Isn't he sweet? Or maybe he's trying to give me a hint to cook more often....

     Here is the 4.74 lb. pork roast that we bought at the store. It was a Tyson roast.

     Per the recipe, I put the sugar and pomegranate juice in a saucepan and stirred it together until the sugar dissolved, and then poured it over the roast in the slow cooker. My husband 'massaged' the seasoning into the roast, and I cut the two pears up and placed them on the roast, and instead of an orange, I cut up two mandarins and placed them on the roast because I already had them and needed to use them up.

     Here is the yumminess 9 hours later. I woke up for work Friday morning and could smell this roast all the way upstairs, and it smelled delicious!!

     And I ate it for lunch....

     And dinner!

     One of the many reasons I love cooking with a slow cooker is because the meat is just so tender! This pork roast was delicious, and it was very easy to cut out portions. I could definitely taste the sweetness from the pomegranate juice and sugar, and getting some of the juice from the bottom of the slow cooker to eat along with the meat enhanced the flavor. I would probably add some more of the mixture of seasonings for the next time I make this roast, because I felt like the flavors from the steak seasoning and garlic powder was a little lost inside the sweetness of the fruit.

     Do you like cooking with a slow cooker? What are some of your favorite recipes? Thanks for reading! 

Yummy Chicken Salad with No Mayo!

     Ok, I know I haven't been blogging on here regularly for a couple of months, but these past two months have been so busy! During December there was a stretch where I worked for 12 days straight, and every night my husband and I had a dinner or get-together to attend.

     Anyway, I haven't been able to keep up with polishing my nails like I want to. These days I try and paint my nails about once a week. It's really hard to find the time to paint my nails every three days or so, but I hope to get to painting my nails again, like I used to, soon. 

     However, in the mean time, I've been trying out some different recipes, and I've taken some pictures to show you how they came out! 

     I've been craving chicken salad lately, and I hate mayonnaise with a passion. Thus, I find myself on Pinterest looking up ways to make chicken salad without mayonnaise....and I find this recipe:

     I've been substituting Greek yogurt for mayonnaise in recipes for a while now, and I knew chicken salad would be no different. I used this recipe with some tweaks. 

     Keep in mind I made just enough for myself to eat, so I used:

     Approximately 3/4 cup of Bi-Lo rotisserie chicken

     1/2 of an Avocado

     Approximately 4 oz. of Greek yogurt

     Lime juice from one quarter of a lime

     A little pinch of sea salt and seasoning salt

(I didn't have the cilantro or the green onion available, so I just left that out.) I mixed all the ingredients together...and it was...amazing!! I loved it! I have only recently been a fan of chicken salad, but I've always hated the heavy quality of it, the fact that I could taste the mayo, and I knew how bad it was for me. This tasted very fresh, very light, very much like chicken salad without the heaviness, and the lime juice really added a tang that just made it perfect. And the best part? I calculated all of that to around 330 calories!

     I decided to pair the chicken salad with Town House Flatbread Crisps in Sea Salt & Olive Oil (which my friend just got me addicted to!), because I don't like my chicken salad on a sandwich, I like it as a dip. :)  

Here is another yummy looking recipe that I found on Pinterest:

What do you think? Will you be trying this recipe? Would you change or add anything? Thanks for reading!!    

Marital Cooking Practice #1: Salsa Rice

     Ok, I know this has nothing to do with makeup or beauty products. BUT, I am getting married this year, and I need some practice cooking for my future hubby so that we don't starve! So, I decided that each week I will attempt to cook at least one item, and post pictures and tell you about the experience.
     This week I decided to try a very simple recipe from Dr. Weil's Optimum Health Plan e-mails that I receive once a day, and it is called Salsa Rice.
     The ingredients are only brown rice and a salsa of your choice. The recipe says to use 2 tbsp of salsa per 1/2 cup of rice, and the instructions are to just mix the salsa into the rice.
     So, after work today I went to the local Food Lion and picked up Minute Instant Whole Grain Brown Rice and Herdez Medium Salsa.

     When I got home, I just followed the directions for cooking the rice on the stove, which were to boil the water, add the rice, and simmer for five minutes, covered.

     After the rice had soaked up all of the water, I began to add the salsa 2 tbsp at a time, until I reached the desired taste. I believe I ended up with 8 tbsp of salsa in 3 cups of rice. I stirred the salsa and the rice together, and it honestly just made a beautiful color when mixed. I added salt as needed.

     When the rice was done, it tasted just like it sounds. The rice was very fulfilling, with a tomato and pepper salsa taste added. The salsa taste was not overwhelming, but you can obviously add as much salsa as you like to get more flavor. It's such an easy recipe to throw together for a quick side with chicken or any meat you have prepared. Let me know what you think if you try it!