sharing some of my favorite recipes

My good friend Talia who just recently moved in with her boyfriend at IU asked me to share some recipes with her. I thought that this would make for a good time to post some of them here for everyone to enjoy. I'm not posting any of my soup or stew recipes here so post and let me know if you would like me to make a separate post for that.

For some reason, when I paste my links here they aren't working so go to www.cookinglight.com/food/recipe-finder/

Search for these recipes...

• Pork chops with Maple Mustard Glaze
• Latin Baked Chicken
• Cheese Enchilda Casserole
• Pork Chops with Country gravy - this is a favorite I haven't made in a long time... really good with mashed potatoes (try Bob Evans refrigerated mashed potatoes)
• Barbecue Rubbed Pork Chops - This rub is also excellent on chicken!
• Fettucine Alfredo with Bacon - I haven't actually tried this one but wanted to throw some pasta in here.

Here's a good slow cooker recipe that I found as I was flipping thru my recipe book...
Chicken Stew
3 medium potatoes
2 cups of baby-cut carrots
1 package of whole mushrooms cut in half
about 2.5 lbs of chicken
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp of instant chopped onion
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 jar (15 oz) roasted chicken gravy
1/2 cup of dry white wine or water.

Toss potatoes, carrots and mushrooms in a slow cooker, arrange chicken on top. Sprinkle salt, onion and garlic powder over chicken. Stir tomato paste into the gravy, pour mixture and wine or water over all. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or until vegetables are tender.

Parmesan Chicken Breasts
1 1/2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
4 tso dried oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp pepper
2 eggs
4 tbsp butter

Pound the chicken breasts til they are thin, combine the cheese thru pepper on a place. In another shallow bowl, beat the eggs (you can also just use water). Dip the chicken in the water then the cheese mixture, coating well on both sides.

Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat (a higher heat will scorch and melt the cheese) and saute for 4-5 minutes per side, or until cooked thru.

Here is one that I love but it makes a TON so I would highly recommend cutting this in half unless you plan to feed an army!

Crockpot Lasagna
1 box of rigatoni, cooked
1 1/2 lbs of ground chuck, browned and drained
1 pkg of sliced pepperoni
1 green pepper, chopped
2 large packages of mozzarella cheese
2 jars of pizza sauce
2 large cans of sliced mushrooms
green olives, sliced

Put all ingredients in crockpot and cook on low for 5 hours.

Okay, I hope that's enough to get you started with. Let me know if you have any questions or any other requests!

why am I sitting inside updating my blog when it's gorgeous outside?

Ah, yes, it's because I have a sleeping toddler upstairs. I can NOT believe he's going to be 2 in just 2 weeks! AGH, seriously where does the time go? I think that the terrible 2's have started early, he has been into everything lately and driving mama nuts. The other day, he broke the Indianapolis snowglobe that Brad bought for me a couple of years ago. :( He loves jumping (even though his feet don't come off the ground! HA HA) He got his first little scuff on his knee the other day just walking out of the gym with me but fell forward a little bit, he didn't even cry, such a big boy! The big thing that I wanted to mention is that last week he said "go bye car" which is huge for him!

Another reason I'm inside is because Brad went out for a bike ride. I guess he was feeling guilty that I have ridden 55 miles this week so I think he was going to ride about 10, HA! That's okay, I'm glad he's finally getting some use out of his $600 bike that he got 3 years ago that only has about 30 miles on it! Mine has over 450 now. I finished my first sprint triathlon last week and it was tons of fun. I still don't like swimming but I did it and will probably do more. There is one in Fishers this month that I would like to do but they are expensive. Anyone want to sponsor me? ;) I am trying to get some major mileage on my bike this month as I really want to do the hilly hundred next month but it's kinda dependent upon the weather since it will be October in Indiana, you just never know.

We are doing family photos next week and I'm really excited about that so I will update that soon! Off to do some shopping online! :)

Long time, no see!

Well I know it has been forever since I have updated this and I was just looking at the blog and it still had a Christmas background and Christmas photos so I thought it might be time to update. It's summer now and we've been having a great one. I'm not going to add any photos to this post because there would be a ton and anyone who is reading this can see our photos on facebook. We are all doing really well. Wes is growing like a weed... speaking of weeds, I have some serious weeds that I need to get outside and pull but it's a little difficult with a toddler running around. Wes had his 2nd dentist appointment today, he wasn't too thrilled about it but thankfully our dentist is super fast and counted his teeth and brushed them really quick and we were out of there. She is super nice and I highly recommend Dr. Carol McKowan in Carmel, IN.

Wes is also still doing his speech therapy which he is doing really well with. I have actually started making a list of all of the words he says now and it's really adding up so here we go.... He says... toe, shoes, socks, juice, dada, doggy, truck, car, woof, duck, choo choo, go, chips, boo, book, vroom, more, bath, bubbles, pop, and cheese. Some of these words may be one's that he doesn't say very often and there are more words he has said but only said them once so I may not have written them down. But he is definitely communicating so much better with us which makes life so much easier. He also understands a lot more of what we are saying which I have to be thankful to the ear tubes for that b/c he never really used to do things that we said before b/c I know he didn't hear us probably. Now we can ask him something and he will shake his head yes or no or if we ask him if he's ready for bed, he will run over to the gate. Oh and most of the time he just shakes his head no and then usually changes his mind a few seconds later, very rarely does he shake his head yes! HA HA He loves lots of things but mostly loves cars, he really likes playing outside and we have been having a fantastic time at the lake and finally got him in the water last week and he loved it. He doesn't like spray parks but we went to the pool at sahm park which had some sprayers and he really had fun there but really just wanted to be a big kid and go in the deep end.

I can't really answer for Brad but all is well with us here on the homefront too, Brad has been busy working and I've been busy doing everything else and working out like a mad woman as most of you know. I have started swimming with my friend Kathryn and am working my way up to doing a triathlon very soon (hopefully). I'm still not a great swimmer but getting there and it has been really fun to keep doing it and finally see some progress!

I better run because Wes is in the living room getting into some things that he shouldn't be and I need to go change clothes so that I can go swim with Kathryn! I hope that you all are having a fantastic and safe summer!