Quick Meal: Roasted Corn and Chicken Carbonara Lightener Up!

Yummy and quite the crowd pleaser!  I got this idea from Pinterest, but changed it to fit my time constraints and lightened it up a bit for a healthy dinner.

Roasted Corn and Chicken Carbonara

1 Chicken breast ( I threw mine in a mini crockpot with some chicken stock earlier in the afternoon, made this easy because the chicken just fell apart!)
1 package of Linguini
Half a pack (about 6 oz) of Fat Free Cream Cheese or Neufchetal Cheese
1 Cup Chicken Stock/Veggie Stock
6 strips of Turkey Bacon
1 1/2 cups of Trader Joes' Roasted Corn (AMAZING and should be a freezer staple!)
1 cup of frozen peas
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 garlic clove minced
Parmesan Cheese for sprinkling


1.  Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook pasta, about 10 minutes.
2.  In a medium pot or sauce pan over medium heat, add the oil and turkey bacon.  Brown bacon will crispy.
3.  Add the chicken to the bacon and break up into chunks.  Stir and immediately add corn and peas.
4.  Lower the heat to medium/low.
5.  In a small pot, add cream cheese and chicken or veggie stock.  Stir until cheese cheese has melted and a cream sauce has been created.  Add garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper. (You now have a healthy version of an Alfredo!)
6.  Once the pasta is cooked, drain, reserving about a 1/4 cup of the pasta water.  Add the pasta to the bacon/veggie/chicken mixture and pour the cream sauce on top!
7.  Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve!

I have some seriously picky eaters in my house, but they cleaned their plates!  :)  Plus, the hubby liked the addition of bacon to my usual pasta and pea dishes.  He would have preferred the real deal bacon, but he said that it was tasty all the same.  I save some fat and calories too.  This meal took about 35 minutes from opening the cabinet to get the pot to serving my last hungry mouth!

Quick Dinner: Roasted Tomato Polenta and Oven Roasted Chicken Breast

Oven Roasted Tomato Polenta and Chicken

This is a quick and easy "gourmet" dish.  From beginning to end it took about 30 minutes!  Plus it's economically since I only used two chicken breasts and half of the bunch of organic tomatoes!  I can use the rest tonight for dinner--Mexican this time I think.

Ingredients:

1 cup Instant Polenta (I used Ferraro)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

2 Chicken breasts halfed (this is where you can save money, half them so everyone gets an adequate portion without going overboard

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

a handful of fresh basil chopped

3 garlic cloves still in skin

4 organic (or not) Compari tomatoes

dash of Italian season and salt and pepper to season chicken

1.  Preheat oven to 350.

2.  Grease baking dish with olive oil. Half chicken breasts (so now you have 4 pieces of chicken) and put them in the dish (move them around a little).  Season one side of the chicken with Italian seasonings and salt and pepper and then repeat with the other side.

3.  Cut tomatoes into three parts and place them on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with a little pepper.  Sprinkle your basil on top!

4.  Place both the chicken and the tomatoes in the oven.  The chicken will cook for 15 minutes and then you will flip the pieces and cook for another 15 minutes.  At the halfway point you can take out the tomatoes and place them to the side.

5.  During the first 15 minutes of cooking, pour yourself a glass of wine or tea and hang out.  Once the first 15 minutes are up and the tomatoes are out, start the polenta.

6.  Follow the directions on the box, but I warn you polenta cooks VERY fast and you need to whisk or stir to get rid of lumps.  

7.  Once your polenta has finished cooking, add your butter and cheese.  Stir until the butter melts and then add your tomatoes.  Smash your garlic to get the skins off.  (Don't worry the garlic won't be as strong as it is in raw form)  I added a basil leaf to pretty it up, but it's not necessary!  

8.  Your chicken should be done, just check to make sure it isn't pink.

9.  Serve!

Easy Peasy Choco Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Easy Peasy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I snatched this recipe from Milk and Cookies!  It is the quickest, easiest chocolate cookie recipe that you can throw together with ingredients you may already have in your cupboards!  The baby has been begging for cookies and milk, so this was an afternoon snack that hit the spot!  You can find the recipe here, but I cut it a little short on the butter, about a stick and a half instead of two and lightened up on the flour!  It also freezes beautifully!

This is their dramatic cookie face!  Nothing is more serious than enjoying chocolate..oh and Daddy, I may have allowed them to lick the spoons....don't hate me :)

I tried it, take 2! Sticky Paint

This idea is genius and delicious!  What is there not to like about sweetened condensed milk???  This paint is made in a muffin tin with the sweet stuff and food coloring!  I had to slap my own hand from trying to eat the paint--what am I back in kindergarten???

They had so much fun painting!  When it dries, it has a wet look to it.  I originally saw this idea on Pinterest and the pinner said that this was mess-free....uh not so much.  At least not when you do it with toddlers.  Come to think of it, what is mess free when toddlers are involved?  There was actually a good deal of mess but since the paint is think it pretty much stuck to that drop cloth.  I would be careful doling it in a carpeted area.  ( Our carpet is on its way out the door, so I didn't care. :) )

Sorry for the dizzy picture but picture manager didn't allow me to alter this for some reason, but I did want to show how cool it was that they mixed colors in the extra muffin wells.

Overall it was a great idea and I am glad that I tried this pin.  Super cheap, since a can of the milk costs about $1.99 and the kids love the feel (and taste-I let them try it prior to coloring it) of it!

UPDATE: I said I would try it and I did!

** My original post did not include my inspiration picture from The Happy Housewife.  It is included now below.
Ok so in the new year I vowed that some of my pinning would not be done in vain....I wanted my thousands (and I mean thousands) of pins to mean something.  :)  I vowed that I would do at least one pin a week!  Last week I did two--but today we'll just get into the first!

I found these DIY tile coasters on Pinterest some time ago and have been wanting to try them.  Last week, my MOPS group met to have a crafty little play date and our crafty chairlady decided to do these coasters!  It was perfect--one pin down!

The original coasters are came from The Happy Housewife, a blog that I love to check for cool DIY ideas!  You should check her blog out--very good stuff!

I made mine with:

• Porcelain Tiles (Home Depot--about 0.40 each)
• Mod Podge
• Scrapbooking Paper
• Polyurethane Spray for finishing  

1. First cut your scrapbooking paper to fit the size of your tile (TIP:  If the scrapbooking paper is of thicker quality then cut it slightly smaller than your square.  The Mod Podge is great, but it won't mold the paper or be sticky enough to stick the paper down completely and then you will have corners that pop up!)
2. Apply Mod Podge to both the backside of the paper, as well as the tile and fix the paper to the tile.
3. Let dry for a few minutes and then apply 2-3 coats of Mod Podge on top of the whole coaster.
4. Let the coaster dry for at least 20 minutes.
5. Once the coaster has dried and there isn't that tacky feeling, go to a well ventilated room (outside is best) and spray a coat of the Polyurethane spray on top.  Let it dry and then you are done!

My friend Chrissy made monogrammed DIY coasters for her friends and family and they turned out GREAT!  Very cute gifts, especially for teachers!

Spinach Salad with Low Fat Horseradish Ranch

I have never been one to whip up salads for meals, but for the birthday party this past weekend, I figured that I should provide a healthy side dish for my guests.  :)  The girls helped me with this one!  Making the dressing may sound silly when you can just buy some at the store, but keeping foods whole is better for you.  I figure that if it can sit on a shelf, unrefrigerated for any number of days, it must have some kind of preservatives in it.  And if it can sit on that shelf for that long, how long can it sit in your stomach?

  They even ate the leftovers the next day with dinner--well everything but the tomatoes!

Spinach Salad
bag of baby spinach
2 hard boiled eggs diced
cherry tomatoes
garlic croutons
half of a white onion, sliced
bacon chopped  ( looking back I will use turkey bacon)
1/2 package of baby bella mushrooms

Horseradish Ranch Dressing
3 TBS Low fat milk
1 TBS Horseradish
Half a packet of ranch seasoning
1/2 cup of low fat or fat free sour cream

Whisk with a small whisk or fork, until the mixture is smooth and creamy.  Add more sour cream if it is too thin or more milk if it is too thick.

Enjoy!
Mix it up and

Caroline's Birthday: Fairy Wands!

In going with the Abby Cadabby theme, fairy wands were a must for party favors!  We made these pretty cheaply and they took about and hour to make 9.  They even turned out to be a hit with the boys!

They take just a few supplies:

• a roll of tulle (get the kind in the bridal department at Michael's or Joann's-it's already 6 or 7 inches in width)
• string
• dowels (Home Depot will cut the 3 foot dowels for you into 12 inch wands--only $0.80 a dowel and you get 3 wands from 1 dowel!)
• various notions, I used the $1 bin ric rac and ribbon
• Hot Glue Gun
• glitter and mod podge for decorating the dowel (optional)

I started by decoupaging the dowels, although this is totally optional.  They would look cute without this step.

Once the dowels are dry, cut the tulle into 7 four inch strips.  Fold the strips accordion style and tie string the in the middle and fluff your layers out.  ( Remember those tissue paper flowers we used to make in elementary school??  Same technique!)

Take your hot glue gun and glue random strips of ribbon, ric rac, or anything else that you want to hang from the wand.  I thought about taking some of their broken play necklaces and using those but we unfortunately were attached to them.... ( Really???)  Glue the notions to the tip top of the dowel.

Once the notions are secure, hot glue the tulle puff to the top!  Ok now that I am typing out the instructions, they sounds like a lot of work--but trust me they are totally worth it!  The kids played with the all evening!

Now you have awesome fairy wands, wizard wands, whatever you want to call them!  They are great for dress up or a good game of chase.  :)

Yes they are in their jammies.  Yes that is a lollipop hanging from her mouth........No, they didn't have lollipops for breakfast that day, but they got one when they finished--hey sometimes it's not worth the fight.