Sunday Dinner with the New CrockPot

I've actually had a request to add more recipes to my blog, so here's one of my favorites. We just finished an awesome Sunday dinner, thanks to my trip to the farmer's market and my new crock pot.

Dinner started off with a salad of fresh gourmet greens, including some amazingly delicious arugula. There were also vine ripened tomatoes, radishes, sliced olives, and shredded cheese.


I started cooking the swiss chicken this morning, so it was ready when we got home from church. It's a super easy meal that we all enjoy. Since Kona woke up at 6:30am, the chicken was started at 6:45am, and was cooking by 6:55am.

Step 1. Spray the crockpot with cooking spray.

Step 2. Place the chicken breasts or chicken tenders on the bottom of the crockpot. I usually use chicken tenders, or if I use the chicken breasts, I make sure they're thin.

Step 3. Pour 3 cans of cream of chicken soup, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and 3 small cans of mushrooms on the chicken.

Step 4. Cover the soup mixture with slices of swiss cheese.

Step 5. Dump a package of stuffing (I used 2) on top of the cheese.

Step 6. Cook on low for 8 hours.


So, when we got home from church, I made the salads. Tim grilled the asparagus (also from the farmer's market).

Tim dished up the swiss chicken and threw away a slice of cheese. He thought it was some sort of "skin". I mention this only to warn you what you might find under the stuffing, and also so you won't throw away one of the best parts of the meal!

So, Sunday dinner at our house was a hit today. Oh and we have enough leftovers that we'll have more chicken again later this week.

Saturdays are Busy

This has been a super busy Saturday. Kona woke me at 5:30am to go outside and then I was awake, so I decided to head out for a run.

I actually got 6 miles done and felt great! When I got home, I took Kona for a walk around the neighborhood to cool down. He decided he was in kind of a naughty mood.

Then it was home for a shower. At some point, Kona found a kleenex box and we ended up with this in our living room.

Tim and Rylan headed off to put the bumper on the cruiser (more on that in a minute) and I headed to the Cache Valley Gardener's Market. Tim says I am a sucker for farmer's markets and he's probably right. I went with the intention of buying some lettuce. I came home with 2 bags of gourmet organic lettuce, a bag of spinach, a bag of over the top delicious arugula, a jar of raspberry jam, 2 mini strawberry pies, 2 mini razzleberry tarts, and a bunch of radishes. I'm thinking that Tim is probably right.

When I got home, I dropped off the yummy goodness I bought, and Kyra and I headed to my parents. We were planning on finishing planting our vegetable garden, but the soil is too wet, so we helped my parents plant 25 arctic willow bushes.
Here's the before picture.

Here's the after picture.

Oh and in the middle of this, Kona decided that he's lost his fear of water and went to play in the canal.

He got to come home smelling like a swamp.

When the planting was done, we headed out to Tim's dad's house, except we had to turn around and head home to bring the jeep Tim's dad is selling to a mechanic for an inspection. Anyways, Tim came to pick us up and we headed to McDonald's for a quick lunch. Then, we got to spend the next 5 hours helping Tim put the new 200 lb bumper on the cruiser.


Here's the mostly finished product.

In the middle of all of this, Tim sold his dad's jeep. Here's my father-in-law's dance of joy!

I headed home with the kids and pulled out the chicken for dinner tomorrow, as well as the frozen pizza for dinner tonight.

While dinner was cooking, it was off to McDonalds to pick up our movies. We love the redbox!

So, now we're lying in bed, with Kona, watching "Knight and Day"...dumb movie, but entertaining... I'm just glad that the day is almost over.

So...I Guess We Need a New Crock Pot

Dinner tonight was supposed to go much better than last night, however...

It started off great. The spaghetti sauce simmered in the crock pot all day. The salads were made. The garlic bread was toasted perfectly. The pasta was a very nice al dente. Tim and I ate our dinner and I started to clean up...

That's when it happened. Our beloved crock pot slipped into the sink while I was putting the sauce into tupperwares for the freezer, and the handle broke off. Tim asked if I needed to take Kitchen Safety 101 over again.

Perhaps, I should be done cooking this week.

You Know Dinner is Going to Suck When the Steaks are on FIRE!

A few weeks ago, Tim's dad gave us some ribeye steaks. I'm not a fan of ribeyes, but Tim likes them so I decided to cook them tonight. Apparently, that was a very bad idea.



This morning I marinated the steaks in Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper. I let them sit out while the grill warmed up, and cooked the mashed potatoes. I put the steaks on the grill and looked at my watch so I could turn the steaks over after 4 minutes. I prefer a rare to medium rare steak, so after 4 minutes, I went to check on the steaks and they were on fire...literally, on fire...like I had to blow out the flames when I flipped them. Of course, Kona had to poop in the middle of all this. Welcome to my life...

I turned the steaks over, turned the grill down to low heat, took the dog out for his evening dump, and hurried back inside to get the steaks off the grill. They were still on fire.

So, I pulled them off and yes, I did have to blow out the flames on the steaks, let them rest and finished the mashed potatoes and broccoli. I told Tim I cremated the steaks. He didn't believe me until he walked into the kitchen and saw them. Because he's such a great guy, he laughed, and said, "I'm sure they'll taste great with salsa on them."

We both ate our ribeye jerky and I decided that I will leave the ribeye grilling up to Tim. Oh and I should mention that I actually do an awesome job cooking steaks.

A Busy Couple of Weeks

So, we're halfway through May and I haven't had a second to blog about life. Here's what's been going on...

-Spring is here. With spring has come some flooding...now I should clarify that flooding in UT is much different than flooding in the midwest.




This waterfall is NEVER there, so it's definitely flooding.

- We've been going to lots of Rylan's soccer games. I always forget my camera, so no pictures. It's been a discouraging season because his team hasn't scored ANY goals. I think Ry will be glad when it's over.

- We're still working on the cruiser. Tim has all of the pictures of that, but I think we're getting closer to being done. There are still several tasks, like building the mounting brackets for the ARB compressor, putting the carpet back in the rear, mounting the new bumper, and putting on the roof rack. I'm hopeful it will be done soon, but we'll see.

- I've been learning to crochet and have actually made 3 pair of baby booties. My new nephew will be getting some camo booties when he arrives in July.

- My friend and the best massage therapist in the world got married on Friday.


If that dress looks familiar, it's because she bought it from me. Yep, that's the dress I was married in. She made some changes and the dress looked absolutely gorgeous on her.

- The tulips are out!











- I'm doing the Little Red Riding Hood Century ride in a couple of weeks and the Ragnar Relay a couple of weeks after that, so I've been running with Kona and even took Oscar out for a spin this weekend. I'm hoping to get out and ride a bunch more in the next few weeks. This morning before my run, Kona and I saw two sandhill cranes "dancing" in the field next to our house. Of course, my camera didn't get any "dancing" shots, but I did get a not great picture of the cranes.



We also saw a couple of deer laying in a field while we were running. See if you can see them in this picture!


So, that's what I've been up to for the past couple of weeks. Things are going to get pretty busy here, pretty soon. Tim and I were looking at the calendar and we have something planned every weekend until the middle of July. Yep, life is truly good!