Some new recipes and good finds!

Happy Friday Everyone!


As I have mentioned before, Brian and I love steak..we really would eat steak every night if it didn't get so expensive. I have been trying to find new recipes for chicken to mix it up for us a little and this week I tried two.


The first one is Garlic Chicken. It was really easy and tasted great!

Ingredients:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 tablespoons brown sugar

3 teaspoons olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.( I cooked mine at 425, 500 seemed very high)

In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.

Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.

Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes. ( I used very thin cuts of chicken and cooked for 20 mins..it turned out a little dry so next time I will only cook them for 15)

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-garlic-chicken-5478#ixzz1xtGotq2y

The second recipe I tried was Zesty Italian Crockpot Chicken..its a new favorite!

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts

1 packet dry Zesty Italian dressing (Regular is fine but I like zesty better. Sometimes I use a packet and a half.)

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1-2 cans cream of chicken soup (depending how cream cheesy you want it)

Directions:

Place the chicken in a crockpot and sprinkle Italian dressing over it. Combine cream cheese and cream of chicken soup in a small pot over low heat and pour over chicken. Cook on low in the crockpot for at least 4 hours. You can leave it in there all day.  Once chicken is done you can leave the chicken breasts whole, cube it, or even shred it. I always cut the breasts into tenderloin size strips. Once you have cut up the chicken, throw it back in the crockpot and stir into the sauce.
If you feel the sauce is too thick you can thin it to your preferred consistency with a little milk. Serve over pasta or rice.

Easy right?

Oh and I cant forget this last recipe!

Oh my goodness! This is our new favorite cookie. SO good!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 package chocolate instant pudding mix

2 sticks of butter (softened)

2 eggs at room temperature

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

white chocolate (or other variety) chips

Directions:

Cream together the sugars, butter, vanilla, and pudding mix (careful that pudding mix will fly everywhere if you aren’t careful!). Beat in eggs. Mix in flour and baking soda. Stir in the white chocolate chips. I use just over half a bag, but go with your gut on how many chips you like.

Scoop with a medium sized cookie scoop onto parchment or silicon mat lined baking sheet. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes until edges are just beginning to brown (hard to tell with chocolate cookies, but 10 minutes should be just about right on the button). Allow to cool on wire baking rack.

I think I've mentioned before that we have had great success in finding games at goodwill. Well here is a photo of all of our games and puzzles. I believe all but one game came from goodwill or garage sales. Never pay full price for games people! Most of these were less than $2!

Today I found tons of great DVDs at goodwill for $2.99 each. I ended up bringing 3 home. I admit I probably couldn't have picked 3 more different types of movies if I tried but I like them all and it was a great deal!

What great deals have you found lately?