so, what's going on?

What's going on? I keep asking myself the same question, what's going on in my life? Well, I figure I'll take a few minutes to answer that question for myself and for my readers (who might be interested).

What's going on is this...

• Justin and I are AMAZING, could not be happier and things are definitely going in the right direction.
• I am in the process of interviewing for a job at the in-n-out opening up in Riverton. It's kinda weird that I'm going back to in-n-out, but I realize that I had so much fun working there before, and I actually know what I'm doing!
• Justin and I are saving our money for BIG things in the future, i.e. a wedding (someday), a house (someday), and a family (someday).
• I am trying to lose 15 pounds.
• Justin and I have lots of adventures planned for this summer.

And, I think that's pretty much it for now. I am definitely going to try even harder to keep this updated MORE throughout this summer!

Cooking Up a Storm!

So, I feel like I have been cooking up a storm lately. I made chicken pot pie last week, macaroni and cheese from scratch on Sunday, and then on Wednesday I made chicken cordon bleu and rice pilaf from scratch (all under 500 calories I might add).

Justin and I are trying to go on a diet and start exercising more, so I'm hoping to cook some more healthy meals, more often. I want to look good in a bikini this summer (or at least attempt to look good! LOL!).

I figured that I would share the chicken cordon bleu and rice pilaf recipes, so here they are!

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Prep: 20 minutes Cook: 20 minutes Makes: 4 servings

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
4 slices prosciutto or cooked ham
4 slices Swiss cheese (3 ounces)
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

1. Place each chicken breast half between two pieces of plastic wrap (or wax paper). Using the flat side of a meat mallet, pound chicken lightly into rectangles about 1/8 inch thick. Remove plastic wrap.
2. Place a slice of prosciutto and a slice of cheese on each chicken piece. Fold in side edges; roll up from bottom edge. Secure with wooden toothpicks.
3. In a medium skillet cook rolls in hot butter over medium-low heat for 20 to 25 minutes or until no longer pink, turning to brown evenly. Remove toothpicks before serving.

Rice Pilaf

Prep: 20 minutes Cook: 15 minutes Makes: 4 to 6 side-dish servings

3/4 cup uncooked long grain rice or basmati rice

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 14-ounce can reduced-sodium chicken broth

1/4 cup dried currants or raisins (optional)

1/4 cup chopped carrot or red or green sweet pepper

1/4 cup dry white wine, apple juice, or water

1/4 teaspoon dried basil, oregano, or Italian seasoning, crushed

1/2 cup green onion, sliced (4)

1/4 cup pine nuts, slivered almonds, or chopped pecans toasted

2 slices bacon, crisp-cooked, drained, and crumbled, or 1/4 cup chopped cooked ham

1. In a medium saucepan cook and stir the rice and garlic in hot butter for 3 to 5 minutes or until rice is light brown.
2. Carefully stir in the chicken broth, currants (if desired), carrot, wine, and basil. Bring mixture to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the green onion, pine nuts, and bacon.

*Note: You may substitute 1 3/4 cups water and 1 1/2 teaspoon instant chicken bouillon granules for the chicken broth.

I hope you try these recipes and enjoy them as much as Justin and I did (along with his family)! I served this with broccoli and cauliflower, and it added a perfect amount of vegetable flavors to the meal!

I'm definitely going to start sharing my HEALTHY recipes that I find, that Justin and I like.

DELICIOUS Chicken Pot Pie

So, Justin and I went out to eat the other night with Kyle and Rachael and the girls, and I ordered the chicken pot pie. When it came to the table, I was a little disappointed. Sitting on the plate/bowl in front of me was a GIANT piece of bread (that was similar to a crescent) on top of a bowl of soup. I ate it, with no complaints, but in my mind I kept thinking, I could have totally made a chicken pot pie that was way better than this!

Yesterday, while I was sitting at home filling out some papers for work, I decided that I was going to look in my cookbook to see if I had a recipe for chicken pot pie. Better Homes & Gardens let me down, no chicken pot pie recipe. Off to the internet I went. GOOGLE was my friend! It gave me SEVERAL different options for recipes, so I looked at them and decided on one.

I looked in the pantry figuring out what ingredients I would need, and off to the store I went. I decided to buy the pie crusts instead of making them homemade. YES homemade are better, but also a little more time consuming. I came home and put it all together. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. And, after the 15-20 minutes of "prepping the inside", it only took 30 minutes to cook. Justin's parents, and he and I enjoyed it for dinner. Everyone loved it, and for Justin who doesn't really like anything with bread (including chicken pot pie), he really liked it! In my mind, MOVE OVER Marie Callendar's, here come's Terri Ann! It was so good!

A few friends asked for the recipe, so here it is:

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed
1 cup sliced carrots (I used carrot chips, work just as well)
1 cup frozen peas
(I added 1 cup frozen corn, it added to the vegetables, and healthiness, and gave it a little bit of a sweet taste, you can also use 1/2 cup peas and 1/2 cup corn... either way will be GREAT!)
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 3/4 cups chicken broth (which comes out to just about 1 regular sized can)
2/3 cup milk

2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C)

2. In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, peas, and celery (and corn if you add the corn). Add water to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.

3. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.

4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

(I cooked the chicken mixture and the "hot liquid mixture" at the same time in separate pans. It saved a lot of time!)

I hope that you try this recipe, it was DELICIOUS and I cannot wait to make it again!

The Best Boyfriend in the World

So, I have the best boyfriend in the world. He is amazing, I'm not even exaggerating!
He does things for me EVERYDAY that are amazing and show me how much he loves me (sometimes I feel like I don't do enough). But, yesterday was wonderful. He left for work at about 6:45ish, and at 7:02 I get a text from him, "I just broke my phone". I couldn't believe it! Our $400 phones, that he had been telling me for the past 2 weeks to be careful with, and not to break (especially not until we got insurance), he had just broken. He told me that he dropped it out of the truck when he got to work. So, I told him that I would call and purchase insurance for his phone, and then we could send in his phone for a new one. I called and they said I didn't have authorization to do that (which is weird because when we got our phones, we made sure that I had authorization on everything). So, he said he would take care of it on his lunch break. Luckily it was only a little bit of the corner of his screen that broke, so it still worked. He went into Verizon on his lunch break, bought the insurance, and then called me and asked if I wanted a cover for my phone. We had talked about it before that I didn't need one, that I would be SUPER careful with my phone, but that if I did get one, it had to be pink. So, I repeated that same thing to him, he said, "Well babe, I found one that's pink and I just want your phone to be safe, so we don't have to spend more money later." So, he bought me a bright pink cover, it is amazing! He is amazing, I still wonder how I got so lucky! He is always doing little things to surprise me, and it really makes my day, I really need to try and find things to do to show him how grateful I am for him.

Ch-ch-changes!

So, I have made some more changes in my life (once again), or at least I've changed my address. I moved Memorial Day weekend into Justin's parents house, along with Justin. Oh my, it was an experience in and of itself moving. I moved all of my stuff out of my apartment last Saturday, contract was sold and it was PERFECT! Then, the plan was to move Justin out of his apartment on Wednesday. Ya, well as I've realized over the years, whenever you're making plans with a boy, they tend to change! We started packing up some of his stuff on Tuesday, and were going to finish on Wednesday and then take it all over to his parents on Wednesday night. I was dumb that morning and put in "The Dark Knight" so we could have something to listen to while we packed, it ended up I did most of the packing and Justin sat there watching the movie. It was a little funny, because I really should have known.
Luckily, Justin took Thursday and Friday off of work as well, so we put a pause on packing Wednesday and finished packing everything Thursday morning. I had a rental car for work, and the guys at the rental car place are pretty much in love with me, and they gave me an F150 (which is my dream truck!). So, we had 2 F150s to take things 1-mile over to Justin's parents house. We decided that we would do the D.I. drop off of stuff first then start taking things over to the parents. At about 12:30 we had both of our trucks packed up and Justin's apartment was pretty much empty. We started unloading the trucks and realized that we had to wait to move stuff in until later when Justin went back to the apartment with his brother and got the bed and the rest of the bedroom furniture. So, we were at a little bit of a standstill until 5:30 when Kyle got off work. (I still get frustrated thinking about this, because I totally could have helped Justin lift the bed and bedroom furniture, but in his mind I'm a "little girl" and can't lift anything heavy. I proved him wrong though when I carried his heavy safe down all by myself!) Anyways, we FINALLY got all of the stuff moved in by about 7:00, with plenty of time for us to sit down and relax before bed!
Friday morning, I had to work so Justin and I went and cleaned the apartment before I had to leave. I didn't realize how filthy boys are, until I had to clean up a boys apartment (GROSS!). Luckily, I had been cleaning some parts of it since Justin and I started dating, so it wasn't TOO bad! While I was at work, Justin surprised me with unpacking all of his clothes and putting his suitcases into our storage. It was a pleasant surprise, because it meant that I didn't have to do it, and I only had to do my own. And, on Friday afternoon as a moving-in gift/I'm sorry we didn't go to CA gift, Justin got me 2 new frogs (which are actually Fire Bellied Toads). And, they are the cutest things, EVER! We went to sushi later with Justin's bro and sis-in-law and their 3 girls. It was my first time having sushi, and it wasn't quite as bad as I had imagined it would be. I even ate fish eggs and squid.
Saturday, I attempted to sleep-in, but living in a house with 4 kids under the age of 5, sleeping in is only an attempt, not possible. I got woken up at 7:30 by the sound of a 5-year old screaming, "DOUGHNUTS!" We'll just say, I wasn't the happiest person that morning. On Saturday, I finished unpacking my clothes and things and Justin and I spent the day relaxing.
On Sunday, once again, we were exhausted and spent the entire day with Justin's family. We're definitely getting a lot of family time, now that we're living with his parents. Currently there are pretty much 4 different families living under this roof (if you consider Justin and I a family). Justin's parents, his older brother and sis-in-law with their 2 sons and 1 daughter, his sister and her son, and then there's me an Justin. It makes a grand total of 11 people in a 6 bedroom house (7 if you include the trailer). Lately, the couches have all been taken (every night) and every bed has been taken as well.
Monday was a fun day! Kyle (Justin's brother) came over and needed to borrow Justin's truck, so of course Justin obliged and then went back to sleep, leaving me to watch Milo, Gaby, and Sofia (their 3 daughters). LOL! About an hour later, Kyle and Rachael (Kyle's wife) come home and Rachael is BAWLING, we came to find out that Rachael's grandma had just passed away. So, we watched the girls for the remainder of the day, while Rachael and Kyle went to be with her family. We got about $90 worth of steaks, brats, and chicken and grilled them up. I made the FAMOUS Gibbs baked beans, and we had mashed potatoes (not really a traditional BBQ food, but it was what Justin wanted). Just when Justin was about to take the meat off the grill, he got called into work. He was to say the least, PISSED! He went off to work and left me and Careen (his sister-in-law) to dish up food for the 7 kids. (I guess it was practice for someday motherhood.) He was at work for a little over an hour (it was nice over time) and then came back ready to eat! LOL! Later that afternoon, when Kyle and Rachael came back, we went fishing with them and we took one of Justin's nephews. It was a FIRST for me, and definitely not worth the hype, but it was what Justin wanted to do, so I obliged. I personally prefer hunting over fishing, but maybe that's just because we didn't catch anything.
All in all, it was a pretty good weekend, I'm grateful for the changes that have occurred recently in my life. 2 weeks ago, Justin and I both got new phones (along with a new phone number for me), and they're pretty awesome. It is weird living in a house with children again (cuz I haven't lived with little children since my brother was little). But, I truly love this experience that I'm getting. And, you may ask, why did you move in with Justin's parents? It's because we plan to some day in the future get married and buy a house, and it is cheaper for us to live here, so we can save money. I said it in my last post, that I was going to try to be better at posting more often, and this time I really mean it! I'm going to try to post at least once a week. I love you readers and I look forward to sharing this piece of my BIG ADVENTURE with you!