S'mores Pie

 Hey friends!

How was your weekend? We kept things very low key around here, mostly just running errands and doing chores around the house. We watched a couple of scary movies on Saturday night (Ready or Not and The Invisible Man) and I liked both of them even though I'm a big scaredy cat. Have you seen Emily in Paris? I'm watching it right now and it's really cute. It reminds me a lot of Sex and the City but on a millennial scale. (Which makes sense because Darren Star...) I've been enjoying watching it when I'm getting cleaning and cooking done. It's very lighthearted and easy to follow, I recommend it if you are looking for that type of show! If you want something a little more intense definitely check out Bly Manor on Netflix. If you haven't watched it already, it's definitely creepy but I love the storyline and that you really need to be paying attention to the story. 

Anyways, on to todays recipe! This weekend I made a S'mores Pie and it was delicious. I have been looking at the recipes for this on Pinterest recently and was thinking about making it for Thanksgiving so I wanted to test it out and last night was the perfect night to do that. 

I followed this recipe so definitely go check it out but I wanted to share how the process went for me here as well. 

We only needed four ingredients: 12oz semi sweet chocolate chips, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 4 cups of mini marshmallows, and 1 graham cracker crust.

I purchased the pre-made graham cracker crust from the grocery store but you can definitely make your own if you are looking for more of a challenge.

The first step is to make the chocolate ganache which sounded intimidating to me but it was super simple. All you do is mix the chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream in microwavable bowl. I heated mine in 30 second increments and then whipped it until it was smooth.

Then I poured the ganache into the pie crust and put it in the fridge. The recipe recommends putting it in for at least 2 hours. Mine was in for 6 hours uncovered and did just fine. 

Now right before serving you need to add the marshmallows and toast them. I used the broiler in our oven for this. (I had no idea we had a broiler) I put the broiler on high, making sure the oven rack was as far up as possible and I only let the pie sit inside for 30 seconds or so. Make sure you are watching it because those marshmallows heat up fast! 

Here is the completed pie. I think it looks amazing!! It definitely is something that looks super enticing and I am seriously considering making it on Thanksgiving. 

I think it tastes amazing as well. It definitely is super rich chocolate, so if you aren't a chocolate fan you might not like this one. But if you like chocolate and s'mores you will love it!

My toughest critic (Tim) said it was good but agreed with me that the chocolate was very rich. He had a piece and I had two (whoops). I think this is such a fun (and easy) dessert and I can picture myself making this for my kids someday!

Have you made any new desserts lately? I would love to know what they are!

My Slightly Organized Kitchen Drawers and Cupboards

Hi everyone! Today I am sharing my "slightly organized" kitchen drawers and cupboards. I am labeling this "slightly organized: because BOY do we have far to go. This is a starting point and I truly hope that one day my drawers and cupboards will be Home Edit worthy but for now at least we know where to find everything!

For now we just have random organizers inside the drawers but I definitely want to create a more uniform look in the future but will be buying items slowly since buying a ton of product does get super pricey. Also, I feel like we filled up this kitchen super fast! We have been in this house for one whole year at this point and when we moved here I felt like we had so much room and now I could use some more space! My mom keeps telling me that everyone feels this way about their home, that there's never enough space but I know our house is on the smaller side so we will have to figure that out one day!

Anyways, let's take a look at what's going on in those kitchen drawers and cupboards and what my plans are for this kitchen in the future.

Here are my first two kitchen drawers. These hold all of our silverware and other kitchen utensils. The silverware organizer is just a cheap one that we picked up from Target back when we first moved into our apartment years ago and it works just fine but I would love one that is lighter and brighter. Also, our silverware is only a few years old but I can see it starting to tarnish. I need to either figure out how to fix that or purchase some new silverware at some point. Anyways let's take a closer look at each of these drawers.

Keep in mind too that our dishwasher was running at this point so some items are missing. I would like to get a slim container to hold all of our chip clips which all just get placed on the side of the silverware. In the back behind the silverware we also need a small container that can hold all the random items that get shoved back there. 

This drawer is full of organizers but also full of a ton of stuff! Tim and I need to go through this drawer together and decide if there are items we can get rid of. When I went through it by myself I identified a lot of items I could get rid of but I never want to get rid of things without checking with Tim since he is the true cook of the house. 

We also have a ton of coozies but I can't bring myself to get rid of some since they came from events we went to. I definitely need to declutter though. After watching Get Organized with The Home Edit on Netflix I feel ashamed that my kitchen doesn't look as pretty as they make others look!

This is our double cabinet that holds some of our food. The rest of our food is on the back of our basement door and on the shelves at the top of our basement stairs. I purged a ton of items in this cabinet right before this picture was taken. We also needed to grocery shop so there isn't a ton in here but honestly I prefer it that way!

This is our appliance cabinet, along with our cutting boards and grilling tools. We have quite a bit and I don't love the look of appliances on the countertops so it's nice that we are able to store them down in this cabinet. 

This is our notorious junk drawer. I don't love the concept of junk drawers, but there is definitely a need to store these types of items. These containers slide around in the drawer and drive me crazy. I need to purchase some museum putty to hold them in place. Add that to the "to buy" list.

This cabinet holds all our Tupperware on the top and our bowls and plates on the bottom two shelves. I love our fiestaware dishes. This is one of the cabinets I feel pretty okay about and there's not much I can do to make it any different!

Our island has two pull out drawers which are great for our pots and pans. I like the way that the top drawer looks with our colanders, pots, and glass trays. It is definitely nice and neat which I appreciate.

The second drawer however.....I'm not sure what to do here. There isn't enough room here for any organizer and we probably have too many pans. Right now it's just a lot of stacking and unstacking items but some day I will find a solution for it!

Also in the island we have three smaller drawers. The top holds some of Sophie's items. We keep smaller treats and some other items in here. 

I am a dish towel hoarder. This drawer is full of dish towels and there are a few molds for dog treats inside there as well. I am not allowed to buy any more dish towels! I always find such cute ones and can't help myself. 

This drawer holds our cling wrap, aluminum wrap, and all our ziplock bags. Honestly we don't use these items all the time so it's nice to have them in a bottom drawer where we don't need to reach for them constantly.

Our corner cabinet holds all of our glasses and mugs. We have far too many for only two humans living in the house. The top shelf looks slightly empty but that's because we had a few in the dishwasher, it is honestly normally full. We definitely don't need anything else in this cabinet!

This next cabinet holds random dishes, measuring cups and mixing bowls. I am in and out of here whenever I'm cooking for the mixing bowls and measuring cups but I honestly don't use any of our serving dishes very often. I love the Disney dishes my college roommate Megan gave us for our wedding but we haven't had much of a chance to use them yet!

Above our microwave we have all our spices. This is fairly organized although I would love to make this look more uniform in the future. I also want to make new labels and have bigger spice jars. 

This little drawer next to our stove just holds our oven mitts. 

We have this little cupboard next to the stove with a super small cabinet door. I just keep a few appliances in here including the blender I use daily.

Above our refrigerator I keep items we don't access every day. Vases are on the left and then on the right we have a ton of water bottles and cups that we received from different events. We could probably go through this cabinet and get rid of quite a bit but that will be a future project.

Lastly, under the kitchen sink! I decluttered this area before taking this picture but I do need to order some products to make this area look a bit nicer. I also plan to put some liner down to brighten this area up. I am thinking about getting some lazy susans for the cleaning products and some containers to hold things like trash bags and sponges. 

So that's a tour of my slightly organized kitchen. I hope that some day my kitchen will be as beautiful as The Home Edit makes kitchens look! I will definitely keep you updated on any updates I make and I plan to get started soon!

Have a great day everyone!

 

Healthy Tuscan Chicken Pasta

 Hi everyone!

This weekend I made a delicious pasta dish that I discovered on Pinterest. You can find the original recipe here.

I ended up choosing the stovetop version because to me that seems to be the most fresh version but I'm sure that the slow cooker or instant pot version is great as well! I was nervous to try this recipe because I don't really like greek yogurt or cottage cheese but honestly you can't even tell that either of those ingredients are in there.

Now I stuck pretty close to the recipe from My Crazy Good Life but I did change things a little bit, so I will share that here.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (buy the bagged tomatoes so there is no oil)
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 chicken breasts (chopped into small chunks)
• 4 cups of low sodium chicken broth
• 1 box of penne pasta (I used Barilla penne pasta, you can use a whole wheat to make it healthier)
• 3/4 cup cottage cheese (low fat 2%)
• 3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (low-fat)
• 2 cups spinach (you add a little extra if you want)
• 1/4 cup basil
• 2/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese (I threw in a little bit extra if I'm being honest)

Directions

1. Spray a large skillet with cooking spray.
2. Heat pan to medium-high heat. 
3. Sauté sun dried tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and garlic for a few minutes. The recipe said until "fragrant" but I'm not a great cook and it smelled fragrant the second I threw everything in...so I stirred it for about 4 minutes and called it good.
4. Toss in chicken and sauté until brown all over.
5. Add the chicken broth and penne pasta. 
6. Wait until the broth starts to boil and then put the cover on the skillet for 12-15 minutes. 
7. After 12-15 minutes make sure the pasta is cooked and then drain all extra liquid.
8. Add spinach and basil. Stir until both look wilted.
9. In a separate bowl blend the cottage cheese and Greek yogurt until it's smooth.
10. Add the cottage cheese and Greek yogurt mixture into the skillet and mix everything together.
11. Add parmesan cheese and stir everything well.
12. When serving add some additional parmesan cheese on top. You can also add some fresh basil on top too if you would like.
13. Enjoy!

I'm so glad I discovered this recipe from My Crazy Good Life! I will definitely be making this again because it's both healthy and delicious!

"Snow" Day Healthy Banana Muffins

Last week we were all prepared to have a huge blizzard here in Rhody. I actually started my day off at work but the roads started to look really bad so I headed home in the late morning. About an hour after I got home it turned to rain....therefore it was my "snow" day.

Since I was already home and hanging out I decided to whip up some healthy banana muffins. My mom always would bake banana nut muffins and I would devour them in twos or threes. Since Tim and I are trying to lose weight, eat healthy, and work out at least 4-5 times a week I decided to try a healthy recipe I found on Pinterest.

I found this recipe on ifoodreal.com and the muffins turned out pretty well. I do have to tell you they are nothing like those muffins that my mom used to make but since they are a healthy version I didn't expect them to be. I did love when I got a banana bite because that was by far the sweetest part of the muffin. Tim reviewed them as good and I was pretty impressed that I made them from scratch.

So if you want to re-create this recipe this is what you need:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of bananas. (I used three bananas and the original recipe called for them to be very ripe, but I just used the ones I had bought the day before at the grocery store. I think you could honestly include a fourth banana if you wanted)

1 Egg

1/2 cup  Unsweetened Applesauce

1/4 cup  Maple Syrup or Raw Honey (I used maple syrup)

1 tsp Baking Powder, aluminum free

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla Extract, pure

1 1/3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

3 tbsp Olive Oil

Cooking Spray (I didn't use cooking spray because I used cupcake liners instead)

Directions

- Preheat oven to 375 and either spray your muffin tin (12 muffins) or put cupcake liners inside.

- Beat your egg in a mixing bowl

-Add bananas to bowl and mash well

-Add all remaining ingredients except for the flour and mix everything together.

-Add the flour and stir all ingredients.

-Fill each tin (or cupcake liner) with batter and bake for 22 minutes.

- Take out muffins, allow to cool and then enjoy!

If you are looking for a healthier version of a banana muffin then this is it, just remember there is no sugar to taste...it will taste healthy! I am enjoying trying new healthy foods but I do miss my sugar! :)

Cheesy Chicken and Rice Skillet

If you haven't heard.... I don't cook.

I'm the worst "housewife" going and haven't exactly cooked gourmet meals for my lovely boyfriend. Poor guy ;)

Sometimes I do get in the mood to cook and this past Tuesday was one of those days! At work I kept thinking about how I wanted to make something yummy for dinner so I found a recipe online and after work headed to the grocery store to pick up what I needed and voila!

Here's the ingredients I used:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 chicken breast, cut into small pieces
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 package of Knorrs rice pilaf
2 1/4 cups chicken broth
1 can of cream of chicken soup (10.5 oz)
2 cups broccoli tops (chopped up very small)
1 cup cheddar cheese

Here's what I did:

1. Put olive oi, chopped onion, garlic, and chicken in a large skillet on medium heat. I cooked this for about five minutes until it seemed like the chicken was heating up nicely.

2. I added rice, cream of chicken soup, and chicken broth. I started with two cups of chicken broth but ended up adding about 1/4 a cup later on. I cooked this for about 15 minutes, adding the 1/4 chicken broth right before the 15 minutes were up.

3. I then added half the cheddar cheese and all the broccoli and let it cook for two minutes.

4. I sprinkled cheese over the top, turned off the burner, and let it sit for a few minutes before eating.

It was absolutely delicious! I was very pleased with myself and I thought it was a great dinner.

I adapted my version from jocooks.com which called for slightly different ingredients and instructions. I improvised with what we had in the apartment and I think it turned out pretty darn good!

Happy cooking and happy Friday everyone!

Steak Tips and Chocolate Chip Brownies

Tim and I spent some time making a delicious dinner I thought you guys may enjoy hearing about! We didn't have a ton of ingredients either which makes this super doable for anyone looking for an easy dinner.

Ingredients Needed:

Steak Tips

Peppers

Onions

Terayki Sauce

Rice a Roni

Brownie Mix

Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

When we arrived home we placed the steak in a plastic baggie and let it soak up flavor from the Teriyaki sauce. While we waited on that Tim taught me the proper way to cut up vegetables.

I apparently make him nervous because I just cut wherever I feel like and he's "afraid I'm going to cut off my fingers". Well if he isn't a nervous nelly. *ahem*
Anyways, apparently you are supposed to lay the flat side of whatever you're cutting down and cut it that way, so I learned the proper way to cut peppers and onions.

I also thought I was a total badass and could cut onions without my eyes watering until my eyes felt like they were going to fall out. Chopping onions is no joke people!

One our onions and peppers were chopped up we stuck them in a bowl and Tim doused them in Terayki sauce as well.

Then it was time to cut up the steak into small pieces. I never thought I would enjoy cutting up meat but it wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be! 

While the steak simmered on the stove we started making the Rice-a-Roni which is a fairly easy process. We tend to use Rice-a-Roni products quite often because they are so quick and easy to make and their rice honestly works with most meals you make. It's always a nice addition!

While Tim manned the stove I packaged up all of our leftovers so we would be all set for lunch throughout the week. After I took this picture I also cut up the cantaloupe you can see in the background. I enjoy having my lunch all ready for me in the morning and eating leftovers ensures that I have something delicious for lunch each day. (Nothing bums me out more then thinking I have something lame to eat for lunch- I need to keep it exciting or I will head right out and buy my lunch- wasting time and money!)

In addition to what you see above, we also packaged up the remains of this meal so we each had an additional meal to eat that week.

After everything was done cooking, each of us had a plate full of delicious, filling food.

Doesn't that just look delicious?! I wasn't able to eat everything on my plate and ended up packing up half of it for my lunch. Tim ate his entire plate and used the leftovers we had for his lunch later in the week.

About an hour after we ate, I started making chocolate chip brownies for dessert. I used a Betty Crocker fudge brownie mix and Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips.

The brownies lasted us just about a week, we would bring a couple for lunch as a treat which was nice. I love using a basic brownie mix and adding some chocolate chips in to make them extra special. They were delicious! 

What have you been making for dinner and dessert lately? Anything super yummy? Share in the comments section!