One Pan Dinner: Chicken, Potatoes & Greens

This has been a recipe filled week! I have been tired of the same old foods so I've tried a few new pinterest finds. This one was basically just directions on a picture and it's very straight forward. It all cooks in one pan... I love that - barely anything to clean up!

What You Need:
3 chicken breasts
4 medium red potatoes
green beans (or broccoli!)
1/2 stick of butter, melted
italian dressing mix packet

What You Do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the chicken breasts in half. Cut the potatoes in to small chunks. Spray the bottom of a 13x9 pan, put the chicken in the middle, potatoes on one side and green beans on the other side. Top with half a package of italian dressing and pour melted butter over the top.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for about an hour!

Annual Easter Party

This past weekend was the annual Easter party at Lindsey's house. The party started many years ago at Chad's old apartment but it got a little out of hand for an apartment and moved to Lindsey's and has stayed there. 

We have an "Easter Egg Hunt" but instead of eggs it's.....

mini bottles!

The Easter bunny shows up around 3:00 to go hide the eggs and then we all get to go out and hunt!

 

Our winnings

It's always a fun afternoon with a lot of friends. 

As the evening dwindled we decided it was time to head home and since we couldn't drive I decided to call my Nana who lives nearby and she graciously came to taxi us home! :)

Chicken Enchilada Pasta

Another great pinterest find! I saw this on pinterest and everyone was saying that it was amazing. I decided to try it for dinner one night when we had a few friends coming over. It did turn out as well as the reviews!

What You Need:

3 chicken breasts, cooked & shredded

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced or 1 teaspoon

1 medium onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 (4 oz.) can diced green chiles

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. cumin

2 (10 oz.) cans green chili enchilada sauce

2/3 cup red enchilada sauce

2 cups shredded cheese (1 bag of colby/monterey jack mixture)

1 cup sour cream

Penne pasta

(For the Topping)

Avocado

Green Onions

Tomatoes

Sour Cream

What You Do:
Cook and shred the chicken. Boil pasta and chop veggies. Heat olive oil in a skillet and cook onions about 3-5 minutes, add garlic and red pepper, cook another 3-5 minutes.

Add cooked chicken, green chiles, cumin, chili powder, salt, & enchilada sauces.  Let sauce simmer for about 8-10 minutes.

Add cheese and stir until the cheese is melted and heated through.  Add in the sour cream, but DO NOT BOIL!  Cook on low heat or the sour cream will curdle :( Stir until sour cream is well mixed and heated through.

Mix cooked (drained) pasta in with sauce and mix well. Serve and garnish with tomato, avocado, green onion and sour cream. ENJOY! Seriously... yum!

Twice Baked Potatoe Casserole

I found this recipe on pinterest and decided to make it for my co-workers for lunch one Friday. I prepped it the night before and we just reheated it that day. It is YUMMY. It definitely wasn't a super quick and easy prep but it is good. Real potatoes are so much better than from the box :)

What You Need:

5 pound bag of russet potatoes

10 slices of bacon (cooked and crumbled)

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cups chives, minced

2.5 c cheddar cheese, grated

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

---

What You Do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes.

Cut into 1-inch chunks.

Place in a large pot, and add enough cold water to cover by about 2 inches. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes until easy poked with a knife. Drain and return to pot.

Using a fork, mash the potatoes in pot until light and fluffy.

Add the cream cheese, butter, and sour cream, and stir until combined and smooth.

Add the chives, 2 cups cheddar cheese, half the bacon, salt, and pepper. Stir until well combined.

Transfer to a buttered 3-quart baking dish. Top with remaining 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. Bake until top is slightly golden and potatoes are heated through, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven; top with remaining bacon.

Bread Crumb Chicken & Bowtie Pasta with Italian Sauce

I found this recipe on pinterest (from Jamie Cooks it Up) and made it a while ago. The hubs and I made it again a couple of nights ago... it was a hit again.

What You Need:
1 box Farfalle pasta

(for the chicken)
3 chicken breasts
1 egg
flour
bread crumbs

(for the sauce)
1   10 oz container Philadelphia Cooking Cream (Italian Cheese and Herb Flavor)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 C chicken broth
1/2 C milk 

What You Do:
Cut the chicken breasts in half (and beat do make flat/same size). Mix flour & bread crumbs together (about 30% flour, 70% bread crumbs) Dip each piece of chicken in egg then flour/breadcrumb mixture to bread.

Put in hot pan with olive oil on the bottom. Cook on medium high for about 5 minutes, flip the chicken and continue to cook through (about 7 more minutes).

While the chicken is cooking, boil the water to cook entire box of pasta.

After chicken is cooked, put it on a plate and store in microwave (or until aluminum foil) to keep warm. Using the same pan, add cooking creme, chicken broth, cream of chicken soup and milk.

Whisk the sauce mixture in the pan to get it warm and bubbly (about 5 minutes).

Slice chicken and serve over pasta and sauce. Serves 6. YUM!

St Patrick's Day in Charleston

We spent St. Patrick's day weekend (the weekend after Trey's birthday) in Charleston, visiting his cousin. We drove down on Friday while NC State was playing in the ACC tournament so we had to listen to it on the radio. A little ways in to South Carolina we lost reception of that radio station and turned on Watch ESPN, I got to watch and he got to listen!

The weather was perfect the entire weekend! Friday night we went to a dinner for his cousin, Lexi. Every year all of the sophmore girls at her school throw a "Sweet Sixteen" dinner and dance so we got invited to join in the dinner. It was held at the Yacht Club downtown and was delicious! It was nice to be able to catch up with everyone.



Me, Trey & Lynn



Lou, Lauren, David

That night we walked from their house to "the triangle" to have a few drinks... I wish we could walk to bars and restaurants from our house! We had a drink at Oak Barrel Tavern that had a table made out of half of an old barrel... pretty cool:

Lauren and David have an 8 month old boxer, Bear, who is even more energetic than Tyson!

The dogs had such a blast all weekend and of course that is mostly what I took pictures of. Boxers love to lick and these were either licking each other or playing tug-of-war all weekend while the old lady watched from afar until she felt it was time to get rowdy or control their craziness.

Saturday we went to Westbrook Brewing Company in Mt. Pleasant to tour the brewery and try their beer. We got flights of beer to enjoy and took a tour.. it's a huge brewery with plenty of room to expand.

Lauren's dad, Trey's uncle lives in Mt. Pleasant so we went to his house for the afternoon and hung out there for a while and watched the semifinals for the ACC tournament that turned out to be rather disappointing. After a long day of day-drinking we were pretty tired.

We headed home to take the dogs out for a bit and feed them dinner and decide what we would do for the night.

We decided to take it easy since we were all pretty tired. We got dinner at Sakura and then watched Pitch Perfect that night while snuggling with (finally) tired dogs. Trey and I hadn't seen the movie, it was really good and funny!

Sunday morning we went to Hominy Grill in downtown Charleston for brunch.

Mimosas and bloody marys to celebrate St Patty's at brunch!

After brunch we drove down to the battery and walked around down there towards the Market.



Fort Sumter



 The huge houses are so gorgeous!

 Wish I had the time and money to just jump on that cruise ship!

 We came upon this fountain in downtown near the market and I sent mom a picture saying... I've been here! She replied with these old pictures of me, Chad, Libby and Kevin playing in the fountain 20ish years ago :)

We strolled through the market and then back to The Charleston Beer Exchange, their local craft brew store.

We got a few good local brews that we can't get in NC and also found Dogfish Head Festina Peche... a delicious beer that sold out last summer in Raleigh. It is about 9 months old so it was on sale. We weren't sure how good it would still be so we only bought one four pack... we tried it last night and it is still good, wish we had bought a whole case for cheap!

We watched the first half of the ACC Championship game and then hit the road to Raleigh. The dogs were so cute and exhausted after their fun-filled weekend.