BLT Ranch Chicken Wraps

Looking for an easy yummy summer lunch idea? These BLT Ranch Chicken Ranch Wraps are both easy and yummy! 

I found the pin linking up the recipe while I was looking for something fun to do with some leftover grilled chicken that we had. The original blog post says to use canned chicken, but I just substituted my grilled chicken. I also added shredded cheese to ours, although not listed in that recipe. Cheese makes everything better, right?

Here's all you need to make these
BLT Ranch Chicken Wraps:

• 2 cooked and shredded/cubed chicken breasts, or two cans shredded chicken (water drained)
• 3/4 cup Ranch dressing
• 6 (12 inch) flour tortillas
• 6 slices cooked bacon
• Shredded lettuce
• Diced tomatoes
• Shredded cheese

And here's what you do: 

• Mix the chicken and ranch together well. 
• Divide the mixture between your tortillas
• Layer on the bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese
• Wrap up, and enjoy! 

We ate ours with this yummy pasta salad and it was the perfect summer lunch!

The Best Way to Boil an Egg

 

A while ago I came across a pin that said "How to boil and egg". It showed a picture of a bunch of sliced hard boiled eggs. Some of the eggs looked good, others had that dreaded grey ring around the yolk. Sadly, I recognized the yucky looking ones as ones that might have come out of my own kitchen. 

The caption under the picture read "Do YOU know how to boil an egg?"



 

I thought I did, I mean, how hard can it really be? I had probably boiled eggs a hundred times. But realizing that my eggs didn't always turn out like the ones with the beautiful yolks in that picture I thought that maybe I was missing something in my method. 

So I was intrigued enough to go to follow the link and check out how to get those perfect boiled eggs. 

It really was pretty simple, and I actually already boiled eggs pretty closely to her instructions. But where I had been going wrong for years was not knowing how long to boil the eggs for. Once in a while I'd under boil and get centers that were too soft. But, most of the time I think I erred on the other side and boiled them for way too long, causing those dreaded grey rings. 

So, I followed her instructions, and guess what?!? Perfectly boiled eggs! I'm so glad I found this pin. Now my boiled eggs come out just right, and my kids will eat them because they aren't met with a hard grey rubbery yoke, that's probably more like a bouncy ball than food, when they bite into their egg.

Now, I just need to find a pin with a good tip for getting the shells off those hard boiled eggs! 

Here's the steps for boiling great eggs: 

1. Set your eggs in a pot

2. Cover them with water (about an inch above the eggs)

3.Turn the stove onto medium high heat 

4. As soon as the water comes to a nice rapid boil turn off the heat and put the lid on the pot.

5. Leave them there for ten minutes

6. After ten minutes move the eggs into a bowl of cold water.

7. Let them sit for about five minutes, and then they are ready to eat! 

*You can store any extra in the fridge up to a couple of days

Simple Double Curtain Rod with Bungee Cords

One of the things I love about Pinterest, besides all the new recipes to try and the fun projects to copy, is the "life hacks" (tips to make life easier) that get pinned. 

I have tried several of these tips. Some of them have worked better than others for me. Like, we tried fixing scratched DVDs with a banana peel... just didn't work for us! And I had no luck trying to reset my printer ink cartridges.  

But, once in a while I try something that works like a dream. 

Luckily I this happened to me recently. 

When we moved into our new home not long ago I tried to use the things that I already had to decorate, etc. 

I put up some valences on my front window that looked really good in our last home. But, the windows there were shorter. The window here was quite a bit bigger and taller (which I love by the way), so the valences looked pretty puny and out of place. 

I was determined to use them though. There were plenty of new things that we were going to have to spend a lot of money on, so I wanted to make these work somehow. 

After staring at them forever I concluded that adding some kind of window panels behind them might help them look better spatially. I found an inexpensive set of sheer panels at a nearby discount store, and hoped they would do the job. 

Then came the task of figuring out how to put them up. The house already had a curtain rod (not my favorite one, but free, so it will do for now at least), but that's what I already had the valences hung on. Replacing it with a double rod, or adding a completely new rod seemed like expensive alternatives. 

That's where Pinterest came in! I remembered seeing, and pinning, a life hack on there about hanging a double curtain up with bungee cords. I looked through my Pinterest boards and found the pin. 

It was so easy to copy that I didn't even need the tutorial. You probably wouldn't either,  but I'll explain how I did it anyway! 

Step One

Thread a bungee cord through the curtain where a rod would normally go.

Step Two

Attach one end of the bungee cord over the bracket from the exiting curtain rod (already attached to the wall).

Step Three

Attach the other end of the bungee cord over the bracket on the other side of the curtain rod (in my case, since it was a long window, I used two smaller bungee cords and attached them each to the center bracket instead of having one go all the way across).

Step Four

Enjoy your new double curtains without having spent a fortune or a lot of time! 

Easy Peasy!! It worked so well for me. Now I'm looking for other places in my home that could use a second window treatment layer.

P.S. I found my bungee cords at the dollar store in a bag with multiple cords of different sizes. So this really was an inexpensive way to get the results I was looking for. 

 

"Volcano" Chocolate Cobbler

A couple of days ago I wanted to make my family a treat. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare something so it needed to be pretty easy. And running to the store for ingredients wasn't an option so it had to be something that I already had all the ingredients to make. 

I went to Pinterest and scrolled through my "fabulous food - sweet treats" board and looked through recipes until I found something that I could throw it together pretty quickly, with ingredients I already had. Oh, and of course it had to look yummy! 

Finally I came across a pin for something called "My Granny's Chocolate Cobbler" (here). A quick look over the ingredients and I decided that this would be the easy treat I'd make for my family.  

It was easy to put together, and my kids had a lot of fun watching me make this. They kept wondering what I was doing. At first they thought it was going to be brownies, but putting the powder layer on top of the batter, and then pouring water on top of it all really threw them off.

When it was done it was like a chocolate cake with a surprise gooey center. My kids nick named it a volcano cake! 

We served it warm with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Delicious! 

I had a big gang to feed so I doubled the recipe and baked it in a large casserole pan (9x13). I'm glad I did, once we served our Volcano Cake up it didn't take long for the whole thing to disappear! 

Here's how I made our Volcano Chocolate Cobbler (already doubled): 

Ingredients
 

2 cups All-purpose Flour

4 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoons Salt

14 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder, Divided

21/2 cup Sugar, Divided

1 cup Milk

2/3 cups Melted Butter

3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1 cups Light Brown Sugar, Packed

3 cups Hot Tap Water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, 6 tablespoons of the cocoa, and 1 1/2 cups of the white sugar. Save the rest of the cocoa and sugar for later.

Stir the milk, melted butter, and vanilla into the flour mixture. Mix until smooth.

Pour the mixture into an ungreased 9x13 -inch baking dish. 

In a separate small bowl, mix the rest of the white sugar (one cup), the brown sugar, and rest of the cocoa  8 tablespoons). Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the batter.

Pour the hot tap water over all. DO NOT STIR!

Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center is set.

Let stand for a few minutes.

Serve with ice cream, use the gooey sauce to spoon over it.

Enjoy!
 

Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

We seem to be eating a lot of potatoes lately... Is that a result of moving to Idaho? Who knows?

 

Thanks to Pinterest I found a new method for making the perfect baked potatoes that I love (you can check that out here), but it's nice to do something different with our tubers once in a while. 

 

So I tried these Parmesan Roasted Potatoes the other night to go along with some rotisserie chicken, and they were absolutely delicious!!  

 

I changed this recipe up just a bit. Besides doubling it  I used garlic powder instead of garlic salt (since there was already plenty of salt in the recipe), added some parsley flakes to look pretty, and used bottled parmesan cheese instead of fresh. But besides those few things I mostly did just what the recipe said.

Super easy, and super yummy -- my favorite combination!!

 

              Here it is (already doubled):

          Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

 

6 large potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

6 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp parsley flakes

2 tsp pepper

4 tsp paprika

6 tbsp parmesan cheese



 

 

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Put the cubed potatoes into a greased baking dish (9x14) and toss with the olive oil. Add everything else and stir well.  
• Bake in heated oven for 45 minutes to one hour, stirring well after every 15 minutes
• Sprinkle with a little more parmesan cheese 
• Serve, and enjoy! 

You can use any leftovers for breakfast, I think that they would taste delicious with scrambled eggs. But, I can't tell you for sure, because my family liked these so much that they ate them all up, and we had no leftovers! 

Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I'm pretty sure that I have the best dad there is! And my kids are blessed to have a pretty darn good dad also. He does so much for us, it was nice to have a day dedicated especially to spoiling him! 

We wanted to make Father's Day special for my husband this year so my kids and I decided to celebrate with a homemade Italian dinner. Of course, all our recipes came from Pinterest, and fortunately, they all turned out delicious! 

We had Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta, homemade breadsticks, salad with Little Italy Italian dressing, and Italian soda. Delizioso!!

The fun part of this dinner was having most of the kids help with parts of it. Dad got to relax, and they got to feel like they were contributing to his special day.

Here's the recipe we used for the Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta. 

(I increased the amounts of everything and made a really big batch, but I will leave it in original portions, which should feed about six).

                      Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta
            
            Ingredients 

• 2 medium chicken breast halves (about one pound), chopped and grilled
• 9 oz Rigatoni or Penne pasta 
• 2 cups fire roasted tomato pasta sauce (Classico works great)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup finely grated Romano Cheese
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional, for added heat)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, diced into halves or thirds
• 12 oz fresh mozzarella, grated
• 16 fresh Basil leaves, sliced into thin strips

            Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook pasta to al dente according to directions listed on package. 

Meanwhile, in a separate medium saucepan over medium low heat, heat pasta sauce, heavy cream, Romano cheese, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Cook, stirring frequently, until cheese melts.

Drain cooked pasta well, then mix in the chopped chicken, tomatoes, half the cheese, and most of the basil (save some basil to garnish with before serving if desired).

Pour warm sauce over and toss gently to coat. 
Sprinkle with remaining cheese, and cook uncovered for about 25 minutes, until the cheese is golden.

      

I ended up being glad that we made a really huge batch of this because everybody went back for seconds and thirds. It was really so very delicious. 

My husband loved it and appreciated the extra effort we made to serve something he would love for Father's Day dinner!

P.S. We made the breadsticks out of the same recipe we use for our yummy garlic knots (here). Instead of turning the dough into knots, we just rolled it out on a couple of stones and slathered the sauce on before baking it for about 8 minutes (at 500 degrees). These are almost as good as garlic knots, but faster to make!

 

Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken with Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

 

Have you ever got started making a recipe only to realize half way through that you don't have all of the ingredients? 

That happened to me this week. I had some chicken thighs sitting in my freezer waiting to be used so I decided on trying out a recipe I pinned a while ago for Teriyaki Chicken.  

I quickly looked through the recipe and thought I had everything I needed. But, when it got time to put in the Teriyaki Sauce, none could be found. I'm sure I had a bottle of it in the pantry... who knows what happened to it! 

So, I did what any Pinterest loving person would do and did a quick search for a homemade Teriyaki Sauce recipe and found a great one (here). 

It claimed to be better than  any store bought sauce so I thought is would be a good one to try. It didn't disappoint! It was a very tasty sauce and gave the chicken just the right amount of sweet and tangy to make it absolutely delicious! 

Here's the recipe(s) I used:

     Teriyaki Chicken

     2 -3 lbs chicken 

     2 cup chicken broth 

     I cup teriyaki sauce (see below for recipe)

     2/3 cup brown sugar

     3 minced garlic cloves

Place chicken in crock pot. Pour other ingredients over chicken. Cook on low for about 6 hours. 

The recipe directed to cut the chicken into pieces beforehand, but since I was using frozen thighs I just added them whole to begin with. Once they had cooked for a few hours I broke them apart into pieces easily with a fork and knife. So I think either way would work well.

     Teriyaki Sauce

     1/3 cup soy sauce

     2 tbsp honey

     1 tbsp brown sugar

     1 minced garlic clove

     1/4 tsp paprika

     1/4 tsp nutmeg

     1 tsp apple cider vinegar

     1/3 cup water

     1 tbsp cornstarch

In a saucepan combine and heat soy sauce, honey, sugar, garlic, paprika, nutmeg, and vinegar over medium heat. Stir frequently.

Dissolve the cornstarch into the water in a separate bowl and then add to saucepan. Mix well. Cook on medium heat for 6-8 minutes, until sauce thickens up.

We ate our Teriyaki Chicken over rice, and added some pineapple and sesame seeds on top. All of my family loved it. While they were gobbling it down my daughter exclaimed "This is Pin-tastic!" I guess that means I'll be making this meal again! 

Easy, Delicious, and Refreshing... Very Berry Spritzer

Looking for a refreshing and delicious summer drink? Look no further! 

I was in need of a quick, easy, and tasty drink the other day and found a beautiful one (here) on my Pinterest fabulous food - beverages board. It's called Very Berry Spritzer. 

All you do is put some frozen mixed berries and ice cubes into a cup and pour lemon lime soda over it. Then give it a little stir and it's ready to serve! 

So easy... so delicious... and so pretty! What more could you ask for?  

Chalk Paint Desk Redo

My son has been wanting a desk in his room for a while now, so when we saw this beauty at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago we snatched it up. As you can see, it needed a little love before we wanted to put it in its new home.  

I like quick and easy when it comes to my projects, which must be why the idea of using chalk paint on furniture is so appealing to me. With chalk paint you don't have to strip the furniture, or sand it, or prepare it in any way besides wiping the dust, etc. off of it. 

I have a couple big pieces of furniture in my house that I have been considering using this technique to redo, but I'm a bit wimpy about jumping right into those and wanted to try a couple of smaller items first. 

So, this desk became my latest experiment! 

Luckily I had an assistant for this project. Since it was for him, my teen-aged son got to be part of the redoing.

First we took off the old hardware and wiped everything down well. Then we mixed up some homemade chalk paint and got to work.

Here's the recipe we used (found here):

3 tbsp warm water

5 tbsp plaster of paris

2 cups latex paint

We just mixed the warm water with the plaster of paris and then stirred in the paint. 

It took us about three coats of paint to get the desk fully covered. Then we were patient and left it overnight to dry completely.

The next step was the hardest for us. When you use chalk paint you need to protect it with something, otherwise the paint will chip off easier than it would with regular paint. The popular thing to use with chalk paint is a soft wax. 

I had never used wax before so wasn't exactly sure what the best method was. I found some basic instructions  here. 

 

We just used some rags to wipe on a thin layer of wax, rubbing it in with a circular motion. After letting is sit a few minutes we took other rags and wiped off the extra wax, then buffed it up till it shined. This step did take a little extra elbow grease, so I was happy that my son was helping!

After we were satisfied with our layer of wax we left it for a bit for the wax to harden up. Then we attached some new hardware to the desk and it was ready to go.

Hopefully his snazzy new desk will help motivate my son to keep up on his homework better when school starts up again in the fall!

One Smart Cookie Teacher Gift & Best Ever Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Are your kids out of school yet? 

This was the last week of school this year for mine. So as usual I turned to Pinterest for some teacher gift pin-spiration. There are always several fun ideas to choose from, so after going over a couple that I liked best (here) with my kids we decided on making their teachers a fun little jar of cookies, with a tag that reads "I'm one smart cookie thanks to you!"
 

Putting the jar and tag together was pretty easy. Wide mouthed medium sized mason jars seemed to be the best option for this, and luckily they happened to be on sale this week at my local craft store! 

I used my silhouette to create and cut out the tags, and also to cut circles out of scrapbook paper to fancy up the tops a bit. I made the tags kind of big so that my kids could write a little personal note to their teachers on the back side.

It would be easy enough to design the tag on Publisher, or any other computer program you use (or find already designed printable tags that you'd just have to print out- I saw a bunch for free online), and just cut them out yourself. But, since I have a Silhouette I decided to make use of it! 

We popped about six cookies in each jar, sat the circle over the top before screwing on the rim, then wrapped thin yarn around the jar to make it look pretty and to attach the tag.

Easy as that! It really didn't take very long to put these together. 

I thought about painting the metal rims on the jars for a little extra effect, but decided to just leave them silver, and keep it simple this time. 

My three elementary school aged kids reported that the cookie jars were a hit! 

The cookies we made for this were the perfect size to fit in the jars. We used my favorite cookie recipe... The Best Ever Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

While I've tried a lot of different cookie recipes from Pinterest (and I'm sure I'll try many more), I seem to always come back to my tried an true oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's definitely a favorite in my family. What I love about these cookies is that they are filled with oats, which makes them stay thick and chewy, and maybe a teeny bit healthier, but you don't even realize that the oats are there. They taste so good, and the combination of two different kinds of chocolate in them makes them even more melt in your mouth delicious! 

My recipe comes from before the days of Pinterest, when recipes and ideas were passed around through e-mails. There was a recipe circulating that claimed it was the recipe used to make the famous "Nieman Marcus" cookies. 

You've probably heard of it... the story was that a lady ate a cookie there and loved it so much that she asked for the recipe. She was quoted "two fifty" for the recipe, and thinking it was a great price she paid for it with her credit card. Later she noticed that instead of being charged the two dollars and fifty cents she had expected, she was charged two hundred and fifty dollars!! So, to make up for it she mass distributed the recipe so no one will ever again have to pay $250 for it! 

I've made these cookies so many times since then that I've lost count. Over the years since I first tried this recipe I've made a few changes, but the main ingredients have stayed the same. 

This recipe makes about 80 cookies. I used to half the recipe, but have learned that there is never enough, so now I always make the full batch. I have made these and frozen them before (individually so my kids could take them in their school lunches), and found that they are great even after freezing and thawing. So, if you do make a big batch and find that there is too many (unlikely at my house!), just throw them in a freezer bag and freeze until you have your next cookie hankering! 
 

Here's the recipe for making the

Best Ever Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Makes about 80 cookies)

  2 cups butter or margarine

  2 cups white sugar

  2 cups brown sugar

  4 eggs
  2 tsp vanilla
  4 cups flour
  5 cups blended oatmeal
     *measure and then blend or            process into a fine powder
  1 tsp salt
  2 tsp baking soda
  2 tsp baking powder
  1 12 oz bag of chocolate chips
  1 8 oz Hershey bar (grated) OR
  1 1/2 cups of M&M's
  3 cups any chopped nuts - optional

1. Cream the butter and both sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla
2. Mix together flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
3. Add in chocolate chips, Hershey Bar/M&M's, and nuts. 
4. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet
5. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees
6. Cool, and enjoy - But, resist the urge to eat them all right then. Trust me when I say that these cookies taste even more delicious the next day once the flavors have had a chance to mesh together!

**Recipe Notes: 

Instead of blending my oatmeal I usually just use one 8 oz box of baby cereal oatmeal. It is the exact right amount, and already a nice fine consistency. And it saves me a step... always a plus! 

I usually use M&M's in these cookies, though I have used the Hershey bar and that is really yummy too, just less colorful. This time I used mini M&M's which was fun for a change. You could probably exchange any other chocolate candy you like too.

I don't usually add the nuts (some in my family aren't nut-in-cookie lovers), but I think that they would be a tasty addition! 

These really are the best ever cookies... giving away eighteen of them to our teachers wasn't easy for my kids! The rest of them got gobbled up in no time. Luckily they are easy enough to make that I'm sure it won't be too long before we whip up another batch!

Easy and Delicious Pasta Salad

If I had known that Pasta Salad was so easy to make I think I would have been making it myself for a long time. But, it wasn't until this week that I discovered that it doesn't take much effort to make this delicious side dish. 

The nice thing about Pasta Salad is that you can be so versatile, and use things that you already have on hand. 

I searched Pinterest for the perfect recipe, and after reading through a few I found one (here) that looked like something my family would like. I altered the recipe a bit (as usual), but here it is as I found it:  

11/2 boxes rotini noodles or penne pasta

1 bottle wishbone Italian dressing

1 red bell pepper

2 cups cherry tomatoes

1 green bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

2 cups chick peas

1 purple onion

1 cup olives optional

Cook the Pasta according to the package. Drain and rinse under cold water. Slice the vegetables and mix together with pasta and Italian dressing in a large bowl. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Easy enough, right? I only used one package of pasta, so I reduced the amounts of the other ingredients too. I wasn't really technical about it, I just added however much or each ingredient seemed good at the time. 

I didn't use olives, I'm one of those crazy people who don't love them! But I did add yummy little cubes of cheddar cheese. Next time I may even add a little pepperoni, or whatever else sounds good that day! 

My family thought this was oh so tasty! I know I'll be making it a lot this summer. 

Easy and delicious... I love it!!