Date Night Dinner: Shrimp & Grits with Sausage

There's nothing like having a plan.. After all, there's nothing I love more than a plan. But there's also nothing worse than when you have a plan and then it fails.. miserably, all week. Well, almost all week. To break it down, here was my plan: make delicious dinners several nights this week, and blog about the success, and share the recipes. After a slow cooker beef stroganoff recipe disaster (cheap beef jerky flavor, anyone?), and a "entree turned side dish and now we have nothing to eat tonight".. I was left with nothing to post.

THEN in all my disappointment, I turned to a great food blog, Seasoned To Taste, and found this treasure! An absolute masterpiece of a dinner, perfect for date night! My only challenge remaining: don't ruin the grits! (I've attempted another version of shrimp and grits, only with bacon instead of sausage, and it wasn't a success to say the least. Bryce will gladly try most of my recipe attempts, but that particular night was a struggle)

This is gorgeous and so fresh. I'm in love. I chopped the veggies the night before, and sealed them up until time to cook.

We also had the most awesome salad.

(Mostly to make up for the gazillion calories we were about to consume)

Run over to Seasoned To Taste and get this recipe! You'll be so glad you did! I doubled the recipe to accommodate for the number of friends we had over.

 Lastly, I have a confession: I did not ruin the grits, because I did not make the grits. My lovely friend Amanda did. I couldn't take the chance on ruining dinner for 6 other people.. (We used instant grits though and they work great.)

We had homemade Rice Krispy Treats for dessert! Stay tuned for the recipe!



DIY Picture Frame & Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos

Here's a DIY double whammy for ya- make a fabric picture frame and cook dinner at the same time! (except one will take about 5 1/2 hours longer than the other.)

Cute right? And if you make it in the same fabric you made your lamp (here), it will help tie everything in your room together. And your friends will think "oh wow she's crafty!"

So here's what you do..

Pick out an old frame, frame you've had forever, that you got as a gift, one that you never really liked, or whichever one, and lay your fabric over it. Make sure you have enough fabric to cover the top and a little bit of either side.

Remove the glass. Pull the fabric tight, and hot glue it down starting on the outside of the frame. Like this..

Then use an X-acto knife to cut out the middle, remembering to leave enough to tuck under. You'll also need to cut really close into the corners so that the fabric tucks correctly.

Then glue the insides. Keep it taunt.

Waaa laa! Easy! (and cute)

I put mine on my new shelf!

(Yes this is a corner shelf.) 

(Yes, it's made from a door.)

(Yes, my dad made it.)

(Yes, he's the best dad ever!)

(Yes, I love it, and him.)

Now for the dinner part.. Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos

So stinkin' easy!

3 chicken breasts

1 jar of salsa

1 packet taco seasoning (but I only used half)

Toppings

Dump it all in and stir! Cook it about 6 hours on low. Shred it with a fork.

Put that baby on a tortilla. Add lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, whatever you love.

Enjoy!



Chicken Piccata with Mushrooms

A little spin on regular chicken piccata with the addition of mushrooms, I've found this recipe to be my favorite of all the chicken piccata recipes I've come across so far. If you've never made this before, just know that in order to really love it, you should be the following two things: a caper liker, and a lemon lover as there are some capers (although they are optional), and quite a bit of lemon flavor. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Also- there are quite a few ingredients but hopefully as I did, you'll have most of them on hand already.

Here's what you'll need:

1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 egg
2-3 tablespoons milk
6 (or less) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup onion
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
2 lemons, divided
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 jar capers, rinsed

In a small bowl, mix together flour, salt, and paprika. In a separate bowl, mix together egg and milk.

If needed, pound chicken breasts to flatten slightly. Rinse chicken in sink, pat dry. Dip in egg mixture to coat, then in flour mixture.

Melt butter in large skillet (med-high heat). Saute chicken until golden brown on both sides. Add mushrooms and onions and continue to cook for about 3-5 minutes.

In a medium bowl, combine chicken broth, wine, 1 1/2 lemons worth of juice, and cornstarch. Pour over skillet and reduce heat to medium-low. Add rinsed capers (as many as you like- I usually use about 1/2- 3/4 of the jar).

Simmer for 25 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. If you wish to eat the chicken over linguine, then begin cooking your pasta during this 25 minutes.

Cooked Linguine on the bottom, chicken on the top and sauce poured all over- DELICIOUS! and some people like to squeeze a little extra lemon on there!

Who needs Olive Garden? This is a great stay-in date night dinner!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

 Here's what's delicious (if you ask me).. stuffed peppers!

 Want to know what's even better? Stuffed peppers that are semi-healthy for you. AND something really great about stuffed peppers is, you can't really do it wrong- anything you like can go in them, add cheese and bake that sucker. Seriously- it's awesome! (Or in the summer, grill them..so yummy!)

To make ones just like I did, you need this:

4 green bell peppers (or red or yellow if you like it sweeter)
extra Virgin olive oil
ground turkey (because it's healthier than ground beef)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can crushed tomatoes
instant brown rice (or white)
shredded colby jack cheese
cayenne pepper (optional)
salt/pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Start by lining a baking pan with foil. Place each bell pepper on it's side, and cut the top off. Use a knife (carefully!) to clean out the pepper. They should look like this.

In a large skillet, heat a small amount (maybe a tablespoon) of olive oil on medium temperature. Add ground turkey and cook, stirring and turning occasionally (similar to browning hamburger, except turkey turns white). Add onion and cook for an additional minute or two-- super precise, I know. Add UNdrained can of tomatoes and bring to a boil.

Add instant rice and stir. Reduce heat and allow to simmer until rice is tender, stirring occasionally. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper if desired. While this is cooking, you can line the bottom of your peppers with shredded cheese. When it's ready, add a layer of the turkey/tomato/rice mixture. Then a layer of cheese, then the rice mixture, and so on until you've filled the pepper. Finish with cheese loaded onto the top (because you can never have too much cheese!)

Bake on 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the pepper appears to be softening justttt slightly. Turn your broiler on high and cook until the cheese on top is browning (5 minutes or less, keep an eye on it). As I've warned you before, using the broiler is tricky- DON'T BURN THEM! :)

YUMMY! Now imagine on the grill-- grill marks, smoked charcoal flavor, yeah baby!

Note: I really like my pepper to still be crunchy.. but if you don't, you can always start baking it while you're prepping the inside, and then put it back in the oven to finish it off. Like I was saying before, you really can't mess this up!