Apple Maple Glazed Chicken...a great fall dinner!

One of the best chicken recipes I've had in a long time!


Apple-Maple Glazed Chicken Breasts from Cook's Illustrated, September 2007

* 1 1/2 cups apple cider, plus 2 Tablespoons
* 1/3 cup light corn syrup
* 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
* 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
* 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
* pinch of red pepper flakes
* 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
* 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
* 1 medium shallot, minced
* kosher salt
* ground black pepper

Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat to 375.

Whisk together 1 1/2 cups apple cider, corn syrup, maple syrup, mustard, vinegar, 1/8 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes together in a medium bowl.


Spread flour in a shallow bowl or pie plate, and season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Dredge each chicken breast in flour, patting off excess.

Heat oil in an oven-proof 12-inch skillet until it is shimmering but not smoking. Lay chicken breasts in a single layer, and cook 12-14 minutes, turning once, until both sides are golden brown. Transfer chicken to a plate.


Pour off all but 1 teaspoon of fat. Saute shallot until softened, about 1-2 minutes. Increase heat to high, and add cider mixture to skillet. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture has reduced to about 1 cup, 6-10 minutes. A spatula should leave a slight trail when dragged through the mixture.

Remove skillet from heat, and tilt so that all the glaze pools on one side. Use tongs to coat each chicken breast in the glaze, and lay in a single layer in the skillet.

Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake until the thickest portion of the chicken reads 160 on an instant read thermometer, 20-25 minutes, turning chicken halfway through.

Remove from oven and set the chicken aside. Return the skillet to high heat on the stove top (be careful, the handle will be very hot!!). Cook until glaze has thickened and is syrupy, about 1 minute (a spatula will leave a wide trail when dragged through). Remove from heat and whisk in remaining 2 Tablespoons of cider.

Spoon 1 teaspoon over each chicken breast, and serve, passing remaining glaze at the table.

Yum!

The "I'm sick" virgin daquiri smoothie

It finally happened.

I caught the cold that's been going around. Yuck!

But at least this sore throat and runny nose means I can make this fun daquiri smoothie idea I've been thinking about. I HATE tea and I know that's good when you're sick, but this is SO much better! (This is also great for a healthy snack)

1 can frozen Bacardi strawberry daquiri mix
water
handful of blueberries or other fruit
1 yoplait vanilla yogurt cup (6 oz.)
handful of ice
sugar

Put frozen daquiri mix in the blender.
Fill the daquiri mix container with water and pour into the blender.
Add blueberries or other fruit, ice, and yogurt to the blender.
Blend until ice is crushed.
Wet the top of your glass using a wet paper towel.
Pour some sugar on a plate and then dip your wet glass rim in the sugar.


Pour blended drink into glass and enjoy!

A bundle of joy with these baby gifts!

I am SO excited to show you these super cute baby gifts I made for a friend's shower. Using these supplies, I made some fun things for a new mom decorating her nursery.

Supplies:
wood door knob hangers (found at any craft store)
wood baby hangers (VERY hard to find! Container Store has them)
acrylic paint
paint brushes
Mod Podge (make sure it's the clear kind)
scrapbook paper
paint pens or markers
ribbon
stickers, lace, any other cute details you might want to add (optional)

Both of these crafts use the same techniques, so I combined the instructions to include both.

Start by painting your door knob hangers and baby hangers. If your hangers are glossy, they may need 2 coats of paint to cover them.

Trace the outline of your clothing hanger and door knob hanger on some scratch paper to create a template for your scrapbook paper. I took the image I traced and then made it about 5% smaller so the scrapbook paper wouldn't go right to the edge of the hanger. Either way works fine.

Cut our your templates.
Trace your template onto scrapbook paper and cut it out. I cut out 2 shapes for each door knob hanger so there was one for the front and one for the back. I also cut out some thin strips to use for stripes.

Position your scrapbook pieces on your hanger to decide how you want to place them.

Apply Mod Podge to the back of the paper.

Carefully place your scrapbook paper shape onto the hanger. Make sure there are no wrinkles in the paper because once they dry, they will be really hard to fix.

When the paper dries, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to the entire front of the hanger including all the wood and the paper.
For the closet dividers, I printed out the words in a cute font.
You'll need:
Newborn
0-3 months
3-6 months
6-12 months
12-18 months
18-24 months
You could go the easy route and just cut out the words and Mod Podge them to your hangers. You could also buy stickers or hand-write these. But no, I needed to make it as complicated as possible! It took 3 trips to the craft store and a couple merchandise returns before I figured out the best way to do this.

Anyway, since I don't have a light table like we used to have in art class, I held the paper up to the window and used a pencil to trace the back side of all the letters and color them in. If you go this route, you probably only need 1 or 2 "months" and you can just reuse it for each hanger.


Cut out all the words and position them on your hanger. Use a mechanical pencil (without the lead sticking out) to trace over the letters. You'll see that the pencil you used on the back of the paper will be transferred to your hanger. (see picture below)


Color all your letters using a paint pen or marker.
Add ribbon, stickers, and any other cute details.





The door knob hangers can be tied to the clothing bar in the closet like this.

Crockpot Cream Cheese Chicken & Pasta

I'm very inspired by the blog, A Year of Slow Cooking because she makes it look so fun. Since my first crock pot experience didn't go as well, I wanted to try again with this recipe from Stephanie's blog. Yum! Great result this time!

- 2 cups of cream of mushroom soup (I used half cream of mushroom and half cream of chicken)

- frozen chicken (I used 3 frozen chicken breasts)

- 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

- 1/2 teaspoon celery seed

- 1 tablespoon onion powder

- 1 tablespoon sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2 cloves minced garlic (or garlic powder works too)

- block of cream cheese (I would cut this a little next time. Maybe 3/4 of the block)

Put everything but the cream cheese in the crockpot and mix. Cook on low for 6 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through and begins to shred. Shred the chicken with two large forks, and mix in the cream cheese. Change the settings to high and cook for another 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is fully melted. We left ours in longer since we were busy and it still turned out good.

Boil a box of spiral pasta, drain water, and mix into crockpot. Serve and enjoy!

Very happy with how this turned out and I've been eating the leftovers every day for dinner!