What's for dinner?

Well, I'll tell you. I made a new pasta recipe last night for dinner and I was tempted to share that with you but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post the delicious dinner we had tonight. So easy, so good, so budget friendly.


Salsa Chicken

Chicken
Taco Seasoning
Salsa
Cheddar Cheese
Sour Screm (optional)


Preheat oven to 350.
Place thawed chicken in a pan (however much you think your family will eat), sprinkle taco seasoning over all. Spread salsa over all. Bake for 30 minutes or until juices run clear. Sprinkle cheese on top, put back in oven for 2-3 minutes or until melted. Put a dollop of sour cream on top.


That's it! I promise you will not regret it if you give this recipe a try. I usually serve this with yellow rice:
that you can buy in the Mexican food aisle of any grocery store.

Since I came home feeling ambitious and motived to bake, I tried a new cookie recipe. I found it here, but I'll share it in this post as well.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 3/4 cups chocolate morsels
1 cup quick or old-fasioned oats
1/2 raisins (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract in alrge mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in egg. Gradually beat in flour mixture and milk. Stir in morsels, oats and raisins. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake 10 - 14 minutes or until edges are crisp but centers are still soft. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.


I have never made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies before, so I'm not sure if this recipe will be my favorite, or just good. I will have to hunt some more and try some other recipes out! Oh, darnit. ;-)

ENJOY!

Giveaway

Regina did this on her blog, and I won (yay!) so here goes....

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me!
My choice.
For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog (eventually) and offer the same deal to 5 of your own lucky blog readers.

Snowboarding Adventures

My dad had given us all (my siblings, Jared & I) tickets to go snowboarding at a local resort. Anyway, we went on V-Day and these are pics of the grand event!

From left to right: Ethan, Audrey, Me & Zach. We're standing in front of the lodge at Solitude.
Again, us in front of the ski lift. This was the one up to the real runs, which we didn't do!

No, that is not a cool move I'm doing. That is me about to fall on my knees, which ya' know, hurts. Part of the package that we go included a 1/2 day ski lesson, so this is us learning before we hit the slopes.

Long distance shot on the ski lift.

Close up shot on the ski lift. That part was pretty fun. Not a whole lot of work on my part, and it was very relaxing to just sit there and let it float you up the mountain.

Zach, who actually turned out to be pretty good for a first timer.

This is the mess we always created getting off the ski lift and onto the slopes. Zach had just run into me. Getting a snowboard up my butt was definitely a high hope for the day. ;-)

And finally, the hubby and I in all our gear! It was super cold that day, but perfect snowboarding weather. I will probably not do it again, but it was fun to spend the day with everyone and at try it out. I had several bruises and was so incredibly sore on Sunday, but it was worth it!!

A Must Read

I know I have been posting a TON in the last few days and I promise I'll calm down. I just wanted to shared my thoughts on this awesome book I just finished reading. My in-laws gave it to us for Christmas and it's a really great book. It's not by and LDS author or even religion related. I don't want to ruin the story, but it's SO good and reading it will make you want to be a better person and think about the things or people in your life that you love and appreciate. I think sometimes we all need something uplifting to remind us of why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing. This is one of those great reminders. Read it, you'll love it.

Project Night

So I went over to my Mom's house tonight to have a project night. Everyone brings whatever craft project they are working on and well.. works on it. I have been totally digging these letter blocks so I thought I'd do one for Valentine's Day.

This was my workspace. Not a big surprise if you've ever seen me cook. MESSY. I'm not sure why that is, but I can't not cook or craft without making a huge mess.

This is the E of "Love". Not finished yet. Any ideas?

I spent TWO HOURS trying to get the O to look cute and this is all I came up with. Who knew? I had a total brain fart.

The first letter I worked on. Apparently I only have enough creativity in me to do one letter at a time. Love this one though! Maybe after a few days break I'll get an epiphany and see exactly what I want the rest of the letters to look like. Ha!

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I'm just barely beginning to be interested in crafting and such so I don't have a lot of experience to draw on. It's nice to do projects with other women to get suggestions and feedbacks. Plus it's just fun to sit and chat about random things. Anyway, great night, great craft, had a blast!

25 Random Things

I have never been "tagged" but I love reading these on people's blogs so I thought I'd put one on anyway. Mostly I just want to see if I can come up with 25 things!

25 Random Things about Me:

1. I was hit in the head by a discus in 7th grade (can we say.. ouch?!)
2. I am slightly pigeon footed, which causes me to have a waddle-like run. Not very attractive.
3. I take 20 min showers. Even when I try to hurry, they still end up being 20 min.
4. I can eat a whole bag of peanut M&M's in one sitting.
5. I LOVE reading romance novels.
6. I am not a germ-o-phob, but I can't stand drinking from a restaurant cup without the straw. Gives me the heebie geebies.
7. I cry at pretty much anything. Movies, books, sad moments... The list goes on.
8. I love to sing songs in church, but when the notes get to high for me I stop singing and mouth the words until the songs goes into my range again.
9. I am the worst at re-telling a story or joke.
10. Dr. Pepper is my manna from heaven.
11. I hate yard work of any kind.
12. I love chocolate, but don't like chocolate ice cream, chocolate milk or chocolate frosted donuts.
13. I love lunch dates. Doesn't matter who with, I just love going out to lunch!
14. I snort sometimes when I laugh.
15. I love being an Army wife.
16. I am terrible at keeping secrets. I always tell people that if they don't want something told to anyone else, don't tell me! I can't even keep gifts and such for Jared a secret. I just get so excited I blab about everything.
17. I love to plan parties and can't wait 'til I have a house so we can have company over. Our BBQ is just patiently waiting in our storage unit, ready to be used.
18. Besides being a stay-at-home-mom, my dream job is a librarian.
19. My favorite color is red.
20. I want to travel someday. There are lots of places I want to go and sights I want to see.
21. I do not possess the quality of punctuality. I am ashamed to say that I am always late to pretty much everything.
22. My favorite colors to wear are black and white. So simple, so classy.
23. I tried to hang up a curtain rod all by myself once and I had to read the directions on how to use the drill. Pathetic, I know.
24. I was in the marching band in high school and am not afraid to admit it! I actually really enjoyed myself.
25. This post took me like an hour to complete.

Updates

I love coming into work on Monday mornings, not b/c I love my job, but b/c everyone has had a chance to update their blogs over the weekend and I love reading new posts!

So, here are our updates:

Jared: Busy with school. He's taking four classes this semester, but two of them are capstone classes so he has a TON of papers and projects to do this semester. We are counting down the days until May 8, The Big Day. You better believe that I am going to be there sitting in the front row when he walks across the stage!

Cait: Not so busy with work. Since the rates were so low during Dec and Jan, we were super busy with a bunch of refinances (I work for an appraisal company) and that was really nice to be busy all day long. Now, not so much. Thank goodness for the internet.. I usually keep myself pretty entertained during the day. Mostly looking at all the decadent baking websites and drooling all over myself. I've started taking sewing lessons from my mom one day a week, and I've discovered that I'm not very good at it. At least not yet! I now have my very own sewing machine and it's been exciting to work on it a little bit. I'm currently in the process of making pajama pants, so we'll see how it goes. Mostly I want to learn how to use it to do craft sewing, such as curtains/draperies, slipcovers, pillow cases.. stuff like that. Hopefully, I'll get there someday!

Two Loves Combined

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

1 pkg Betty Crocker's Chocolate Chip Cookie mix
(necessary ingredients listed on back of package)
1 pkg Betty Crocker's Original Supreme Brownie mix (w/ chocolate syrup pouch)
(all necessary ingredients for mix listed on back of box)
Chocolate Frosting

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of 9x13 pan. Make brownies according to package directions, spread in bottom of pan. Make cookies according to package directions. Spoon tbsp size scoops into even rows on top of brownies, push dough down. Bake for 35-40 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.


Side Notes:

This is a totally delicious desert and SO easy! My fav kind of recipe. I made this last night for our super bowl party and it was a big hit! I'm sure that if you so desire, packaged mixes can be substituted with homemade ingredients. Also, I just used a regular fudge brownie mix and it came out just fine. I also did not put the chocolate frosting on top. That seemed a little too sweet for my tastes, but if that's what you're craving I'm sure it's delicious. Hope you enjoy!