Grilled Church Picnic Chicken

I'm no food blogger (nor food photographer, clearly, LOL) but this Church Picnic Chicken is our go to recipe when we need a delicious, quick grilled meal in the summertime.  We had a volleyball double header last night and even though we really need to do a shopping trip, and even though it was so late (10:30pm!), we were still able to pull a proper meal out of thin air  and enjoy the heck out of it.

If you're local to Johnstown, this is very similar to the St, Gregory Chicken recipe from back in the good 'ole days of summer church picnics.  It's been a few years since we've had one, so I'm not spilling any secrets, right?  Sharing the delicious wealth is how I'm going to think of it.  

Ingredients: 

4-6 chicken breasts/tenders 

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup vinegar

2 tsp salt

Heat grill to medium/high.  Melt the butter and mix in the vinegar and salt to create the marinade. Salt & pepper the chicken.  

Use a basting brush to paint the chicken on both sides with the marinade. As chicken is grilling, continue to brush on marinade with each flip.

I wasn't kidding, it was almost 11pm for dinner last night.

When finished grilling, plate and enjoy (no condiments necessary, but our kids like it with ketchup).  Great sides include haluski (go full western PA church picnic style!), corn on the cob, or green beans.  The vinegar and butter keep the chicken so moist and delicious.  Honestly, it's our absolute favorite way to grill chicken.  

Hope your family enjoys it as much as we do!
xxox

a year of meal planning

If you would have told me about a year and a half ago that I could successfully meal plan for an entire 12 months, I would have never believed you.  There was a time that meal planning was slotted in my 'really ambitious' goal for myself.  But last January, I was determined to put one oven mitt in front of the other each week, and I made it bit by bit through the whole year planning our family's meals - and haven't stopped since!

I have no big secret or science to how I did it, it was really all about making it a habit.  I am so relieved that I am in this place now that meal planning is just something that I do.  It has changed and grown over the course of the year and is still evolving into what works the best for us.

This post is written in hopes to inspire or assist other Mums who look at meal planning as the daunting and scary mountain that I used to view it as.

How I got started:
1. weekly meal plans:  since I never used to meal plan at all, it was all about starting out slow.  I started by picking a day each week (Tuesday because that's when the grocery ads come) and planning out next weeks' meals based off of meat sales.  I planned one week at a clip and wrote it down (in pink or red pen) on each weekday for the following week.

2. Pinterest:  One of the big obstacles for me for meal planning has always been getting bored.  Sometimes, I just feel like if I have to eat another grilled chicken breast, I'm going to lose my mind.  Hah!  Enter from stage Left, Pinterest who provides 4528 recipes for chicken.  Seriously.  When my meal planning/eating boredom strikes, I start pin-searching new recipes and suddenly I'm energized with newness again.

3. Learning what my family likes:  It has been a year of learning about my families eating habits through meal planning.  I know the kids love spaghetti best of all, but that also has translated into watching them joyously eat other spaghetti like food (meatball sandwiches, pierogies & sauce, chicken parm). We have found by accident that the kids both like eating salad with dinner too (woohoo for veggies!) and our families #1 favorite side is steamed broccoli with corn on the cob a close second.  We are definitely meat-eaters over here and if I make a meat-less meal, there is mass confusion and a need for a protein fix asap (we go through eggs over here like no one's business).

deer meat sandwich!

How I stuck with it:
1. bi-weekly meal plans:  after getting comfortable with weekly planning, I bumped it up to planning two weeks at a time.  It freed up every other Tuesday, but also we started seeing more grocery bill savings since we were really only make a big trip every other week to the grocery store.

2. the slow-cooker:  we have a slow-cooker cooked meal probably 2-3 times a week.  I love slow cooking, its so easy and done when it's time to eat.  See Pinterest for approximately 8979 recipes on different things to cook in the slow cooker ranging from full meals to soup to desserts.  It's seriously the best invention ever.

3. adding breakfast & sweets to the planning:  I also started to incorporate a planned 'real breakfast' two times and a weekly dessert after getting more comfortable with dinners.  it allowed me to feel accomplished that the kids and I were eating anything other than toast/oatmeal for breakfast and the sweets were like a little love-pick-me-up through the week.  Plus, it's easy to get the kids in on helping to bake and provided a fun afternoon activity for us weekly to bake cookies for our family.

My top 3 benefits from meal planning:
1. less stress:  there is an amazing sense of calm that comes with simply knowing what your family will be eating come dinnertime.  So much happens during the day and by dinnertime I am generally too tired and brain-fried to attempt to assemble a meal with what I think may be available in the fridge & freezer.  Just having the meal written down in my planner to glance at the night before or the day of has made all the difference in my stress level come 5:30/6p each night.

2. money saved:  Since meal planning, we have found that we have saved money for a variety of reasons.  First, if something is already planned, I am less likely to tell B to just bring something home because I'm too tired to cook or clean up afterwards.  I mean, it's already setting out or slow-cooking, so we're good.  Also, we're not impulse buying at the grocery store because we only need the things on the list - and we're going to the grocery store fewer times during the month.  Granted, we still buy random stuff (hello Pringles), but it is at an extremely less often rate than pre-meal planning.

3. confidence:  through planning and preparing meals for my family, I have increased my self-confidence in what I am capable of in the kitchen.  I have found that I am trying out new flavors for foods that I may not have been brave enough to try before, and also not afraid of suddenly realizing I'm out of a particular ingredient (there are tons of info on substitutes for everything.  My fave:  applesauce in place of eggs).  There are meals now in my repertoire that I think, 'hmm, I wonder if this dinner will be something the kids will think of as one of Mum's meals when they move away.' I am a different home chef than I was a year ago and that makes me feel powerful.

Grey helping with mardi gras themed chocolate covered pretzels

Where I am today:
1. Monthly meal plans:  this year, I've been trying out planning out the whole month of meal planning at one time.  This is in an attempt to only do one big grocery trip (supplemented by the milk/eggs/bread sort trips occasionally) and really learn to start digging and using the stocked items we have in the pantry.

2. Planning 5 days a week:  This seems to work best for us, I plan 5 dinners a week for the 5 weekdays.  Most often, one day will be covered by left overs and then that will bump a planned meal to the weekend, or we'll eat dinner at one of our parent's houses, or have frozen pizza or something unplanned.  Of course, we occasionally eat out too, so all 7 nights are covered with little stress even when I only plan for 5 nights a week.

3.  Lunch:  since the kids and I are home everyday, lunch isn't ever planned outright but rather usually consists of leftovers from last night or bento-style lunches for them (salad or a sandwich for me).  Even though its the most obvious chart on the planet - somehow this little thing has really helped me when whipping up lunch for the kids:

So, that's how I overcame something that seemed so scary but also so necessary for my sanity as a Mum.  It is with relief and pride that I now can include myself as a meal-planning Mum:)

And for some meal-planning inspiration - here have been some of our favorites over the past year -

Our top 10 favorite new-to-us recipes
(that we've discovered and made multiple times over the past year):
Korean Beef (with ground beef)
Cheesy Vegetable Chowder  - like broccoli and cheese with more veggies
Slow Cooker Kielbasa and Cabbage
Meatball Sub Casserole
Quick Baked Potatoes - this has essential become my fallback potato recipe; so good, so easy.
Slow Cooker Brown Sugar & Garlic Chicken
American Goulash
Crockpot Meatballs
Grilled Country Style Pork Ribs
Slow Cooker Three Envelope Pot Roast


And how about top 5 desserts too:
Iced Oatmeal Cookies - the entire family went bonkers for these.  Brandon ate four at a time.
No bake energy bites
Thumbprint Jelly Cookies
Monster cookies -our go-to cookie recipe
Homemade Granola Bars - we add m&ms and chocolate chips to ours


And because breakfast can get so boring,
how about these top 3 favorite 'real' breakfasts:
Blueberry Banana Bread
Hootenany
Breakfast Enchiladas

meal planning & pin recipe reviews: January 2013

I don't want to jinx myself, but it appears that I am going to be able to overcome a very big obstacle in my motherhood/wifehood ambitions:  meal planning.  After years of struggling with getting the motivation to plan out our weekly dinners, I have successfully made it through an entire month of planning our Monday-Thursday meals.  It's a flipping miracle, my friends.

I'm not doing any kind of fancy meal planning like I have aspired to in the past.  (Like this, this, or this).  Puhlease.  I finally just got real with it and owned up to two things about myself:

1. the only thing I am intrisically invested in maintaining order within is my planner
2. I get very bored with food rotations

The first notation is why fancy meal planning systems (like the aforementioned) have not worked for me, because I try to be all fancy until it loses its luster.  However, I have maintained a personal planner since my freshman year of college (nerd alert).  You best not mess with my planner, ya'll.  fah reals.

The second point of interest is why meal planning seems a daunting task after a few weeks because in my brain I'm all like, "chicken, beef, pasta, chicken, beef, pasta, chicken, beef, dear sweet angels above release me from this monotonus existence."  (okay, I'm overly dramatic when it comes to this subject).

Alas, after complaining about my inability to get my sh*t together meal plan with my friend Jessica (hi, JP) who appears to have meal planning down like it ain't no thang, she flat out was like, "why are you being a drama queen? write it out on a piece of paper and be done with it, fool."  (okay, I embellished that a little because Jess is way to sweet to call me a fool, but you get the picture).

So, I've been jotting down our daily dinners in my planner and then getting my grocery list together and having all my supplies by Monday night's meal.  And to be quite honest, it really isn't as hard (or dramatic) as I have previously made it out to be.  And thanks to the magic of Pinterest - I have so far steered clear of my monotonous ranting about repeating foods.

And can I just be the 1 bajillionth person to tell you - it has made a drastic positive change in my motherhood/wifehood to not be last minute stressing about what we are eating each night.

And now for the fun part - from our pinterest recipes tried this past month - I'm going to give the low down on how they fared in our house from our cast of characters:
open to new things (OtNT) mumma
meat&potatoes (M&P) dadda
picky toddler
Lovestoeat (LtE) baby



Pin recipe #1:  Garlic Baked Shrimp

Source: laaloosh.ziplist.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  this recipe was quick and easy to make, which for a mumma with kids hanging off her legs is a pretty great combo.
OtNT Mumma:  YUM.  love it, of course I love shrimp...and garlic.  this was delicious and easy!
M&P Dadda:  good, but I'm not going to be asking for it by name in the future
Picky Toddler:  blech!  gross.
LtE Baby:  loved it, and it was a successful introduction to shrimp!

(i don't know what "they" say about babies and shrimp -okay, fine i just googled it - but no one in our family is allergic to shellfish so we always introduce our kids to as many different kinds of foods and tastes as possible.)


Pin recipe #2:  Sweet Baby Ray's Crockpot Chicken

Source: justapinch.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  easiest thing on the planet to make.  we are big supporters of the slow cooker, so we regularly use it about once a week for dinner.

OtNT Mumma:  i.love.sweet.baby.rays.
M&P Dadda:  more please!!
Picky Toddler:  Yummmmmmmmy!
LtE Baby:  only one who didn't like it.  and she was teething and cranky, so we're blaming it on that.


Pin recipe #3:  Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Source: skinnytaste.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  takes a little time to get everything assembled and ready to go.

OtNT Mumma:  really enjoyed all of the tastes blended together and felt sort of a like a 'fancy' dinner for our family.
M&P Dadda:  totally obsessed and ate like 2.5 boats.
Picky Toddler:  picked out all the sausage and cheese to eat and left all the zucchini in little piles all over his plate
LtE Baby:  not crazy about the zucchini, but loved the sausage, cheese, & sauce

Pin recipe #4:  Balsamic & Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Source: kitchen-confidante.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  We had to roast it as it was sort of a blizzard (directions for that too in the link) and I wasn't about to make B go out in the snow to grill.  We love grilled pork tenderloin though so we'd love to re-try during grilling season

OtNT Mumma: Yum.  the balsamic marinade was the perfect tang.  I followed up the next afternoon with leftovers and made a quasi-pulled pork sandwich - just as delicious on day2
M&P Dadda:  ate a lot of it.  like a lot.
Picky Toddler:  thought it was chicken and dipped it in ketchup.  ate a 'mom-satisfied' amount
LtE Baby:  ate some.  liked the accompanying mashed potatoes more though.

Pin recipe #5:  Blueberry Muffin Bake

Source: alexandracooks.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  holy use of supplies, batman.  I loathe washing dishes, so when a recipe calls for me to blend and mix things in lots of separate bowls it irritates me #firstworldproblems.  This one was all sorts of fancy to make -like use of lots of utensils and lemon zest

OtNT Mumma: Despite the prep mess, it was delicious.  took a little while to bake which is hard in the morning with hungry gremlin children (and it was still undercooked in the middle, but the kids were screaming for breakfast so we ate around it).
M&P Dadda:  it was good, but not really a big breakfast guy
Picky Toddler: ate, and ate, and ate, and ate.  and is still asking when I'm making 'Blueberry marshmuffin' cake again  (he confuses marshmallows and muffins...strange child).
LtE Baby:  liked it but prefers stand alone blueberries more

Pin recipe #6:  Skinny Baked Potato Soup

Source: ziplist.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Basics:  fairly easy to make (although I need to youtube 'how to cut cauliflower' so I don't make such a huge mess - okay fine, here just did) and we definitely didn't feel guilty over eating loads of cauliflower instead of potatoes & cheese

OtNT Mumma: Really good and perfect on a cold day.  I didn't chop the cauliflower all the way up (it was still sort of chunks) and that was the RIGHT decision.
M&P Dadda:  loves cauliflower = super loved this soup
Picky Toddler: nope.  didn't like it although loved topping it with 4 lbs of cheese and chives
LtE Baby:  could not feed her fast enough.  She loved it that night and then for two days after for lunch leftovers.

So it has been a taste-tastic month (hah!) and we are still going strong.  I'm hopeful that we can keep it up - and keep it from getting boring.  Between the pinned recipes, we sprinkle in some of our oldies but goodies like lasagna, sloppy joes, chicken fajitas, etc.  We try about 1-2 new pin recipes a week and we are having fun trying them out.

What are some of your favorite recipes - pinned or not?  I need all the help I can get to keep this up!

holiday sweets & treats!

I am just going to go ahead and say it, I am damn proud of my baking efforts this Christmas.  I'm not much of a baker, chef, or candlestick-maker, but I put forth the effort this year and I'm just going to go ahead and boast.

While my family was visiting, I felt like a powerful woman with all the "free time" (aka someone else was watching the dog and the baby) and I went to the kitchen like one of those women you see in old movies that bake because they're nervous.  Brandon said, "holy crap, why do you keep baking more?"  I just couldn't stop myself, I was overcome with the ghost of christmas bakers past.

I started my baking journey with the ever favorite sugar cookies & boiled icing; both recipes from my late Gram Adams.  When we were little girls, every holiday we would make the trek two doors up the street to my grandma's house to bake sugar cookies and ice them.  It was a full day event and all the granddaughters would join in the fun.  The table was caked with flour and our bellies full of raw dough be the end of the day, but we sure cookie-cutter'ed and ice'd the heck out of about 10 dozen cookies.  After four years of Gram's passing, I am still trying to perfect the icing, just can't get it yet - but I'm getting a little better each time.  I made the dough and icing earlier that morning, and then slapped my sisters in some aprons and put their behinds to work!

By the end of all that flour mess-making, laughing, and creating of weird designs; we had ourselves 5 dozen of delicious sugar cookies.  here's to you gram; my best attempt at your icing - miss you everyday.



Know that your great grandson is enjoying your icing recipe, Gram!

I also got a deliciously amazing recipe from tasteasyougo.com called Montana whoppers.  They are basically chocolate chip oatmeal cookies on uppers, and by uppers I mean with milk chocolate & white chocolate chips AND mini m&m's.  The recipe is here if you feel like totally blowing your diet before your new years resolution kicks in.


waah!  messy kitchen!!

Then it was a quick toss in the oven for our store-bought sugar cookies for our December kindness; deliver cookies to St. Mary's of Asbury's.  Those are no trouble, but are much appreciated by the folks over at St. Mary's. 

Then I made some chocolate covered pretzel sticks and my baby sis reluctantly helped decorate them.  The secret to melting the chocolate; which somehow I forget every single time I make these, is that you put the chocolate in a pan on top of a pan of water.  Then the boiling water, melts the chocolate in pan above.  If you just melt the chocolate in a pan right on the stove burner, you'll get what I get at the start of making these, not kidding, every single time:  burnt chocolate.  You'd think a girl would learn? I'm blaming it on how nutty I was at that point from all the raw dough and chocolate intake!?



final products!!

Later in the week, I hesitantly baked up some pumpkin roll.  I know, one holiday too late, but Brandon has been pleading with me to try it out since before Thanksgiving (oops) and I finally caved and tried it out for the first time.  It was suprisingly easy and delicious.  I even threw in some coconut into the cream cheese filling for my hubs.  best wife ever?  yes, if you don't count the fact its a month late.

Camo country

Marriage is all about compromise; anyone will tell ya.  Well October-November is two whole months of compromise in our house.  October 1st is a very exciting day for my husband, one he looks forward to all year.  Its the day that our house "goes camo" in full moral support of hunting season.  Our bed sheets are camo, we have camo shower curtains...even the baby is involved with camo crib sheets!

Our first day of archery & buck season have a little tradition that I get to be involved in.  When B gets up, I am able to miraculously drag myself out of bed to put on his coffee and start making his hunting breakfast treat; sticky buns.  I got the recipe from Real Simple magazine (my fav).  Its quick, easy, and delicious:

Roll of frozen biscuits
brown sugar
butter
bananas(optional)
walnuts/pecans (optional)
cinnamon/sugar (other choice)

heat the oven to 375

In a cupcake pan, place a thinly sliced pad of butter in each section.  Sprinkle about a half teaspoon of brown sugar on top of the butter pads.  If interested, top with a very thinly sliced piece of banana and/or nuts.  Cover the mixture with a frozen biscuit.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until brown

While still hot, place a baking sheet on top of the cupcake pan and flip over.  Pull the cupcake pan off and the sticky buns will be left on the baking sheet.  Yum!  Even though I want no involvement in the rest of his hunting experience, by getting up to make his breakfast snack, I can still be a part of his favorite day of the year.

Happy Hunting Season!