Baize Green by Sherwin Williams

You may remember that we bought a house over the summer! (I would link
 you back to our announcement, but I accidentally deleted it!) In my post, I mentioned that I was going to entertain some frugal decorating posts. Now, I realize I'm not much of a decorator at this point, and we really have not done a THING to our house. Just this weekend, we did finally get a bathroom painted. I love seeing other people's paint colors, and I discovered while I was researching paint colors for this housethat you can Google just about any color and you will come up with all kinds of photos from other people's real life experiments! I found it so helpful, so I am paying it forward!

Our new house is a big, traditional Colonial. It has a big of a Martha Stewart feel, I think, which I love. I'm NOT in to contemporary or modern at all. Anyway, my objective for this house is for it to be "fun" and cheerful. I want my kids to remember it was the bright, warm and loving house that they grew up in, so I've carried that over in to all of my decorating ideas. My kids will share this bathroom, so the objective here was gender neutral AND bright. The paint color is Sherwin Williams Baize Green. I've purchased new towels from Target in "Fiery Pink" and a nice shade of aqua called "Sea Going." I may add some accessories as we go, but I'm just not great at that! So maybe not!

Caramelized Pineapple Sauce

This weekend I was looking for a fast and easy dessert for our family Labor Day dinner on Sunday. I decided to go with banana splits, and I used this recipe for caramelized pineapple that I saw on $10 Dinners. It was REALLY easy and delicious. I might have cooked it a little too long, as it wasn't very "saucy," but no one complained! We all agreed that it tasted like pineapple upside down cake without the cake, and it was just great for banana splits! I was actually really pleased with how nicely it pairs with chocolate syrup too, and it made for a very affordable dessert for our whole family!

Here is the recipe,

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
• One 20-ounce can crushed pineapple
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch salt

Melt the butter and sugar in a medium skillet over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Increase the heat to high. Add the pineapple and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and coated in caramel, about 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and add the vanilla and salt. 

Enjoy!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

As sort of a last minute "we have a super busy weekend" event, we went out to On The Border for dinner last night. My husband and I nearly died when our two entrees and two kids meals cost $40 after tip. I mean, we sort of saw it coming, but we just eat out so rarely anymore that it was a shock!Gosh, it was so painful on the old wallet!

I've been holding on to this recipe for Chili's Cajun Chicken Pasta for awhile. After our super expensive dinner out, I decided to give a copy cat recipe a try. It was really quite fast, and even with having to buy the spices, it was pretty cheap! The cream, noodles, chicken and tomatoes only cost about $6. Not so bad, right? We EVEN had leftovers -- enough for someone to eat for lunch the next day, which is a miracle for us!

I changed the original recipe up a little. Here is how I made it,

1 package of precooked chicken breast strips

2 teaspoons cajun seasoning 

2 tablespoons butter

3 cups heavy cream 

1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning 

1 teaspoon black pepper 

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder 

1 box penne pasta, cooked and drained 

2 roma tomatoes, diced 

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, fresh shredded, to taste (I intended to use parmesan, but discovered I was out. Cheddar worked just fine in place.)

 

Directions: Cook noodles as directed. In a separate pan, heat heavy cream, two tablespoons of butter and seasonings (only use half of the cajun seasoning) over medium heat. Stir occasionally. Dice tomatoes. When the cream mixture begins to bubble, add the cooked noodles. While your noodles as sauce are warming through, microwave the chicken strips. Once they are heated through, sprinkle liberally with cajun seasoning. Transfer noodles to a bowl and top with tomatoes. Sprinkle these liberally with cajun seasoning also. Place chicken strips on top, sprinkle with cheese and serve. YUM!

This dish is a little on the spicy side, but all of my family really loved it. Even the baby! Of course, we were all very happy to eat such delicious food at home for $6 instead of out for $40!

My littlest sweetie....

Ok, so she's not my tiniest kid these days, but she's still my tiniest girl. AND SHE's FOUR?!?!?! How did that happen??? 

Happy Birthday, Sweet Thing!

The Best Pasta Salad You've Ever Eaten...

Whenever we have a family get together planned, I always check the sale ad before I commit to what I'm bringing. This week, veggies were on sale at Aldi, so I committed to bringing a pasta salad to my father in law and daughter's birthday celebration. I always use the same method for pasta salad and people always act like it is the best pasta salad they have ever tasted. Last night, I sent my leftovers home with family, and now my people are mad at me because they wanted to snack on this! So, here is how I do it,

Ingredients -

1 lb of pasta, cooked as directed
4 or 5 different veggies (diced) (I've used bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumber and red onion)
1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
1 bottle of ZESTY (very important) Italian dressing
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions -

While your pasta is cooking, dice the vegetables and place in a large bowl. Stir in Parmesan cheese. Once your pasta is cooked, drain and rinse until it is nice and cold. Place the noodles in the bowl with the veggies and top with half a bottle of dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I use a ton of black pepper and a little salt.) Once everything is mixed together, you can cover with saran and store in the fridge until you are ready to serve it. Before serving, top with the remaining half a bottle of dressing. Serve cold!

See! I told you it was super easy!!! We actually have this as our main dish for dinner a lot in the summer too! It's just so refreshing and healthy!

See more recipes at Beauty and Bedlam!

Crockpot Chicken Marinara

Whoa! I'm back! After endless seemingly endless complications and half a million boxes, we're finally almost 100% settled in to our new house! Now, if we could just find my husband's wedding ring, we'd be golden! Our new house is easily twice the size of our old house, and we are just so happy with the space! My kids have a huge finished basement to go nuts in, and they have just been thrilled. My six year old's first request was for a trapeze down there, which was good for a laugh! Regardless, I haven't heard a peep about the trapeze since the first day we moved in, their totally happy with their sea of toys and room to do cartwheels!

Of course, I'm really happy to be back to cooking! I even have empty cabinets in my new kitchen! The new kitchen is not without it's quirks, but I'll get used to it. (I'm really missing my island!) We'll make some changes over time too. And, you'll notice that my pictures have a new setting! We have a really sunny eat in kitchen nook that I think will be very picture taking friendly! I ALSO have a super old and ugly table (see above) that isn't the hottest back drop. Someone gave us this table ten years ago when my husband moved in to our first apartment. It's been in the basement of our old house since 2006, but we had to break it back out since we have both a formal and informal eating space now! We'd planned on replacing it before we moved in, but I haven't found an alternative that I like either. I'd rather stick with something free that I hate than pay for something new that I hate.

Sunday is my husband's new work day. I was happy to try out a new recipe in the crockpot while the kids and I hit the pool this afternoon. My oldest daughter really loved it! She had three huge bowls! Here is my adapted recipe,

4 boneless chicken breast halves

3 cups of marinara sauce

1 handful of grape tomatoes

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

1-1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/3 orange bell pepper

2 tablespoons of butter

1 box of rigatoni (I use rigatoni because it's so much easier for little people to manage.)

1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions -

• Place chicken in a 4-qt. slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine the marinara sauce, tomato, Italian salad dressing, Italian seasoning, garlic and bell pepper; pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours or until chicken is tender. Melt in 2 tablespoons of butter when the chicken is cooked.
• Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Serve chicken and sauce with pasta; sprinkle with cheese.

Brown Sugar and Butterscotch Scones

Here is another version of my amazing scone recipe. They were so great! My husband said they were his favorite yet!

Scones:

• 4 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1 cup room temperature butter, cubed
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cups milk
• 1 cup of butterscotch chips

Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cube the butter and mix in to the mixture until the butter is pea sized. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together. Stir into the flour mixture until the dough is moist, do not over mix. Knead in the butterscotch chips. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times. Divide dough into two equal balls. Pat each ball into an 8 inch circle. (Be careful to make sure it is not too thick in the center.) Place each ball onto a parchment paper lined or greased cookie sheet. Score each circle with a knife into 6 wedges. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, or until done and lightly golden. Allow the scones to cool.