Oven Roasted Chicken

Happy Healthy recipe Tuesday everyone... Today's Recipe is Oven Roasted Chicken.

So this recipe I got from my mom... and it is sooooo good. It's for a whole chicken, and the seasonings are amazing & the chicken always comes out so tender & juicy. Even for someone like me... who over cooks any type of meet I try to cook & it always comes out really dry and boring. But not this recipe... it has ALWAYS turned out perfect!!

I have step by step pictures of this one.... some of them are gross looking so this is your warning... there will be pictures of raw, cut up chicken in this blog post.... But if you can get past raw, dead chicken.. you will have an awesome meal!! :)

Step #1 - Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Take your whole chicken, rinse it off and pat it dry. Place chicken on a cutting board, and with a good pair of Kitchen sheers, cut down both sides of the back bone and remove. 

Then take a knife and cut it the rest of the way in half!

Then... season evenly, on both sides with all of your seasoning.  Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet and place chicken skin side down in the pan, brown for about 5 minutes. 

 Once chicken is browned, turn over and place in roasting pan & put it in the oven.  Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, or until the bird has reached 165 degrees.

Then they come out looking like this & smelling soooooo yummy!! 

This recipe is the best for baking up a bunch of chicken for either a family dinner, or to cut up, shred, and freeze, and make other dinners with. I typically will cook up 2 whole chickens at a time so I have enough for dinner that night & some to save for later. I love having tasty, moist chicken already cooked up and ready to go for a list minute dinner like BBQ chicken sandwiches, or yummy home made chicken noodle soup when you are sick. 

Here is the actual recipe...

Oven Roasted Chicken

4lb whole chicken
1 T Kosher salt
1 t Garlic powder
1/2 T Dried Thyme
1/2 T Ground Black Pepper
olive oil

Heat grill, or oven to 425 degrees. Take your whole chicken, rinse it off and pat it dry. Place chicken on a cutting board, and with a good pair of Kitchen sheers, cut down both sides of the back bone and remove. In a small bowl, mix together the seasonings and rub evenly all over the bird. In a large cast iron skillet, heat a small amount of olive oil over medium hight heat. Once the oil has been heated place chicken skin side down in the pan, brown for about 5 minutes. Once chicken is browned, turn over and place in roasting pan & put it in the oven.  Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, or until the bird has reached 165 degrees.

Ham and Cheese braid

Yay... it's new recipe Tuesday... Today's recipe is a Ham and Cheese braid. Here is the link for this recipe. 

So you know how a few weeks ago I mentioned that we had to put off our Easter Sunday dinner because we were all sick? Well, we ended up having our Easter dinner the Sunday after. We had everyone over and had so much fun.

We had ham... and it was so good. Even though we gave a bunch of it away to family, we still had a ton of it left. There are only so many days that you can eat the same leftovers. So I had to come up with a new way to eat our leftovers. I hopped on Pinterest & this is where I found this recipe.

It looked a little weird... and I wasn't sure about the Honey Mustard, but I had all the ingredients already for this recipe. So I just went for it. One little change I made, was that I used my home made, whole wheat pizza crust recipe instead of using the canned crescent roll dough it suggests. Here is the link to that recipe.

It was a HUGE hit! Everyone loved it... even my crazy picky 5 year old... the sounds of "yum" actually came out of his mouth after he was forced to take his first bite. :)

This is what my leftovers looked like after everyone was done....

I think this picture speaks for it's self! :) So, next holiday, if you cook a ham, this is the perfect leftover recipe for the whole family! :)

Whole Wheat pizza curst

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust recipe

This pizza crust recipe is so fast and easy to throw together. It's also pretty healthy as far as pizza crust goes. We use this recipe a lot for several different things. Here is that recipe...

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

1 package of Yeast

1 cup of warm water

1/2 t. salt

2 t. olive oil

2 - 2 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water, add salt and olive oil, then mix. Slowly add flour until dough is lightly sticky. Let rise about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough and place on pizza stone. Add toppings, and cook in oven for about 12 minutes. 

Friday Donut Day

Hey friends, guess what today is... it's Friday Donut Day again!!  What kind of donut are you going to have? I am thinking I'm going to have to skip my donut again this week. (major sad face going on here...)  I'm going on vacation in less than 2 weeks and I really want to look my best. So... I'm going to summon all my will power and try and stay away from donuts until I am actually on vacation! :) So... I want someone to eat a donut for me & Jennifer today. Make sure to send good vibes our way! :)

Today I am sponsoring a great woman by the name of Jennifer Roeling. Here is a picture of her and her cute family.

She is the cousin of a very good friend of mine and she needs our help. I have been in contact with her, and she has emailed me her story. So I'm going to go ahead and post what she has written....

"I'm 36 years old. I'm happily married to my husband Richard, we'll be married 8 years this year. We have 3 beautiful kids, 2 girls and 1 boy...Lindsay is 15, Landen is 8 & Taylor is 6. I'm a stay at home Mom and my husband is a hard working man for all of us. I've dealt with a lot of medical problems and chronic pain after my last baby. It's always been one thing after another I feel like I never get a break from pain issues. It's hard dealing with so much pain and trying to take care of my kids, so I've had to have so much help with kids the last couple years. It's one of my struggles as a mother. I hope they grow up knowing I did everything I could for them and still try everyday, I hope they know how much I love them and pray everyday that I can be a fun active mom for them and take care of them by myself like I use to.. My biggest struggle of all is not being a normal mom everyday. <3

About 4 years ago I started experiencing knee pain in both knees, my left knee has always been worse then my right. I went and saw a few Doctor's for this pain they have done so many X-Rays and I always got the same answer, that they didn't see anything wrong and they just wanted me to do to physical therapy. I did what they wanted me to and it never helped. There's been so many times that I've fallen down because my knees would get week, there's been so many times that I couldn't walk on my own, if I would hold my kids it made me so week in the knees and felt like they were going to collapse on me. I couldn't understand why the Doctor's I would see didn't know what was wrong with my knees.  I decided to talk to my new Doctor that is my pain management Doctor for my chronic pain. I told him how bad my left knee was and I haven't had answers for years. He decided to do an MRI, something that none of the other Dr's did. In November 2014, I got my follow up after the MRI on my left knee, I thought it was going to be like all the other results I've gotten, but nope it wasn't. I found out that my femur bone was dying/deteriorating because of bad blood flow. It was the worst day of my life I was so devastated, I cried & my husband cried. My family and my best friend also cried and had a hard time with the news. My Dr sent me to see a bone specialist and she told us that I have AVN-Avasculiar Necrosis it means I don't have blood flow at all in the femur bone, and it's caused by smoking. I also found out that the issues with my femur bone is not connected to my knee pain and we still don't know what's causing the knee pain. Which is really frustrating not knowing what's going on. We still had to run a bunch of tests. It's scary that AVN has no symptoms. If it wasn't for my knee pain I would have never known about the AVN, or that I needed to quit smoking. 

In February I found out the hard way that I couldn't walk on my own because my knee were hurting so bad. So I called my pain Dr to get me in as an urgent visit and they got me in the next day and he wanted to repeat the MRI on my left knee to see if the AVN has progressed at all. He also wanted to do an MRI on the right knee. I got in right away and back to my Drs 3 days later. He told me that the left femur bone has progressed rather quickly. When I first found out about my femur bone on the left the AVN was at 7.4% and now it's already at a 8.8% and that I also have AVN in the right femur bone. The Dr told me that we need to do a Stem Cell Implant, which is a bone marrow transplant. They'll take bone marrow from my hip and put it in my femur bones to get the blood circulating again so they'll stop dying off. If it reaches my knee joint I can lose my legs so it needs to be done asap. This procedure is not covered by any health insurance and all together it'll cost $10,100.00. To hear that was heart breaking and it scared me to death. My depression got worse, and my husband also got really depressed. The next challenge was quitting smoking and It's been the hardest thing I've ever done. It's been a huge challenge in my life. Ever since we found out how bad it is we've been trying every way we can to raise money. I posted about having a fundraiser yard sale and I was amazed by how many people stopped by to donate stuff for my yard sale and it was a great success. I'm so very blessed to have so many people in my life that want to help me. Its all been a huge challenge for me, but I'm hopeful and trying my best to stay positive."

Jennifer also want's her story to be about smoking awareness. She encourages everyone who is currently smoking, to seek help for their addiction. 

Jennfer has an account set up through Cypress Credit Union that you can donate to, just go in and tell them you want to donate to the "donate to Jennifer Roeling" fund. Also she has a go fund me account, the link for that is here. 

If there is any way you would be able to donate at all to help save Jennifer's legs, it really would be a huge blessing. Even a few dollars is better than nothing. Little amounts can add up fast. 

Thank you for taking the time to read Jennifer's story! I hope everyone has a great weekend!! 

Hand sewing your quilt binding

To hand sew or machine sew your binding onto your quilt... that is the question of the day.  Now I am sure some of you normal people are thinking "why would you ever hand sew anything when you can just use a machine and get it done a lot faster." But then there are us crazies out in the world who hand sew all of our bindings onto our quilts.

(Okay... ignore my scary looking "toe thumb"!! Also yes, that is my steering wheel in my car. And no..  I wasn't driving when I took this picture. When you take the time to hand sew your bindings, you just have to fit that in whenever and wherever... like when you are waiting to pick up your 10 year old from her piano lesson. Don't you just love that fabric???) 

I don't know what it is, but I can't handle NOT hand sewing a binding onto a quilt. It's like a using a machine for this last step & finishing up the quilt is cheating or something. Or like it doesn't mean as much if you don't leave a little piece of yourself on that quilt. I know that spending hours cutting and sewing the whole quilt top all together is a little like leaving our "mark" on the world, but actually doing that last little bit by hand just makes the quilt feel complete & makes the world a better place! :)

I feel a little like the character "Frank Navasky" played by Greg Kinnear in the movie "You've Got Mail". You know how he's obsessed with type writers & and always freaking out about how the computer is going to ruin all of society... I'm a little like that about using a machine to sew your binding on. It's like using a sewing machine for everything is killing the past or something... I don't know... I am slightly crazy about sewing and fabric. :)  I just love the feel of the fabric on my fingers & cuddling up under my blanket while I am finishing it. We really do get to bond during this process! :)

But there is my 2 cents on sewing on your bindings! If you are in need of some binding advice, here is the tutorial that is my "go to" for bindings. I used to watch this all the time when I first started out & it was so helpful! :)

I am curious to know, how do you sew your bindings onto your quilts? And it's okay if you machine sew them..  we can still be friends! :)

Slow Cooker Cream of Chicken and Rice Soup

This weeks healthy recipe is Slow Cooker Cream of Chicken and Rice soup. Here is the link to that recipe.

I know I have been in a soup rut lately... but it's been chilly here in Utah on and off lately & I've been sick. So all I want to eat when I'm sick & it's cold outside is soup. But I am on the mend (I think...) and I promise my next recipe will NOT be soup!

I made a few changes to this recipe. First, I left out the corn starch & the milk at the end & it was actually really good with out them. The first time I made it, I left them out just by accident. I totally forgot to add them & didn't realize it until the next day.  So I have decided to always leave it out. It's healthier without them I think, and I have never missed them.  But if you want a creamier soup then you will definitely need to add them.  Second, I didn't chop up my chicken... I was slightly dis-organized and didn't think to take the chicken out of the freezer until I was reading the recipe and actually throwing everything into the crockpot to cook it. So I just stuck my chicken in frozen and shredded it right before I served it. Worked out great & cut down the prep time drastically! :)

This recipe is awesome for several reasons. First... it's total comfort food! It's the classic chicken and rice soup that you grew up eating when you were little and sick. It tastes so good & it really is good for your soul!!

Second awesome reason is, everything goes into the crockpot un-cooked, even the rice. And it just cooks all day.... hardly any prep. Just chopping up a few things & tossing everything into the crockpot and you are set for the day. Although the rice does use up most of the broth & I had to add 2 more cups of broth to get it to the right soup consistency before serving.

Third... everyone loved it!! Everyone had seconds!! Well, except for Carter... but that kid doesn't like anything but hotdogs & ham sandwiches.... he is the pickiest 5 year old on the planet!!  :)

This one is definitely one for the repeat recipe book.

Friday Donut Day

Today is Friday Donut Day... Yay!! Although... I will not be having a donut because I shared a HUGE cinnamon roll with my husband yesterday! It was so good, but so full of sugar... I'm amazed I didn't go into a sugar coma!! So no donuts for me today.... I have had enough sugary goodness to last me a few days...

Anyways... I am giving a shout out to Chick-Fil-A today. They are doing a fundraiser for the Month of April for the organization Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS). What this organization does is they help family members of fallen officers.  You need to just go up to the cashier when you order and tell them you are there for the fundraiser and want to contribute to it. It's as easy as that!!

This one hits close to home for many people, including many members of a small city in Utah called Eagle Mountain. I lived in Eagle Mountain for about 8 years and on January 30th, 2014, in that small city of Eagle Mountain an officer by the name of Cory Wride was shot and killed while checking on a car he thought was abandon on the side of the road. He was killed instantly.

It was a very sad day for the residents of Eagle Mountain and his death will be something that will never be forgotten. He died protecting all of us and that is something you can never forget or take for granted. His family has sacrificed so much for our freedom and safety & now here is another chance to give back to them.

The donations to Chick-fil-A will be going to the Wride family so that they can attend the National Police Week Memorial in Washington this year.

Please help us honor all the fallen officers and their families by heading to Chick-fil-A sometime this month and donating to this organization. And... if you see a Police Officer, stop them and thank them for their service!!

There are a few articles here & here where I have gotten most of my information from. I hope you all have a great weekend!! :)

Crock Pot Enchilada Soup

Sorry I flaked out on posting a recipe last week. It was spring break... I don't think I cooked anything at all! :) Anyways, This weeks recipe is Slow Cooker Enchilada Soup. Here is the link for that recipe.

Okay, here is a little sad story behind this meal. We actually had this meal for Easter dinner... I know, you are thinking what kind of a meal is that to have for dinner on Easter Sunday?!?!?!  But it was out of pure desperation.  Both my husband and I were so sick on Sunday there was no way we had the energy to cook the Ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, rolls, and fresh green beans which was the menu for Easter dinner. Plus we would have had to clean the kitchen first, in order to be able to cook such an involved meal. So I hopped on pinterest & found this recipe.

 The best parts about this recipe were that it was a crock pot meal, I had all the ingredients for it on hand, it was super fast to throw together, AND..... everyone loved it!! I didn't have to fight with anyone to eat it. My kids all had seconds, and it felt like heaven on our sore throats!!! It made great leftovers for dinner on Monday night too. It was still just as good & everyone loved it just as much, and I didn't have to cook anything! :)

For this dinner I'm calling it a definite success, and one that we will be eating often I think. It was fast, easy, everyone liked it, and it didn't call for any weird ingredients. It doesn't get any better than that!! :)

Sticking to your goal no matter what....

Hey everyone, how was your Easter? I have been really sick all weekend long! Like chest hurting coughing, ears hurting, body aching sick.... NO BUENO!!! Not the best way to end spring break for my kids, and not the best way to spend Easter weekend either.

I woke up this morning still feeling like crap. I totally ran behind all morning and it made for a very interesting & memorable morning. (see my FB The Sew Fit Girl like page for this story!) I slept in & didn't get my workout in before my littles were all up and getting ready, so I had to do it after everyone was at school. 

I'm not gonna lie... I totally talked to myself all morning and gave myself a million excuses as to why I didn't need to work out today. The main reason being that I am sick & should just crawl back into bed and turn on the hallmark channel & rest.... That is pretty much the same thing as going to the Dr, right? 

*** totally getting off subject here, but I have this awful addiction to the Hallmark channel. I think that a pretty quilt, my bed, and the Hallmark channel can pretty much cure or fix anything!!***

But.. I was a SLUG all weekend long. I haven't felt good and I haven't done ANYTHING!!! Like not really even cooked for people, that kind of nothing. We have been having leftovers & frozen pizza for all of our meals. And I ate a TON of candy yesterday. Even though I kept the candy to a minimum this year, I still ate my whole bag of Lindt Truffles that I got from the Easter bunny. I was planning on that bag lasting me all week.... oops! :) (I have ZERO self control when I am sick)

So I just "womaned up" and did my workout. And you know what, I didn't die & it didn't make me feel any worse!! I just took it easy & did the 10 minute Ab Fix, nothing spectacular. But it worked, I got my workout done without dying, it didn't take that long, and I feel better for it.

I had this realization hit me today that no matter what.... I can still get my workout done. It doesn't have to be ideal circumstances!! It doesn't have to be this amazing workout, where I am sweating to death & I'm laying down so I don't pass out!! Not everything has to be perfect or going as planned to get it done. If that really was the case, I'm so dis-organized and scattered all the time I would never have time to workout. 

I worked out this morning in the clothes I slept in last night & with no shoes on because I didn't feel like trying to find them in the chaos of my house after being sick and doing nothing with it all weekend long. I didn't have to run to the gym, or even brush my teeth!! I just popped my workout DVD in & worked out in the middle of my chaos. 

*** totally off subject again, but I am just realizing that I didn't brush my teeth either this morning before I had to walk into my kids school to check them in because they were late... Crap!! My kids are going to be taken away from me one of these day...***

You can do this!! Working out every day is hard sometimes, it really is. I'm not going to sugar coat it for you or lie to you about it. But, it can be done. You don't have to look good while you are doing it, believe me, I post scary workout pics of myself on Facebook every day, and I'm 100% scary looking!  But I commit to doing it & I get it done!! Wether it's easy or hard, or if I'm having a good or a bad day. I just get it done & you can too. This is the same for any kind of goal that you have... be it fitness, or personal, or spiritual, or whatever.... find a way to make your goal fit into your life. Make time for it no matter what!!

Spring Break

Okay.... Sorry, I know I have been absent for about a week. But it's been spring break, and I've just had spring break brain. No one wants to focus or work... we just wanted to play. We took a little mini "staycation" and just headed about 1 1/2 hours down south to the Salt Lake area. Stayed in a hotel, went swimming constantly, visited our old favorite spots we used to go to all the time before we moved up north, we ate out a ton, and just enjoyed our little family for a few days!!

In the car & on our way!! YAY!!! 

Ready for bed at the Hotel. No matter what, if we are staying at a hotel my kids think it's the best vacation ever!! We could stay at a hotel in the same city we live in & my kids would think we were the greatest parents on the planet!! 

My girls excited and all ready for bed.... and no, no one got any sleep that night. Just too much hotel excitement for any kind of sleeping to occur!! 

We hit the dinosaur museum!! My kids love this place. Built our own dinosaur!!

Put together the dinosaur, magnet puzzles. My kiddos LOVE puzzles, especially my youngest. He could sit and do puzzles for hours. 

We did the whole wall of dinosaur bone puzzles!

And of course we had to get a picture in front of the giant shark that looks like it's going to eat you! :)

We went swimming ALL THE TIME...... Every morning first thing when the kids woke up, we went swimming.... 

In the afternoons when we headed back for a little break..... we went swimming.... If we weren't at a museum or doing something else fun.... we were swimming!! 

And then there was Target.... (sigh). I had to sneak away one night after my littles had fallen asleep and visit my old friend all by myself. I LOVE Target & there isn't a Target where I moved too! I know... you are all thinking "but how can you survive without Target?" I am wondering that myself still some days. But in situations such as these, we just survive the best we can. I do visit Target every chance I get though!! :) 

We also did the Museum of Natural Curiosity. That was so much fun. We have never been here before & my kids had a blast. We were there for a little over 2 hours & I think could have easily spent another hour there. We didn't do a lot of the outside stuff because it was a lot colder on the day we were there, so we spent most of our time inside. 

This was the Water Works section... so much fun!

 They had this Rain Forest section that was like a giant play area for the kids with all sorts of stuff to do. It was so much fun. It was really crowded and overstimulating, but my kids loved it. We spent most of our time in there. 

Me and my "mini me" :) I just love her!! 

They also had this room with all of this Science type of stuff. I don't remember what it was called, but it was such a cool room. One this one table they had this rotating circle & all these balls you could roll around on the spinning circle. We had a blast trying different things to see how we could get the balls to stay on the spinning circle. We ended up getting them all on & spinning with the circle. It was fun! 

Anyways, so we headed home. Exhausted & happy! 

And then this happened.....

Poor kid. The night we came home he started running a fever, and we are going on 2 days of this. It's a sad way to end spring break... but at least he waited until after the fun was over to die... that was really nice of him!! 

 

So on top of playing, I've had sick kiddos & I, myself haven't been feeling 100%. So that just led up to nothing getting blogged at all... 

But, I'm home now & I'm back in business. :)