Slow Cooker Ranch Chicken

This is another super easy weekday meal. As I mentioned previously, when I make slow cooker meals during the week I put everything into the slow cooker the night before and refrigerate. In the morning before work I just take it out, put it into the heating element and set the timer.

What You Need

1 Cup of Light of Fat Free Ranch Dressing

1 Can of Cream of Celery Soup (Low Fat/Low Sodium is preferred)

2-4 Chicken Breasts

1 Package Frozen Veggies (I usually use a snap pea stir fry mix because I like the flavor of snap peas and water chestnuts with this sauce)

Salt & Pepper to taste

1/8 Cup of Water or Milk

1. Stir together the ranch dressing, soup, salt, pepper and water/milk. Mix until well combined and smooth

2. Stir in frozen veggies until well incorporated

3. Place chicken breasts into sauce and cover with lid

4. Set your slow cooker for 7 hours on low

Serve on a bed of cooked white or brown rice.

I try not to buy a lot of superfluous kitchen gadgets because my tiny kitchen really doesn't have room to store them, but an absolute must have is a good rice cooker. I was given one as a wedding gift almost seven years ago and I wonder how I got along without it. Aside from cooking perfect rice every time, a rice cooker is also a money saver. Bags of raw rice are often $1 to $2 cheaper than instant or boil in bag brands and you get much more for your money. If you are serving rice with a slow cooker meal, just measure your rice and water (I use a 2 to 1 water to rice ratio) and start your rice cooker. By the time you have changed your clothes, changed the kids and set the table your rice is ready and dinner is done.

Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has a guilty pleasure...or two....or ten... These are the little things we love to do, eat or watch that we really wouldn't want a lot of people to know about. I am a very casual, low maintenance chick so it doesn't take much to make me happy. Here is my list of the top five guilty pleasures that relax me and elevate my mood...

1. Wine - It's no secret that most women love wine but the guilty pleasure lies in the wine I drink when I'm alone. When I'm at dinner or out in public, I choose dry white wines, usually Pinot Grigio. When I am at home I like Chocolate wine and my favorite brand is Cocoa Vino. A glass of this stuff combines the relaxing effects of wine with the endorphin effects of chocolate. It's $10 a bottle and is the kind of drink that makes a wine snob's head explode.

2. Car Karaoke - This is my absolute favorite way to de-stress. If Ryan and I had a fight. If Aidan is being a pain in the neck. If work is tough or if traffic sucks, finding a good song on the radio and singing every word at the top of my lungs just makes me happy. There is something so therapeutic about singing Cher, ABBA, Bon Jovi or Garth Brooks in the private confines of my car. I have shown up to work on numerous occasions hoarse from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" or "Hey Soul Sister". I really can't carry a tune in a bucket but car karaoke is the only scenario in which off key singing isn't an offensive proposition, unless the windows are down.... to which I plead the fifth.

3. Reality Shows - I have been a big reality show fan from the very beginning. For the first 10 seasons or so, "Survivor" was a religion for me. I taped episodes and watched them over and over even though I knew the final results. I even scheduled my social life around the castaways and was known for hanging up the phone on people who dared to call during the show. I've grown tired of "Survivor" since they stopped casting real people and started using wannabe models and actors. These days, my favorite shows are "Big Brother", "Sister Wives" and "Rupaul's Drag Race". "Big Brother" is the one Ryan and I both watch together. The voyeuristic nature of the show is what makes it so damn interesting. I watch "Rupaul's Drag Race" because I love Rupaul, I love drag queens and I love catty reality show contestants. This show combines all three qualities into one fabulously over the top package. "Sister Wives" has recently become a favorite. I am an atheist, feminist who loves Mormon polygamist Kody Brown and his four wives Meri, Christine, Janelle and Robyn. One marriage is hard enough, so it is compelling to watch Kody try to juggle four. The show, at it's heart is about love and living the way you choose to live your life. Both of those things are very important to me personally.

4. Trashy Romance Novels - The very definition of a guilty pleasure. I love checking my intellectual pride at the door and picking up a cheesy bodice ripping love story. I am accused all the time of over thinking EVERYTHING so I love having an excuse to just "be"!

5. Social Networking Games - Farmville, Gardens of Time and Slingo are the best ways to relax and waste time. They can also be very addictive. I'm currently taking a sabbatical from Farmville because it took much time away from everything else in my life and went from from guilty pleasure to second job! I'd love to write more, but I think my energy just reloaded on "Gardens of Time"...

Random Act of Sweetness

Ryan, my husband, is an amazing guy. He works on weekends and I am home with our two year old son, Aidan. He has alot of strong suits as a husband but spontaneous romantic gestures are not one of them. It is amazing, however, how he can surprise me every once in a while.

I woke up yesterday morning in allergy hell. I woke up early because Aidan didn't want to sleep any longer and wanted mommy to make him some cereal and watch cartoons with him. Yesterday was also a return to the terrible twos for my little guy who spent the entire day running around, talking non-stop and just being generally defiant. Needless to say, it was not a great Sunday. Ryan calls before he left work to ask if I had started dinner. Normally by that time I have dinner well in hand but just couldn't do it tonight. He said that we would take care of it. Ryan hates cooking. The extent of his culinary prowess is pancakes, which he does make better than I do. So his saying "I'll take care of it" usually means hitting the drive thru or ordering pizza when he gets home.

When he finally hit the door he had grocery bags in hand. As he took of his shoes, I looked in the bag to find pasta, sauce, ground turkey, a loaf of sourdough bread and a bottle of wine. He told me to sit down and as I relaxed on the couch watching an episode of "Sister Wives" that I had missed, he made a beautiful full pasta dinner and poured me a glass of wine. We enjoyed dinner and then went for an evening walk as a family around the neighborhood. The food was great and there was even enough left over for me to take to work for lunch the next day so I wouldn't have to fuss with that.

I normally hate surprises, but these are the kind I can live with :)

Easy Dinner Menu Planning

Working a full time job can make dinner time very stressful. The goal is to spend as much time in the evenings relaxing with your family as possible. Here are some of my tips to save you time, money and energy while still putting delicious meals on the table for your family.

Tip #1 - Stick to a grocery shopping schedule

The easiest way to save time is to always do your weekly grocery trip on the same day every week. Doing this allows you to keep your weekly menus organized and allows you to save money by eliminating multiple grocery trips where you may buy more expensive impulse items that you don't need. I hate to admit this because it sounds pathetic, but grocery shopping is one of the highlights of my week! I find cruising the aisles and coming up with creative new menu ideas very relaxing. I really enjoy doing these trips with my husband and son so that I can get their input on breakfasts, lunches and snacks but dinner is completely my territory. Until my husband lost his job last September, we both worked during the week so our weekly grocery trip took place on Sunday mornings. With the job he is currently working, he doesn't have the weekends off so we moved our weekly trip to Friday evenings on the way home from work.

Tip #2 - Plan your menu around your schedule

When writing a weekly menu, one of the most important things to consider is how much time each night you will have to prepare dinner. Do you have a few nights a week where you work later or it takes you longer to get home? Do the kids have activities like soccer, dance or band? If you have kinks in your schedule, you want to choose meals that take the least amount of time to prepare. I stay home with Aidan while Ryan works on Saturday and Sunday. Since I don't have any time constraints on these two days, this is when I make my most time consuming meals of the week. Baked chicken dishes, casseroles or meatloaf are good options for these days. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are our late days. We only have one car and getting anywhere in Northern Virginia after 4pm takes a minimum of 30 extra minutes. On these days, I work until 4:30pm and my husband works until 6pm. My mother in law watches my son and happens to live close to a co-worker of mine. I ride with my co-worker to my in law's house and spend some quality time there with my son. My husband generally gets there about 6:45 and that's when we head home. I'm generally not in my kitchen working on dinner until 7:15 or 7:30 depending on traffic. For me this usually means pasta, sandwiches, baked fish with vegetables steamed in the microwave or crock pot meals that cook all day and are ready when we are. Thursday and Friday are a toss up. My husband has these two days off and watches my son. I can get home between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on traffic and any errands that I might have on these nights so I am not too restricted on what I can make.

Tip #3 - Save money by reusing ingredients

I have always been very budget conscious but given the fact that my husband had to take a significant pay cut to find work after he lost his job, I really had to cut down on the food budget. One easy way to do this is to select a few ingredients that you can use in multiple recipes. Buy it once but use it two or three times. If you want to have tacos one night put quesadillas or Mexican pizzas on the menu for another night so you can buy tortillas once but use them twice. If you are having baked or roasted chicken one night then put pulled chicken sandwiches or chicken and dumplings on the menu another night. This week, I really wanted to make tuna tacos which have a yummy Asian slaw on top. When putting my menu together I decided to add Asian marinaded chicken with slaw on the side as another night's meal. If your repurposed ingredient is a perishable item like a vegetable, a pre-cooked meat or a refrigerated sauce, try to make the meals that use it within a day or two of each other so that you are still using the ingredients at their best.

Here is this week's menu for my family:

Saturday - BBQ Chicken Drumsticks with Mashed Potatoes
Sunday - Asian Chicken with Slaw
Monday - Tuna Tacos
Tuesday - Baked Bean Taquitos with Rice
Wednesday - Salmon with Cheesy Broccoli
Thursday - Lemon Pepper Chicken with Creamy Cauliflower

With dinner being one less thing to worry about I can concentrate on spending time with my son or cuddling on the sofa watching TV with the hubby.

Coffee is Liquid Happiness

I am a coffee addict. I started drinking coffee when I was a little kid because I wanted to be like my aunt Mimi. She and her sophisticated friends would get together, gossip and drink coffee. After most of my teen years were spent hanging out at my local Starbucks drinking grande skim mochas, I started working there when I was 18. I earned my certified barista cred which only cemented my status as a supreme coffee snob. My kitchen is filled with every possible coffee gadget. I have a 4 cup drip coffee maker, a stainless steel french press, an espresso machine, a coffee grinder and a Tassimo single serve machine.

Iced coffee is something I love in the summer months but I've always had a hard time getting it perfect. Just brewing regular coffee and putting it over ice dilutes the coffee flavor. Brewing a double strength batch to put over ice still has almost a burnt quality that subtracts from the pure coffee goodness a good glass of iced coffee should have. I am a big fan of Ree Drummond, also known as the Pioneer Woman. Her blog and cooking show are a great source of inspiration to me as a regular mom who has a passion for food and for life. One of her most popular posts is one in which she provides instructions for making cold brew iced coffee. I tried it and I believe I have finally found the perfect way to relax with a delicious iced coffee.

On the internet you can find several good ratios for cold brew iced coffee concentrate. The one I used is 1 cup of ground coffee to 2 1/2 cups of cold water but you can tinker with the ratio to find what works for you.

Simply measure out your coffee grounds and put them into a large container. Plastic works best, but I didn't have anything handy so I used one of my large cooking pots. For my first experiment, I used my favorite Starbucks variety, Sumatra.

Then add your cold water, stir, cover and let this yummy sludge sit for 24 hours.

When your brew time is up, simply strain the liquid coffee concentrate to remove the coffee grinds. You can do this using a mesh strainer with cheese cloth inside or if you have one, use a french press. Here's mine.

Once you have your finished liquid concentrate, move it to a more permanent storage vessel, like a plastic drink pitcher, and refrigerate.

This iced coffee is fabulous with milk and served as is over ice, or blended into a "Fakeaccino".

Simply add your desired amounts of ice, coffee concentrate, milk and chocolate or caramel syrup to a blender and give it a whirl. You can add whipped cream and more syrup to the top if you happen to have it on hand. What I prefer to do is go a little light on the ice and allow the milk to froth slightly in the blender. This gives your "fakeaccino" an almost cappuccino like foam on top that is, in my opinion, even better than whipped cream.

Does anyone have a straw?