Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Hello? Spring? Are you out there? If someone has seen Spring, please send it my way. I'm so over this Winter. The kids were out of school yesterday because of freezing rain in the forecast. I guess it was a good call since we did end up having some ice sticking in some places. Better safe, than sorry, right?

This casserole is a perfect cold weather dinner. It's comfort food at its finest! I love how rich and creamy it was. The recipe made enough for us to get two dinners, plus a lunch for TC out of it. It takes a little bit of prep work, but it's definitely worth it!! 

Here's the recipe:

CHICKEN CORDON BLEU CASSEROLE
Servings: 8
Points+: 9

8 oz uncooked pasta
4 T. light butter
3 T. flour
2 c. skim milk
3/4 t. salt
1/4 t. black pepper
8 oz. 2% Swiss cheese, either shredded or torn into pieces
1/3 c. FF sour cream
2 c. chicken breast, shredded
6 oz. lean cooked ham, diced
1/4 c. bread crumbs
1/4c. reduced fat Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9" x 13" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Cook pasta according to package.

Meanwhile, melt 3 T. butter in medium saucepan. Add four and stir until mixed. Gradually add milk and whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper and mix again. Add Swiss cheese. Stir until cheese has completely melted in.

In a large bowl, combine pasta, chicken, ham, sour cream and cheese sauce. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated. Spread the mixture into baking dish.

In small skillet, melt remaining butter over medium heat. Add bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Stir for 1-2 minutes until lightly browned. Sprinkle this mixture over casserole.

Bake casserole for 30 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Enjoy!!

This is definitely a winner-winner chicken dinner! Add these ingredients to your grocery list and make it soon! You won't regret it!

I hope you all have a great day!

So long for today...

Source: Emily Bites

Chicken Parmesan Casserole

Mother Nature has been teasing me. I'm not very happy with her right now. It's almost April and it still feels like Winter here. I moved to South Carolina for warm weather!! Not cold. Yes, I do realize that it could be a lot worse, but it could also be a lot better. We had a beautiful weekend, and then the cold front rolled back into town. The next 10 days still aren't looking much better. We are going to the circus on Friday and I might just hibernate the rest of the weekend. I still have plenty to do to get ready for the baby, so maybe that's what I'll work on this weekend. We'll see.

I'm so glad to be bringing you a new recipe today. This is a recipe that I've seen on Pinterest a lot, but wasn't happy with their instructions or the ingredients, so I decided to figure out my own for mula for ingredients and instructions. Feel free to play around with this and add or change ingredients until you're happy with it...but I hope you'll like it the way it is!! This was so good. Even Addison ate it right up! It's really easy, too. I actually made it the night before and then put it in the refrigerator. I covered it and baked at a bit of a higher temperature for a while then uncovered it so the top could get nice and brown. So, so good! Here's the recipe:

CHICKEN PARMESAN CASSEROLE
Servings: 6
Points+: 10



1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips or cubes
2 c. uncooked pasta
1 jar light spaghetti sauce
2 c. 2% milk shredded mozzarella cheese
italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle Italian seasoning over chicken. Bake about 12 - 15 minutes or until cooked through. (You can also skip this step and cook the casserole for a little bit longer.) When chicken is done, lower oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta until just al dente and drain.

Spray 2 qt. casserole dish with cooking spray. Spread a little bit of sauce (about 1/3 c.) in bottom of baking dish. Place chicken on top of sauce. Sprinkle with about 1/3 c. of cheese. Pour pasta over top of chicken. Pour remaining sauce over pasta and stir just a bit to cover all pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top of pasta and sauce.

Cover and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Uncover and bake for additional 10 minutes, or until top is golden brown. Enjoy!



EXERCISE:
Last night I did some strength work on my own. I made sure that I had gotten in my 8,000 steps for the day and then I did some leg work and arm work. We had done walks for the last two evenings and TC even wanted to do another one last night. But for some reason, I wasn't feeling it. It might be because it was a little cooler, I'm not sure. But I still got in some exercise. It wasn't a lot, but it was better than nothing!!

So long for today...

Crockpot Chicken Fajitas

Well, today is National Sticky Bun day. I made a batch of them to take into work today, but I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of them to do a blog post to share with you all. I hope you will forgive me. What this does mean is that I will have to make another batch of them to share with you all very soon. If not, I will make something equally delicious that I know you will all love. How does that sound? Deal?

What I am sharing with you is another easy peasy recipe using the Crockpot. I have been trying to find some new crockpot recipes to make for after the baby is born. Ideally, I would love to find some freezer meals that I can portion out ahead of time and then just throw in the crockpot in the morning and have a delicious meal ready for dinner in the evening. This is a recipe that was really good and really easy. I absolutely love fajitas and having a way to make them in the crockpot is even better. These aren't the most beautiful things when they're cooked, but then once you shred up the chicken and stir them around a bit, no one will ever know! This one will definitely be added to my list to make after baby arrives. Here's the recipe:

CROCKPOT CHICKEN FAJITAS
adapted from Stacy Makes Cents
Servings: 6
Points+: 5



1 yellow onion, sliced
3 sweet peppers, sliced
1 ½ pounds boneless chicken breast
1/4 to ½ cup chicken broth, depending on preference (leave this out if you prefer a drier fajita filling)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cumin
1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
Squirt of lime juice
Tortillas
Fajita fixings

Combine sliced onion and peppers in the bottom of a greased crockpot. Lay chicken on top of veggies. Pour chicken broth over top. Sprinkle everything with cumin, salt, and chili powder. Give a nice quirt of lime juice over the top. Cover and cook on low for 4-8 hours (or on High for 4 hours) or until meat is shreddable. When meat is done, shred with two forks and stir back into juices. Serve meat mixture with slotted spoon on tortillas with your choice of fixings.



EXERCISE:
In an effort to spend more time with my family, I have been trying to get some of my exercise in during my lunch breaks. It's times like this that it's really nice to live close to the office! During lunch yesterday, I got in my 2 mile Walk Away the Pounds video. At was nice to know that I already had worked out and didn't have to try to fit it in during the evening routine. It also gave me a little extra time to work on the sticky buns :-)

So long for today...

Crockpot Cheesy Chicken Pasta

Happy Thursday everyone! We're more than halfway over with the week! We have no definite plans for the weekend, but I'm still looking forward to it. I have to apologize for not doing a WIAW post in 2 weeks. I started off taking pictures of my food yesterday, then didn't take any of lunch OR dinner, so I figured I had better scrap that idea. So instead, I am giving you a new recipe. Even better, right?

They say this is a crockpot meal, but I don't really like that name so much. Yes, you do put it in the crockpot, but there is an awful lot of prep that you have to do before hand in order to get it ready for the crockpot. Then you pretty much just heat it through and get all of the cheese melted together. I guess it saves you from having to bake it, but I think it might be good with a nice browned top right out of the oven. In any event, it was really good. TC and I both really liked it. Addison didn't care for it too much, but I think she was just being picky that day. Here's the recipe:

CROCKPOT CHEESY CHICKEN PASTA
adapted from Half My Size
Servings: 12
Points+: 6

16 oz. dry pasta, cooked
1 lb. Velveeta Light cheese
12 oz. chicken breast, cooked and shredded
10 3/4 oz. can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
10 3/4 oz. can 98% fat free cream of chicken soup, undiluted
10 oz. can diced tomatoes and green chilies (Rotel)
1/2 cup water
salt & pepper, to taste

Spray slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker and stir to mix well.

Cook on LOW for 2-3 hours. Stir again just before serving.

EXERCISE:
I didn't get any formal exercise in yesterday. I did get my 8,000 steps in yesterday, but after the Dr's appt earlier in the day, I was ready to relax for the evening. Although I did end up making cupcakes for work today. So relaxing was out of the question. Oh well, there's always tonight, right?

So long for today...

Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings

Hey friends! Sorry I've been MIA for a little while. We've had a lot of things going on lately that make it kind of hard to put up blog posts every day. I'm going to try to post as often as possible, but until things slow down a little bit, I hope you will cut me some slack in not posting every day.

Today was another football Saturday in our house. TC spends most of the day watching football on Saturdays. He spends time on Sundays watching football, too. But he still makes sure to get some things done around the house before he sits down to watch his games. He also makes sure to use the DVR to miss the plays that he needs to see. This morning, he suggested that we make jalapeno poppers and wings for dinner tonight. That sounded good to me, so that's what we had. My parents came over for dinner and brought homemade blue cheese dressing with celery and mini Boston Cream Pies for dessert. Everything was very good! Here's the recipe for the wings:

BAKED BUFFALO CHICKEN WINGS
adapted from Frank's Red Hot
Servings: 24 - 30 (1 wing per serving)
Points+: 2 - 3

2 1/2 lbs. chicken wings, split and tips discarded
1/2 c. FRANK'S® REDHOT® Cayenne Pepper Sauce (or more to taste)
1/3 c. butter or margarine, melted


Place wings on rack in foil-lined baking pan.

Bake 45 minutes at 425°F until fully cooked and very crispy, turning halfway.

Combine Frank's RedHot Sauce and butter in large bowl. Toss wings in sauce to coat.

EXERCISE:
It was a beautiful day, so I made sure to get in my 3 miles today. After eating too much at dinner, TC wanted to go for a walk, but we just ran out of time. I hope to get a little bit of strength work in tonight before bed, but that will depend on how wiped out I am when that time rolls around. Wish me luck!

So long for today...

Chicken & Biscuits Casserole

Oh my, this is good! Who doesn't like comfort food? I mean, come on. Creamy chicken filling...comfort. Biscuits...comfort. Cheddar cheesy goodness...COMFORT!!! The thing that made this so good was the way the biscuit just perfectly complimented the creamy deliciousness of the chicken filling. These were perfect on a dreary, rainy day. The only thing that could have made today any worse was if it was cold. But since it was 80 degrees here today...Here's the recipe:

CHICKEN & BISCUITS CASSEROLE
adapted from Emily Bites
Servings: 4
Points+: 8

1 can 98% FF cream of chicken soup
3/4 cup fat free sour cream, divided
2 cups cooked chopped chicken
1 pkg (16oz.) frozen mixed vegetables
1 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup Bisquick Heart Smart baking mix
1/4 c. + 3 T skim milk
1/2 t. garlic powder

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine the can of soup and 1/2 cup sour cream in 2 qt. baking dish. Add chopped chicken, vegetables, 1/4 c. milk, garlic powder and cheese and mix until well combined.

Mix Bisquick, remaining 1/4 cup sour cream and milk in a medium bowl and stir until dough becomes stiff.

Drop 6 even mounds of biscuit dough over top of the chicken mixture. Bake for 35 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown.

I'm very excited about all of these new recipes that I've been trying. I'm excited about them, not only because I get to share them with you, but also because I'm able to give my family some fresh and new meal ideas. Many times, when I'm following WW pretty strictly, I tend to make the same things for dinner, night after night. I'm sure my family gets tired of them, but wouldn't tell me because they want to keep supporting my weight loss efforts. So I'm happy I'm able to change things up a little bit for them so they don't get tired that, once again, Mommy is trying to lose weight.

I hope to try some new dessert ideas over the weekend. We're going to the circus on Saturday, but I'm sure I can squeeze some baking in somewhere. My family is definitely supportive of that!

So long for today...

Grilled Honey Lime Chicken

Did you miss me? It's been 5 days since my last post. I'm sure you were sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for me to return. You probably think that I've spent the last 5 days in my kitchen whipping up all kinds of delicious foods to share with you through my blog. I'm sorry to disappoint you, that's not what happened.

Thursday evening, we attended the Trident United Way Annual Soiree. It was a fun night out for TC and I. Mimi and Papa stayed with Addison for the evening. For the last two years, I have been a member of the United Way campaign team at the company I work for. I've dedicated a lot of my time to meeting our goal, which we were able to do both years. As a reward, I was able to attend this party and hobb knob with the who's who of the local United Way and the business leaders that serve on the board and are on the various committees for them. I didn't get to go last year, so I wanted to be sure to make it this year.

We spent the weekend with my cousins and their kids in North Carolina. It's too bad that we don't get to spend more time with them, but we are all busy and don't take the time to do it, although we should do it more. I like for Addison to know my family, too. They're the most local family that I have, so we like to make a couple of trips up there a year and spend time with them.

Dinner tonight was Grilled Honey Lime Chicken. It's also known as the Cracker Barrel Chicken that I made a couple of weeks ago and forgot to take pictures of. Since I had a non-WW-friendly weekend, I wanted to try my best to keep the scale as low as possible for my weigh-in tomorrow. What that means is some sort of chicken, brown rice and green beans. Here's the recipe again:

GRILLED HONEY LIME CHICKEN
adapted from Plain Chicken
Servings: 4
Points+: 6

1 lb. chicken breasts
1 c. FF italian dressing
3 T. honey
3 t. lime juice

Combine all ingredients and allow chicken to marinate overnight. Grill chicken until well done...enjoy!

This is a very simple and delicious way to make chicken. If you haven't tried it yet, you definitely should! I've already made the meatballs for dinner tomorrow and have them in the fridge in the crockpot. They already smell so good! Can't wait to share the recipe with you tomorrow!

So long for today...

Ranch House Crockpot Chicken

I love having things to do on the weekend. And I really do appreciate my family and friends. But sometimes, you can have too much to do on the weekends. This was one of those weekends. As much as I hate to say it, I was looking forward to going back to work this morning so that I would be able to relax...Really? Yep, that's right. Our weekend was so hectic and busy, that work was going to be relaxing. And you know what? It really was.

Over the weekend, I prepped a couple of dinners for this week so that I wouldn't have so much to do during the week. So I was really glad that I had planned for a crockpot dinner for tonight. I would say that this was just ok. I have another crockpot chicken stroganoff recipe that I like better. I might be able to tweak this one a bit to make it better, but I'm not sure if I will since I have another one that is very similar that I know we like. But you might like this one better. Here's the recipe:

RANCH HOUSE CROCKPOT CHICKEN
adapted from Life as a Lofthouse
Servings: 3
Points+: 5

1 can 98% FF cream of chicken soup
1/2 packet dry ranch dressing mix
1/3 c. milk
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

In crockpot, combine soup, dressing mix and milk. Stir until well combined, add chicken breasts and toss to coat. Cook on low heat 6 - 8 hours or high heat 4 - 6 hours. Serve over rice.

Now I will say that TC and Addison both ate this up. Neither one complained about it in anyway, so it must not be too bad. You could probably stir in a couple of things to make this a little better, too. Who knows, maybe I will work on this one.

During lunch today, I came home and made a couple of batches of Flourless Oatmeal Raisin cookies. TC, who doesn't usually like raisins, liked them. They were really chewy and were only 2 pts. per cookie. Can't wait to share that one with you!

So long for today...

Cracker Barrel Chicken

When you think of restaurants that are WW friendly, Cracker Barrel doesn't usually come to mind. At least, it never did for me. I've never really been a big fan of Cracker Barrel. The last time I had gone, I ordered the Chicken and Dumplings and just didn't care for them. So one day when my husband suggested we go there for dinner, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. After I started looking up the Points values of some of their foods though, I realized that they do have some really healthy options. This is what my typical meal at Cracker Barrel now consists of: Grilled Chicken Tenderloin(6 Pts.+), Brown Rice (3 Pts.+), Tossed Salad (0 Pts.+) w/ FF Italian (1 Pts.+) Total: 10 Pts.+ - Not bad for an "Old Country Store." Here's the recipe for the chicken:

CRACKER BARREL CHICKEN
Servings: 4
Points+: 6

1 lb. chicken breast, cut into tenderloins
1 c. FF italian dressing
2 t. lime juice
3 T. honey

Combine all ingredients and allow to marinate at least 1 hour or over night. Remove from marinade and grill.

This chicken is so delicious, it's so easy and it's so WW friendly. I really wish I had a picture to share with you, but my evening was pretty busy. I have a sick little girl tonight and I completely forgot to take a picture. I will make this again soon so that I can remember to take a picture to post. So in place of a picture of dinner, I will share a picture of the cupcakes that I made for Addison's class at school.

Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!

So long for today...

Crockpot Chili

I moved to South Carolina from Pennsylvania 6 1/2 years ago. One of the reasons that I did was to escape the cold. Today, it didn't seem like I had succeeded in my escape. It didn't get out of the 40s here today! To a transplanted Yankee, that's cold! I was talking to my mother today about how it was a lot colder than what we have been used to. I told her I try to remind myself that at least it's warmer here than it is in Pennsylvania! On a cold day, whether its a cold Pennsylvania day or a cold South Carolina day, nothing is better for dinner than Chili!

Today was the perfect day for chili. I have a trick that I use for my chili. I sneak in some extra veggies and also bulk of the chili by adding finely chopped carrots. They blend in so well and take on the other flavors in the chili and no one knows they're there! Over the years, we've changed up how we eat our chili. Growing up, we always ate our chili over mashed potatoes. After I moved out on my own, I decided to try my chili over pasta. After I met my husband, he told me that he liked it over rice...but then again, Southerners like just about anything with rice! We also like to add different toppings, such as cheese (of course!), chopped onions or Doritoes! If you've never had cheesy chili with Doritoes, you don't know what you're missing. Of course, that combination isn't very WW friendly. My usual option for my chili is over pasta. That's how we had it tonight.

Here's my recipe:

CROCKPOT CHILI
Servings - 8 - 10
Points+: 5

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. carrots, finely chopped
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can dark red kidney beans, undrained
1 can light red kidney beans, undrained
1 can chili beans, undrained
1 t. cumin
3 t. chili powder
1/2 t. basil
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. black pepper

In large skillet, brown ground beef. Add pepper, onion, garlic and carrots and cook until veggies are tender. Add meat mixture puls remaining ingredients to crockpot. Cook on low 6 - 8 hours or high 4 - 6 hours.

I love that this is a crockpot recipe. I love to use my crockpot, especially on a cold day! There's just something about the great smells developing and spreading through the house...What's also great about this recipe is that it makes so much! We usually have enough for dinner, a leftover dinner and some to add to the freezer. Addison loves my chili, too. That's always a bonus.