Pinterest Day 2 Cooking Monday Night

Cheesy Potatoes and Smoked Sausage

This picture is straight from Colletta's Kitchen Sink.  If you click the picture it should link to the exact recipe from her blog or you can click HERE.

A post isn't worth anything unless these two are in it right??

This is what mine looked like right before eating.

This is what I did.

I took 7 potatoes, peeled and cut in small chunks.

Put 2 Tablespoons in a 9x13 pan, ,melted in a 400 Degree oven.

Placed potatoes in melted butter.

I then put the remaining butter from a whole stick on top of the potatoes. (Next time I will not use all of the remaining butter)

I covered with tin foil and cooked in the oven for 30 min on 400.

After it cooked for 30 min I took out stirred then put 2 full packs of smoked sausage cut up in chunks.

Cook for 20-30 more minutes making sure potatoes do not get to soft.

Stirred some and put a whole pack of shredded cheese on top and cooked for 5 more minutes!

Reviews - 

Stephen - this good and this good.  (translation - The potatoes are good and the smoked sausage good)

Jackson - umm!! while giving a thumbs up.  He is not a big potato fan, but he did like them since they had cheese on them and said it was good with the sausage!

Bart - liked them as well and told me that several times.  He did ask for A1 sauce, but he puts sauce on everything so that doesn't mean the supper wasn't good.  He did really liked them!

The recipe from Collettta's Kitchen called for 10 potatoes and I used 7.  Her recipe called for 2 links.  I used 2 whole packs.  Next time I will not use the whole stick of butter.  It was just to much for me.  But it seriously was good, but nobody needs that much butter!!

Pinterest Cooking Day 1 - Sunday

I decided to start something new this week with my family.  I am tired of cooking the same ole stuff every time I cook.  So I sat down Saturday morning with a menu for the week and only eating out Saturday night.  

I LOVE pinterest.  Did you know that??  You can click HERE to see the other things that I have blogged about using pinterest.  I have done several more, but forgot to take pictures or just not blogged about yet.

Anyways.  I made my menu only from pinterest inspired recipes.  Day one was a total hit from my family.

Sour Cream and Bacon Crockpot Chicken

My husband asked for seconds, Jackson tried a bite of Stephens and then asked for his own and Stephen also enjoyed it.

Here is the recipe straight from the site it came from.

Sour Cream and Bacon Crockpot Chicken

Prep Time: 15 mins

Cooke Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 15 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 8 bacon slices
• 8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 (10 oz) cans roasted garlic cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup flour (all purpose or gluten free blend)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place the bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium-low heat until some of the fat is rendered. Be sure that the bacon is still pliable and not crisp. Drain on paper towels. If you use this method, reduce the flour to 1/4 cup. Or don’t cook the bacon and proceed with the recipe.
2. Then wrap one slice of bacon around each boneless chicken breast and place in a 4-5 quart crockpot.
3. In medium bowl, combine condensed soups, sour cream, and flour and mix with wire whisk to blend. Pour over chicken.
4. Cover crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours until chicken and bacon are thoroughly cooked. You may want to remove the chicken and beat the sauce with a wire whisk so it is very well blended.
5. Pour sauce over chicken.
6. If you have a newer crockpot, check the chicken at 5 hours. The internal temp should be 160 -170 degrees F.

I didn't use Chick breast, I used tenders. I did not cook mine for 8 hours.  I put mine on about 3:30 and cooked it till about 6 on high.  It was so moist it was falling apart.  Another thing I did was used the 1/2 cup flour with non cooked bacon wrapped around the chick.  

Next time I cook this I will totally cook the bacon, drain the fat and most likely add the full 1/2 cup flour.  My sauce was very runny from the bacon grease and I just don't like that at all.  I would have loved to had the sauce like a gravy, but it was too runny.

Next I served 

OVEN FRIED OKRA - straight from my garden.  I wanted to get a picture, but my battery died as I turned the camera on.  I searched pinterest for the best recipe, but ended up making up my own.  I crushed my Ritz crackers finely with my food processor, added 1/4 cup cornmeal, 1/4 cup flour.  I sliced the okra, dipped in egg, the in the ritz mixture.  Put a tad bit of butter and oil in a baking pan and baked on 350 for about 20 min.  

Jackson LOVED them and Bart LOVED them also.  Stephen didn't try them.  

I also made biscuts.  I can't find the recipe, but everyone liked them.  I have tried to do biscuts before and they have never turned out great.  Still searching for the Perfect biscut!!  

We also had Green beans, cause if the other stuff turned out bad atleast I couldn't mess up green beans!!!

July 4th 2012

We had a really low key Fourth of July morning.  Bart got up at the crack of dawn and left for Alabama to buy a trailer and Stephen and I slept in!  When Bart got home we headed to pick Jackson up from his Grammies in Helen and headed to Lake Chatuge.

I rode the tube with the boys 1st and before you make fun of me, yes I have goggles on.  I had my contacts in and didn't want to waste them and throw them away.  

Stephen had to have an adult ride with him and I was the lucky first one to do it with him!

Of course evil knievel had to jump from the front of the boat.  He is fearless I tell ya!

He wanted to sit in the float for about 2.2 seconds!!!

Jackson wanted to get rid of the adults and go fast!!

My inlaws bought a slip up there and where they keep the boat they have a little slide!  

The boys love it!!

Afterwards we drove through the country to waste some time and made our way back to Helen.  

While waiting for the fire works we had a great photo opportunity!

I wanted a picture of the 3 of us!  I realized my hat kindly cut off Jackson's head and wanted to try for another one!

Stephen cut him off completely!  He totally did it on purpose!!

Jackson was squeezing him giving him a hug.

Finally Bart took our picture!!

Then we had to get one of them together!

Jackson got aggravated and was tired of having his picture taken!

We saw a mom pull up with 4 kids and the kids jumped out of the car, took a run for the top of their moms brand new Honda Pilot.  Me and Bart liked to have died.  We both were like Oh I'd not let that happen, blah, blah blah.  So afterwards Bart placed Stephen on top of my pilot!  Of course its cute when its your own right?!?!?!  Atleast our kids weren't running and jumping on the hood of my Pilot!!  and my car is like 24 years old!  j/k!!

They fireworks were really pretty, but I think I am good on Fireworks for a while!!

Italian Zucchini

We have LOTS of zucchini coming in so I have been trying to come up with ideas of fixing it.  I made this the other night and it was really good.  Bart and the kids did not try it.

Thinly slice zucchini and put on top of a lightly drizzle cookie sheet with oil.  On top of the zucchini lightly sprinkle with Italian seasoning and  drizzle butter then top with mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes till the Zucchini is tender.

Night of Fire 2012

So I am really irritated about the fact that I was a really bad blogger last year and the year before.  I was hoping I could copy and paste blog post from previous years and you could read about 2010 Night of Fire and then 2011 Night of Fire.  BUT since I didn't blog about them I guess you can't read about them.  So I added 1 picture from 2010 and 2011 and now I will blog about 2012!

2010 was our first time as a family going to the Night of Fire.  I hated it!  It was hot!  (that's probably why I didn't blog about it)  We went to see Bart's cousin Cole race.  It just so happened it was a great night to go since he made it to the finals!  I snapped this picture of Jackson with his cute wrinkled up nose because he was dreaming of the day he would get to race!!  I posted this exact picture in July 2010 with the caption We went to watch Cole in Commerce. Jackson is dreaming of being a jr dragster!!!  My mom replied back to the picture He looks like he is planning his destiny!

Little did we know he was planning his destiny!  2011 was his year at the Night of Fire!  He was in the finals as well.  He lost to Austin Carden, but it was still awesome to be in the finals at the Night of Fire!!

We started watching the weather for the weekend and knew it was going to be a hot one!  Like 104 hot!

We made Jackson stay in the trailer as much as possible.  We drank lots of water, used our frog towel alot, listened to music, prayed and ate watermelon!

When it was time to go we still drank lots of water, had our frog towel and had a spray water fan and a boxed fan in his car.  We also had an umbrella.

We got new stickers, but we aren't in love with them.  Wrong color and the stamp is suppose to say Racing exactly like our shirts.  But they obviously don't look exactly like them, but anyways I still had to take a picture.  Right??

One of Jackson's favorite things to do.  A burn out!

We lost and went out 1st round.  :( bummer

We quickly got over that and decided to make the best of the day!!

We found out later that they were going to let the juniors do exhibition runs!

Jackson didn't want his picture taken.......

so I kept taking pictures till he would look at me and smile!

It only took 3.  He has learned to hurry up and make mama happy!!

The crowd clearly wasn't as big as the Southern Nationals , but who really wants to be outside when its that hot!!

I love this picture.  You can't really tell, but the sun was going down and it was just beautiful!!

We were in this same position last year during the Finals!!

They had the normal Junior pull off section closed so the kids had to drive their cars all the way down the track.  I think Jackson LOVED that!!

Jackson still in his suit and helmet going to socialize!!  Where does he get that???

Jackson finally took his helmet off!!

Alot of the juniors went around selling raffle tickets for Bristol.  At the end of the night  they did a 50/50 drawing.  

Jackson held the box full of tickets!

After everything was over they had fireworks!!

Stephen and Hunter.  

Mommy and Stephen!