Creamy Chicken Pasta With Roasted Tomatoes

Last night I wanted pasta for dinner. I wasn't really sure what I had in my fridge or pantry so I just started pulling stuff out. I came up with the recipe below.

Disclaimer: I NEVER measure anything so the below measurements are not exact!

Creamy Chicken Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes

2 chicken breasts thawed and cut into cubes

3 tablespoons of Light Boursin Cheese

1/2 can of 98% Fat Free Cream of Mushroom Soup

3 table spoons of freshly grated parmesan cheese

salt to taste

2 cups of uncooked pasta

1/2 cup of grape tomatoes

1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese from the shaker

1/2 tablespoon of Italian Herbs

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

5 fresh basil leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Sauté chicken in nonstick skillet on medium heat until cooked all the way through.

While it's sautéing, heat 4 cups of salted water to a boil. Boil pasta until desired tenderness. (I like mine al dente).

While the chicken is sautéing and the noodles are boiling, cut grape tomatoes length wise and place on a cookie sheet cut side up. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with the parmesan in a can and the Italian herbs. Place in the preheated oven for about 7 minutes.

Once the chicken is cooked add the boursin cheese, grated parmesan, and the cream of mushroom soup to the skillet. Stir until all the chicken is covered and sauce is heated through.

By this time your pasta should be done. Drain and return back to the pot. Add the chicken and sauce and stir until the sauce is well mixed into the pasta (be sure not to stir to much and make the pasta starchy)

By this time your tomatoes should be nice and roasted. Plate the pasta and add the tomatoes to the top. I always scrape up some of the parmesan that cooked up crispy around the tomatoes and sprinkle it on top as well.

Cut your basil strips lengthwise and sprinkle on top of the pasta and voila! you are done!! Enjoy!

Workout Room

I got these fun colorful posters for my workout room from all posters. I think they will look good with the gray walls and give me encouragement!

Detergent and Softener

I spray painted a a square on my detergent with chalkboard paint to dress up my laundry room a little bit. This bottle was purchased from Melaleuca with the pump on it. We don't normally use this brand so I will just pour my tide in it from now on. I know it seems like a lot for detergent, but I think it's cute! When my sister comes over I will have her rewrite it since my handwriting is horrible!

Flowers from the yard

It's so easy to grab some flowers from the yard and spruce them up. Just put them in a mason jar and add some jute and voila!

Happy National Lasagna Day!

Last Friday was National Lasagna Day! Since my niece was staying the night with me I thought we better do some cooking. We made lasagna cupcakes! She has so much fun. She got to sprinkle the cheese in each one and put the sauce in. She said she is a "Little Chet" oh, if she only knew!!! No really she is pretty awesome!! She loved her chef hat. I made it from a white piece of paper with a white wal-mart sack stapled to it!!! So easy!! We watched Ratatouille afterwards and she wore her hat to match!

Saucy Shrimp

One of my all time favorite appetizers is Saucy Shrimp from Bonefish Grill. We bought quite a bit of shrimp while we were in Florida recently and I decided I needed to cook some. I wanted to try a new recipe with it. I thought hmmm, I wonder if I could recreate Saucy Shrimp?!?! I went to google it and low and behold, Bone fish has it on their website! That was easy. It was so good. I just served it over angel hair to make it a meal. Yummmy!

Mango Key Lime Pie

I got this recipe from my step-mom. It is so delicious and so easy to make. I make my crust from the side of the box of Honey Maid Graham Cracker Crumbs.

½ cup Key lime juice

1 can sweetened condensed milk

3 egg yolks plus 2 whole eggs

1 medium mango

graham cracker crust

Peel and cut up mango

Blend first four ingredients together in a blender

Pour into crust and bake for 30 minutes

At 350 degrees

"Best burrito I have ever had", said Mike!

Today for lunch I made healthy shrimp burritos. When Mike took his first bite he was making his "I love this food" noises! As soon as he could get some of it swallowed he said "this is the best burrito I have ever had" He liked the freshness of it. So, I thought I would share!

I buy my groceries at Trader Joe's so all the items below are Trader Joe's brand, but you can use whatever you want!

TJ's Whole Grain Tortillas

TJ's FF Feta

TJ's FF Refried Beans

TJ's Shredded Cabbage

TJ's frozen peeled shrimp

Avocado

Diced Roma Tomatoes

Greek Avocado Sauce (Recipe below)

This is about as simple as it gets. Heat the beans, heat the shrimp, and add it all to the tortilla!

Greek Avocado Sauce

1 cup TJ's FF Greek Yogurt

1/2 of a avocado diced up

cumin to taste

garlic powder to taste

I put all ingredients in a bowl and used my immersion blender until the avocado was smooth. This tastes like a sour cream, but WAY better for you!

ENJOY!

My First Pecan Pie

I made my first Pecan Pie tonight. My dirty little secret is that I did NOT make the crust. I did however sort and shell the pecans....does that make it better? Since I do not like pecan pie I had to have others test it and they approved! You can find the recipe here. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the final result since it was gobbled up quickly!

Remodeled Ikea Chairs

We bought 4 of these chairs and a table forever ago at Ikea. I was planning on taking them up to our cabin, but decided I might use them for my new photography business instead. I am done with 2 and have 2 more to paint. I am going to paint the other ones pale yellow and a salmon color. Can't wait to finish them and use them in a session.

All I have to say is HOW CUTE!!!!

So I love these cute little yarn things. I looked them up to buy one....$75! Are you kidding me?!?!?

I went to hobby lobby and bought $65 worth of yarn and made 2 of them and still have enough yarn to make 2 or 3 more! I was able to make them in an hour on my lunch break! The woman selling these for $75 is banking!!

Paula Deen's Banana Pudding

A couple of weeks ago I made this banana pudding for my brother in law's birthday! It was pretty tasty! And since it's a Paula Deen recipe you know it's fat free Y'all! I added some Nilla Wafers to mine as well as the Chessman Cookies.

Chalkboard

A while back I bought a beat up frame and painting at a consignment store with intentions of making a chalkboard out of it. I finally did it on my lunch break today. I will be using it soon for an engagement photo shoot. All I did was use painters tape and some magazine pages to cover up the frame and then I spray painted it with chalkboard paint and Voila!!!!! It was $3 for the frame and $5 for the paint and the can is still full for many other projects.

The 3 Walkers

Yesterday we went to the park and I took pictures of my sister's family. Here are a few of my favorites.

Southern and Sailor

I had the pleasure of taking pictures of Southern and Sailor this morning. They are 3 year old twins and as precious as can be. These are some of my favorites.

I think Southern looks like a model here!

That smile is so sweet!

Love these baby blues!

Sisterly Love!

Pretty Girl!

Love that hair!

Pirate Party

About a year ago I helped my best friend throw a Pirate Party for her little boy who was turning 1. It was so cute and the kids had a blast. There was lots of pirate crafts, Wii sword fighting, and a scavenger hunt. The invitations read like this.....

Ahoy Mateys! Captain Cowen is turning 1!

Please join us for lots of loot and fun

We need all hands on deck for this party

For grub, games, and treasure hunts me heartie

Dress up gear

Captain Cowen! Birthday Boy!

Gettin some grub!

He found the loot! Anything from slinkies to pirate rubber duckies. There was stuff for all ages.

Scavenger Hunt Loot

Getting dressed up before the Hunt

Scavenger hunt clue

We went simple on the food. Goldfish, round cheese and crackers (doubloons), grapes (cannon balls), and pretzel sticks (pirate peg legs). I made the signs (Sails) for the food by taking white paper and soaking it in tea for about an hour. It became kind of stiff which was good. I then burnt the edges and put them on a skewer. The candles and candle holders were from pottery barn that I got on sale after Halloween. In the vase I put sand, some coins, a treasure chest, and some beads for a centerpiece. We went for an all black, red, gold and silver look.

This is the candy buffet. There were gold and black kisses, gold and red peanut butter cups, red twizzlers, and gummie skulls.

We had fish netting draped across the fireplace and I made a little red one with a pirate on it to go next to his newborn pics.

Color Party

It's easy to throw a cool party on a budget. All you need to do is think of a color or two and go with it. For this birthday we chose YELLOW! Before my niece was 2 every time you asked her what color something was she said yellow so it was the perfect choice for her 2nd birthday party.

Once you have your color picked out you can start looking for things on sale that are that color. Anything from flowers, to candy, to platters.

Yellow Dress and a plain yellow smash cake

Yellow Mustaches for the boys and grandmas! Cut out of yellow paper and sucker sticks.

We took pics of all the kids and shot yellow silly string at them when we counted to 3! They loved it!

Cupcakes on cupcake holder. We got a cheap cupcake holder at Big Lots (we used it for her first birthday too. Spray paint the number they are turning and add a little flair to it! The hot glue gun is my hero!

Paper sacks with yellow polka dot ribbon, yellow mustaches in yellow spray painted foam, yellow kazoos, oreos on sucker sticks dipped in white chocolate with yellow sugar, yellow now and laters, and yellow mary jane candies. Most candy can be found at the dollar store for cheap.

A foam E (for Emily) with yellow flowers in it, lemon drop candies, yellow daisies, and yellow whoopie cushions for the boys!

Yellow pinwheeles, yellow rice crispies, and yellow necklaces.

Yellow table cloth and yellow sign made out of different style of yellow scrapbook paper.

All in all it was a great party. We had a hula hoop contest with a yellow hula hoop. We had a ball toss with a yellow ball and yellow buckets. We had 3 large yellow buckets with yellow yoo-hoo, water, and lemon drop soda.

If you plan on doing a party like this, chose your colors based off of a holiday for cheaper stuff. Like right after Valentines Day you can get really cheap pink or red candy. Stock up on black and silver candy during halloween for a pirate party. Always think ahead!!