Recipe Favorite: Cowboy Chicken

For the last month or so we have been trying to do better about cooking at home instead of eating out as much.  We still eat out quite a bit, but I've been trying to make dinner most nights which requires finding lots of new things to try.  So I thought I'd share one of our favorite recent recipes.

This one came from my co-worker Jill.  I work 3 days a week with Jill and so we eat lunch together a lot... and when we bring our lunch we talk about what we made the night before.  So she told me about this salsa chicken they had.

I found the recipe online at Crockin' Girls for Cowboy Chicken

It's basically chicken, salsa, and a little brown sugar and mustard.  You put it all in your slow cooker (one of my favorite kitchen tools) and cook on low all day.  Jill and her husband ate the chicken breasts whole, but I decided to go ahead and shred our chicken.

If you have a Kitchenaid mixer, this article taught me a lot of neat things about how to use the Kitchenaid, but by far the most useful thing I learned is that you can shred chicken in it using the paddle attachment.

(picture from Simply Healthy Family because I never remember to take pictures while I cook or bake)

You just put the chicken in and turn it on low and it's shredded in less than a minute.  It makes me love slow cooker chicken that much more because it's so easy to shred!  I've used it for shredded BBQ chicken, Buffalo chicken and this Cowboy Chicken.

We both really liked the taste of the Cowboy Chicken.  I added corn to it the first time and we liked that.  I also froze some and used it in Taco Soup a few weeks ago.  And just last week I made the chicken again and we enjoyed it on our tacos.

It's definitely a tried and true recipe around here and can be used in so many other dishes!

New Blog Design

So I saw today the lee-lou blogs is doing away with all of their free templates, so as of next week my blog design was going to be gone.  

So I re-did my blog design today.  I'm pretty happy with it for now and it gives me a few months where I can justify a fall header before I have to change it again! :)

State Fair 2013

Yesterday was our annual fair day!

We headed to UTD to pick up some of our International Student friends and took off for the Fair.  When we hit the traffic in downtown it was a preview of the crowds to come.  It was a beautiful day outside which led to a huge crowd.  Lots of people everywhere!

We started off our trip hanging out with our friends Lucas and Yali.  We walked around the creative arts building before meeting up with some other friends and heading to the pig races.

Then we headed over to see Big Tex!

First trip to the State Fair for most of this group

And we found "little tex" in the hall of state where they had an exhibit about the life and times of Big Tex.  You could get much closer to him than the real Big Tex

The State Fair would not be complete without a trip to the car show

And new this year were the ostrich races!  I think ostriches are funny.  They make me laugh.  So this event was really fun!

It was a good day with my favorite guy and a lot of our favorite people!

OU/TX Watch Party

College football is my absolute favorite sport.  It's been even more exciting the last few years with Baylor playing well, but even before that I loved going to and watching games.  

We recently added a little bit of football fun to our office alongside our diplomas :)

Since David is an OU alumn we watch a lot of those games--but none are as big as the Red River Rivalry each October.  This year we decided to have a few international friends over to watch the game with us, so we spent a lot of time explaining the rules to them and I think we had a lot of fun (except David wasn't such a fan of OU losing)

And what's the fun in watching college football without good food??  We had chips with queso, salsa, and bean dip as well as cookies during the game.  At half time we had lunch consisting of taquitos and some "chinese burritos" our friend Lucas brought.

I made some fun cookies to go with the theme.

Never in a million years thought I'd be making so many OU cookies... but of course I had to throw in a little Baylor love

After the TX OU game we switched over to watch Baylor play K State.  The game was a little too close for a while, but the Bears did well pulling out a win on the road when KSU was looking for revenge from last year.

                                              

We also got a new TV this week... Baylor football sure looks good on it :)

October

It has been a good start to one of my favorite months.  We spent the weekend camping with friends--enjoying time outside by the lake and at the campsite.  

Now we are catching up on stuff around the apartment, enjoying some taco soup, and getting a little rest.

Our October calendar is already pretty full--lots of fun things ahead with friends.  

Wedding: Decorations and Details

One of the biggest things to plan in a wedding are the decorations.  I love the way our Sanctuary is set up, so I didn't feel like I had to add too much

We had lots of candles and let the lighting set the stage

We also added purple rose petals (with some white mixed in) to line the aisle and bring in the purple color

Our programs also helped bring the colors into the Sanctuary:

 

I thought the silhouette programs I saw online were so cute, so I decided to make my own version and mount it on purple paper.

I am not big on flowers and I didn't care too much about them, so most flowers we ordered in bulk and did ourselves.  We did order the boutonnieres and my bouquet.  I loved the way my bouquet turned out

Our florist was able to attach it to the family Bible I carried.  This Bible belonged to my mom's mom.  My mom and Aunts carried it at their weddings as did my cousin, so I was grateful to have this tradition to carry on!

Then we moved on to the reception!

This was our Welcome Table

It was complete with pictures, a scrapbook and Madlibs for people to fill out (found the template here... they were so easy to print out and mat with teal paper).  We also had the photobooth set up in the foyer.

I spent some time figuring out the centerpieces for the guest table.  Once again, I wanted to use candles more than flowers.  I loved the look of the purple calla lilies.  They were not available to order for about 5 months while planning the wedding, but I was so excited that they came back to order about a month before we got married!  I think they helped bring it all together.  We also made the vellum luminaries and added some votives and teal rose petals

And the favors with cookies were at each seat:

                                      

   

 And of course there were our beautiful cakes.  I love the way they looked and what they added!

And I thought they were delicious.  

Chase will back me up on that :)

And with that final picture of my adorable nephew, the wedding recap is wrapped up!

Wedding: Family and Friends

After the ceremony we got to spend a little time with our families taking some pictures

One of my first priorities was seeing my sweet grandpa who had just gotten into town

love him so much

We took pictures with our extended families

And our immediate families

Love both of these women so much

Then we headed to the reception.  We really enjoyed the party and loved getting to see everyone.  Wedding receptions can be difficult because you have your 200 favorite people there but you can only see each one for such a short time.  But we are grateful for everyone who came to celebrate with us

 I was a part of Nicki and Mathis' wedding 6 years ago, so it was such a blessing to have them as a part of ours!

 Friends from High School (and/or middle school)

 Some of the youth I worked with

 Amy!

 Young Adults Friends

 The soon-to-be Ivy's

 Good friends from my growing up years

 My awesome MOH

After making our rounds we had a bubble send off

And drove off to enjoy our Honeymoon!