Easy Chicken Parmesan

I have been craving chicken parmesan for so long and NONE of the restaurants around here have it. Can you believe that? Disgusting. So I decided to make it myself and I was blown away by how easy it really is. I'm not sure I'll ever order it again when I know I can make such a good version at home! Here's the thing though: I didn't make my own marinara, I just enhanced a store bought jar. Whatever, I'm hungry, get over it.

Flipping Chicken

Ingredients: 

Sauce

• 1 cup marinara sauce - I prefer Prego 
• 1/4 c. onion - diced
• 1 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp dried basil
• chili pepper flakes to taste 
• 1 clove garlic
• splash of red wine

Chicken

• 2 (8 oz) bonless skinless chicken breasts (I just defrosted some frozen ones)
• 1/2 c. mozzerella cheese - shredded
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 c. parmesan cheese - grated
• 1/2 c. bread crumbs - I used a generic brand with Italian seasonings 
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• a couple leaves of fresh basil (optional)

Enhancing Store Bought Sacue

                  

How To Cook It

For the sauce, I just whip all the ingredients together mix them evenly and let simmer, I think it's a little obvious that I like my sauce flavorful. I should also note that I don't use a ton of sauce, I prefer not to drown the chicken so we never use all of it. 

• preheat broiler setting on your oven
• whisk together the egg and flower 
• in a seperate, shallow dish toss together the parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, garlic powder, oregano, and black pepper
• coat the chicken in the egg/flour mixture
• transfer to the bread crumb mixture and coat both sides, press gently so the bread crumbs stick
• pour the oil into a skillet and heat over medium high heat 
• once the oil is hot add the coated chicken
• fry until the breadcrumbs are a golden brown, then flip the chicken and repeat
• place chicken on an oven safe dish and top with mozzarella cheese
• place in oven for 2 - 5 minutes, but keep a close eye on it
• remove from oven, top with marinara and (if desired) more mozzarella cheese and fresh basil

Closet

Denim Jacket: American Eagle

Tank Top: American Eagle

Maxi Skirt: TJ Maxx

Candy Corn Fall Cookes

Fall Festivity Extravaganzaaaa (installment 5) continues!! I made these cookies last year and fell in love. The best part about them is that 1 batch makes like, a million cookies! So I can give them out to all my friends or neighbors or whatever. I love that they are bite-sized and not too sugary.... well, they don't taste  too sugary. Anyway, to the recipe....

Don't forget your baking glass of wine!

Ingredients: 

• 2 sticks of butter, softened
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 3 cups flour
• yellow food dye
• red food dye 

How To Cook It: 

• beat the butter and sugar together until creamy
• add egg, lemon juice and salt
• add flour and baking soda, beat until mixed thoroughly
• divide the dough into thirds
• press one third of the dough flat into the bottom of a loaf pan
• mix one third of the dough with only yellow food dye
• mix the final third of the dough with yellow and red food dye until you get a nice orange
• place the orange dough evenly over the white dough; repeat with the yellow dough
• cover and freeze for 30 minutes
• once chilled, remove your dough from the pan and cut into strips starting at the short end
• trim the edges if necessary and cut into triangles
• place 1 inch apart on greased cookie sheet
• bake at 375 degrees for 7-10 minutes (I baked mine for only 7 minutes and they came out perfectly)

Fall Hike

Fall Festivity Extravaganza continues! Over the weekend, Husband and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a bike and hike. We biked about 3 miles out of town and climbed Bald Hill, the views that day were amazing. I couldn't get over it. Here's a peak at our day.

Above is our very first view once we reached the top. This is facing South East, if I had turned just a little to my left, I could have seen Reser Stadium in the distance. 

Below you can see how bright the sun was, here we are headed directly west. West is my favorite view because there is almost no city, just farm land. 

The tree colors are so beautiful this time of year, I love fall! Here is the west view zoomed in.

Below is a wider view of the west, I love Oregon. 

Then Husband reminded me that I have panorama on my phone so I took another (I'm a little obsessed). 

Hiking back down we had some pretty views too. On the left we are facing due North and on the right is an open air barn that is absolutely gorgeous. 

And here at the bottom of the hill facing East: 

Overall, we biked about 6 miles and hiked around 3 miles. The gym can get boring so some days I like to just hang out in nature... I was pretty dead afterwards, though, so we had microwave tamales for dinner. 

Closet

We had an absolutely beautiful weekend. I had to take advantage of the last remaining warm days. It didn't last long, I had to change once the sun went down. (Also please excuse my random coupons on the ground...)

Dress: TJ Maxx

Scarf: TJ Maxx

Belt: Forever 21

Boots: Nordstrom

Watch: Charlotte Russe

Bracelets: Forever 21

Easy Breakfast Eggs

During football season, we have a lot of overnight guests. We live close to the stadium and a lot of our friends live out of town so we have a lot of traffic in the fall. Being the mother hen that I am, I always like to make sure that my friends eat before drinking game day. This little beauty has been a life/time saver.

Ingredients:

• eggs
• meat (this can be any kind of cooked meat, I used turkey breast but you can use ham or even precooked bacon)
• green onion
• cheese (again, your choice, I like Parmesan) 

How To Cook It

• preset oven to 400 degrees
• coat inside of muffin tin with cooking spray (or similar)
• place your meat in muffin tin, use a layer or two to make sure the egg doesn't run out
• place in oven for ~12 minutes
• remove from oven and garnish with scallions and cheese

House Warming Present

My cousin, Heidi, recently bought a house. We saw it a couple of weeks ago and it is like, the best thing I've ever seen in my life! She already has raised beds and tomatoes growing in the garden. I am so jealous out of my freaking mind happy for her!!! Having lived with roommates for a while, however, she didn't have a few essentials so I picked out a few things for her and made a house warming gift basket:

Included in the basked were:

• salt and pepper grinders
• tongs
• salad tongs
• serving/cooking/wooden spoons
• hot pads
• dish towels
• a drying mat
• WINE!
• 2 cookie sheets (she loooooves to bake)
• colander 

I used the colander as a basket and placed everything inside. Then I picked up a shrinky-dink bag at the dollar store (I don't know what they are really called). These things are awesome. It's a huge plastic bag that you place your item in, tie the top, and used a blow dryer to shrink it down and mold around you gift. They make it look so professional and it's super easy (just make sure you don't shrink up the top part above the bow, then it looks like a big mess...).