Tasty Tuesday!

I made some pretty tasty dishes this past week, below you'll find the recipes and the blogs I found them from (if they're from a blog).   Get ready for some mouth watering dinners!

Honey Glazed Chicken (Recipe adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe)

• Ingredients:
• 2 lbs of diced uncooked chicken breast
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4 TB butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 TB lemon juice
• 2 TB soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 
  
• Instructions:
• -Heat oven to 350. In a shallow dish combine the flour and seasonings. Roll each piece of chicken in the flour mix until fully coated
• -Spray a shallow baking pan with some non-stick spray (I laid down some foil, makes for easy clean up).  Line chicken in the pan and bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
• -While the chicken is cooking, in a small saucepan, melt butter and add honey, lemon juice, soy sauce and ginger.
• -After chicken has baked 30 minutes, turn each piece over and pour sauce over chicken. Bake another 30 to 40 minutes.
• -Serve over rice.
• 
  

For the sauce I doubled the honey and ginger.  Doubling the lemon juice and soy sauce might make it a bit runny.  You'll have a bit of sauce leftover after you've coated the chicken, so I used the extra on the rice and to drizzle over the chicken after it's been cooked.  This dish was AMAZING, so delicious and husband and kids enjoyed it too!  

Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf (Recipe adapted from What's Cooking, Love?)

I love Chicken Parmesan, but hate how much time it can take, especially if your serving it with Pasta the way my husband likes it.  This is a recipe that I found by searching through Pinterest (how I find almost everything haha) and just knew it was something I HAD to make!  I hope y'all enjoy it as much as we did! 

• Ingredients:
• 1 pound ground chicken
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup Breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 2 tsp California Style Crushed Garlic
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup Marinara sauce (I used Ragu Pasta Sauce)
• 1/2 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
•  
• Directions:
• -Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• -In a large bowl combine the ground chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, italian seasoning, garlic, and Parmesan cheese.  Mix with your hands.  
• -You'll want to use a semi deep baking dish, put the meat mixture in the dish and form a loaf (or if you have a loaf pan, use that).  Top the meatloaf with the marinara sauce.
• -Bake for 50 minutes or until chicken is cooked (all white, no pink showing).  When done remove and  add the mozzarella cheese on top.  Return the meatloaf to the oven until the cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let the meatloaf rest for about 10 minutes, this will prevent the meatloaf from falling apart when you cut it. 

Soy Sauce and Brown Sugar Salmon:

• Ingredients:
• 4 Salmon Fillets
• Lemon Pepper to taste
• Garlic Powder to taste
• A sprinkle of Salt and Pepper
• 1/3 cup Soy Sauce
• 1/3 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/3 cup Water
• 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
• 
  
• Directions: 
• -Season the fillets with the lemon pepper, garlic powder and salt and pepper.
• -In a bow mix together soy sauce, brown sugar, water and oil.  Mix until brown sugar is completely dissolved.
• -Put the Salmon in a large (I used gallon) ziploc bag and pour in the sauce mixture.  Move the bag around until Salmon has been coated and then lay flat in the fridge for about two hours (can do all day or overnight if you want).  
• -Preheat oven to 425
• -Take Salmon out and wrap in foil, bake for 15 minutes or until Salmon flakes easily with fork.

Lasagna:

I wish Lasagna didn't take so much work to put together!  It's my husband's favorite meal though, so it's what I made for Father's Day dinner this past week!  

• Ingredients: 
• 2lbs Ground Beef
• 3 cans (8 ounces each) tomato sauce (I used Ragu Pasta Sauce)
• 2 cans (6 ounces each) tomato paste
• 2 tsp California Crushed Garlic
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 24 ounces 4% small-curd cottage cheese
• 8 ounces ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 9 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
• 6 slices provolone cheese
• 3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (divided into 1 cup each)

• Directions:
• -In a large skillet, cook ground over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic, sugar, seasoning, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.  Remove from heat
• -In a large bowl, combine eggs and parsley. Stir in the cottage cheese, ricotta and Parmesan cheese.
• -Spread 1 cup of meat sauce in an un-greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Layer with three noodles, provolone cheese, 2 cups cottage cheese mixture, 1 cup mozzarella, three noodles, 2 cups meat sauce, remaining cottage cheese mixture and 1 cup mozzarella. Top with the remaining noodles, meat sauce and mozzarella (dish will be full and probably almost overflowing).
• -Cover and bake at 375 for 50 minutes. Uncover, bake 20 minutes longer or until heated through. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting. 

These are my recipes for the week.  I hope y'all enjoy them! Next week I'll be taking pictures to go along with all the yummy recipes!  Happy Tuesday!

Emma's First Haircut

This morning Emma decided she would take it upon herself to snip a little bit of hair off in the front.  She had cut it so short in the front that we weren't really able to pull it back to hide her little haircut she gave herself, so we decided it was time to take her for her first haircut!  She wasn't too happy about it, and we couldn't get her to smile during the haircut, but she didn't cry or flip out.  After when she saw it she fell in love with it.  And I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and she looks even cuter (is that possible?!?!) than she did with long hair.  Here are some pictures we got :)

Happy Father's Day!

So back in March Rudy started going to school.  He's getting a degree in digital graphics/web design.  He goes to classes 4 nights a week, and the other 3 nights he's typically working on homework.  I thought it was going to be hard to be home by myself with the girls even more, but it's not.  It took a week or two to get adjusted to him not being around as much, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I see how hard he works when he goes to work, then he comes home and just dives right into his homework.  He loves what he's going to school for, and because of that I can really see how happy he has been the past few months.

I see myself enjoying the time I get to spend with him even more now than I did before he started classes.  I see Rudy enjoying the time he gets to spend with the girls even more (if that's even possible!).  You can just look at the projects he does and see the time and effort put into them, see that he really loves what he's doing.  It's so nice to see him finally doing something for himself that he loves.  What he's doing will be tremendous for our family, but when he gets that degree he will finally be doing something that he enjoys doing, and not just something that he HAS to do to provide for our family.

Rudy is what I had always imagined my husband, the father of my kids, to be.  He is loving, caring, gentle, kind.  He is so amazing with our daughters.  The love that he has for those girls is something that is just unconditional, and unbreakable bond that only he and the girls will ever understand.  The way he lights up when he see's them after a long day at work, the way that he lets them climb all over him and beat him up when he's still half asleep at 6 in the morning, the way that he loves those girls more than anything, those are the things that I love about my husband.  I couldn't ask for a better father for my girls.

Happy Father's Day Rudy!

Loving Day

So I guess today is called "Loving Day" because of the case "Loving VS Virginia" which legalized interracial marriage in a few states that had yet to recognize it.  I had never really thought about it, or I guess it never really seemed like a big deal to me that Rudy is Hispanic and I'm White and that our kids are biracial.  I've never thought of us as a 'different' couple, but I guess we are.  To think that there would have been a time, not that long ago even, that Rudy and I would not have been able to be together, we both would have gone to jail for being together, much less having biracial children.  I've seen Facebook pages dedicated to interracial marriages and biracial children and to be quite honest I kind of found them a bit funny (not to offend anyone), but I always thought to myself "being married to a person of a different race and having mixed children isn't really a novelty anymore, why does everyone make such a big deal about it?".  I think I'm starting to get it though.  There are people who had to fight so that Rudy and I could have the right to marry, so that our daughter's could be our daughters.  I'm not gonna go on some rant about being PROUD to be in an interracial marriage, or PROUD to have biracial children, I'm just not loud like that.  But today, today I am thankful to be able to love my husband and our beautiful daughters.  Happy Loving Day :)