Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Rich & I haven't had a day off together in FOREVER!!!!! If one is home the other is gone. Today was my day off, and Rich said if things went smoothly he would take a half day off and then work from home in the evening. :) We slept in this morning till about 9:30 and then spent a couple hours straightening up the house. After my dental appointment we headed straight for the beach. We decided to have lunch there today. We walked a ways down and then had pizza outside (yes, of course I had a frozen drink!) with the waves rolling in right in front of us and a nice ocean breeze. :) It was in the mid-80's today so it was a perfect day for a beach walk! We ended up stopping at one of those cheesy tourist stores and buying "2 for $15" sunglasses since we both forgot ours and ultimately ended up getting our feet wet.... we hadn't planned to go in the water today, but it's so hard to stay away!! We enjoyed spending a couple hours at the beach...we don't do it enough!

We were stylin' in our awesome shades. Lol!

The view from our table...nice.

Caesar Salad Sandwiches

Caesar salad sandwiches...ah, what a simple and refreshing midweek meal.

2 chicken thighs per person

romain lettuce, shredded

parmesan cheese

Caesar salad dressing

sandwich buns

Cover the chicken with salad dressing and sprinkle parmesan on top. You can leave this in the crock pot on low for the day or make it in the oven. I baked it at 350 in my dutch oven for over an hour. Once it is done, shred it and put it back in the salad dressing. (As a side note: when I put the chicken on the sandwiches, I used a slotted spoon so that it drained.)

Make a mix of melted butter, "shaker" parmesan, parsley, and garlic powder. Brush it onto the buns and broil them for a minute or two. 

On each bun, place lettuce on the bottom and a good scoop of the shredded chicken. It's basically a Caesar salad on a bun. Yum. 

October Foodfest

Fall is finally in the air in Florida!!! Yes, this means that the weather has dropped slightly to about 85 degrees. :) I decided to try several new ideas this month for meals and so far, so good!! Tonight I spent about 2 hours cooking ahead. I made Bacon & Cheese "McMuffins" for Rich (he does not like egg) and also took the October Soup Challenge (click HERE to read it--4 GREAT recipes!) from my favorite blog "Because Chocolate Can't Get You Pregnant!!!!" I put 2 bags of ham & potato soup in the freezer and made 6 breakfast sandwiches for the hubs. Shortly I am going back into the kitchen to make a batch of marinara sauce to freeze. I will be making fresh bread in my bread machine to go with the ham and potato soup when we have that. I also just froze 6 cranberry-orange breakfast muffins for me and set 4 aside for the rest of my workdays this week.

Here's some photos of my October bounty!

Bacon & Cheese McMuffins (1 all wrapped up and ready for the freezer.) I can make 6 of these for about $5. Go check the price at McD's and see how much you can get for $5!! I also made them with whole wheat English muffins, and 1% cheese so hopefully they are a little less lethal. :) Each sandwich has 2 slices of bacon and 1 slice of cheese.

Ham and Potato soup. Very easy to make, and so delicious!! I froze two Ziploc bags with 4 cups of soup per bag. You can find the recipe HERE. The only things I changed--I used Yukon Gold potatoes and did not peel them before adding them to the soup. I also used more ham than what is called for, since Rich likes his soup to be "chowdery" in consistency. I did not add celery because I think it is gross. :)

Mini Pizzas

This is a mini pizza recipe using whole wheat wraps! These pizzas have 66 calories each so they are kind of a pizza compromise. Enjoy!

Click HERE to get the pizza recipe from Dashing Dish.

Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies

The easiest cookies you will ever make...

1 box brownie mix (I used a dark fudge chunk mix)

1 egg

1 c. peanut butter

1/3 c. oil

2 tbsp water

Mix all ingredients. Roll into balls and bake at 375 for 7 minutes. Remove from the oven and press them down with a fork in a criss cross pattern. Return to the oven for 1-2 minutes.

$5 Guacamole

While I was shopping at Publix on Saturday, I came across a great sale on avocados. The giant green-skinned avocados were on sale from $3.49 each to $1 each!! They were not quite ripe yet, so I bought 3. Californians: you have to understand that 1 of these giants is akin to about 4-5 Hass avocados. They are huge! They are a bit softer in texture than the Hass variety, but still very delicious. I used up 1/2 of one on a few salads over the weekend, but yesterday I realized that they were ripe and it was do or die. So, I decided to make a huge batch of guacamole. I used 2 large avocados, 4 large cloves of fresh garlic, 1 lemon, 1 red diamond tomato (a HUGE one), 2 small red onions, 1 tbsp kosher salt, and a generous sprinkling of onion powder and garlic powder. I ended up with a ridiculous amount of fresh, delicious guacamole and decided to experiment with freezing it. I froze 5 ziploc bags of it and kept a 12 ounce bag in the fridge. I ended up with 59.9 ounces of guacamole for about $5 with all the ingredients I used. You pay about $5 for a 16-oz container at the market!!

One Bottle BBQ Chicken

I have always said that one of these days I would make the famously simple "one bottle BBQ chicken." You put 6-8 chicken pieces (breast, thighs, drums, etc.) into a crock pot with 1 bottle of barbecue sauce and cook into until it falls off the bone, then shred it. Supposedly it's then "ready to eat." When I came home at lunch time today I put 6 bone-in chicken thighs into the crock pot and added 1 regular-sized bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle barbecue sauce. I turned the crock pot on high for 5-1/2 hours. When I came home the meat was very tender and had decent flavor, however the barbecue sauce did something strange that I did not care for. In retrospect, I probably should have put the chicken on low for a longer period of time, but that's beside the point. I wasn't too satisfied with the overall flavor, (though to be honest there are probably many restaurants that would have served it as is) so I took it out of the sauce. I threw out the sauce and shredded the meat off the bone with a fork. If your chicken is cooked properly, this takes about 2 minutes.

I then started my customary kitchen dance of opening the cabinet and seeing what looks good to add to my chicken. I drizzled the chicken with honey, then added the tiniest sprinkles of the following: onion powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, ginger (powder) and cayenne. Then I poured about 3/4 cup of honey barbecue sauce into it and stirred it with the fork. I left it in the crock on high for about 30 minutes more. 

It was delicious! Rich really liked it. So, my recipe for one bottle BBQ chicken didn't turn out quite so simple...but, I think mine tastes better than theirs. :) Happy Saturday!