Pineapple Salsa Chicken Tacos

When I was at the store the other day I found pineapple salsa on sale. So what better to do with it than make tacos?

I'm not even going to post the recipe because this dinner is too simple to even need one. Basically you just throw a few chicken breasts into a crockpot, cover them with a bottle of salsa (any kind), and cook on low for about 4 hours. Then shred it all up. I threw in some corn at the end for good measure (that's a veggie right...?). Super easy dinner. I also heated up some refried beans with a little bit of chicken broth and garlic and salt and pepper for a side dish. And yes, that is a spoonful of greek yogurt on top. I'm trying to use it all up before it expires so I've got yogurt up to my ears.

Healthy Baked Ranch Chicken

These pictures have the worst lighting ever but it was already dark outside and the lights in my kitchen are pretty terrible so there's nothing I can do. If only I made dinner earlier in the afternoon...

I was a little skeptical when I read somewhere that you can substitute greek yogurt for sour cream. Seriously, they don't taste at all the same. But then I decided to be adventurous and just try it out. This is what I came up with. And I have to admit that when I make this, I don't measure anything because I'm usually cooking for myself and I only need one chicken breast (I slice it in half horizontally so it's thin and I end up with two pieces. One for today and one for tomorrow. Leftovers are the best). 

I think I've successfully made the recipe family-sized now. Just make sure that you use PLAIN greek yogurt. Unless you think you'd like Ranch Honey Vanilla Greek Yogurt Chicken. Then by all means stay away from the plain yogurt. If you want a real treat, serve it with the best potatoes ever from The Pioneer Woman.

Healthy Ranch Chicken

5-6 chicken breasts

1 1/2 cups bread crumbs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 packet ranch dressing mix

3/4 cup plain greek yogurt (you may need more)

Preheat oven to 375. Spoon greek yogurt onto the chicken breasts and spread it fairly thin (but make sure it covers the chicken or else your ranch mixture won't stick). Spoon ranch mixture onto chicken and press it down to make sure it stays. You could also roll your chicken in the mixture, but I find that pressing it on is just easier (and that way your yogurt doesn't slip off). Repeat process for both sides of the chicken breast. Place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until chicken is cooked all the way through.

DIY Gold Nugget Earrings

The other day I found a tutorial for DIY gold nugget earrings. They're so cute, so on Saturday I whipped up a few pairs. The tutorial can be found here at Lovely Indeed. Her earrings look better than mine, but I'm not very talented with a scalpel so this is the best I could come up with. My only recommendation is that you find earring backs that are smaller than 10mm (which is the only size my local craft store carried in the hypoallergenic variety, essential for my sensitive ears) -- I prefer small nuggets and mine barely fit on the posts. It also might take two coats of gold paint to get everything covered -- my first coat didn't stick very well, so it took a second to get everything perfect. I'm sure that might be different if you use a different type of paint. I might even recommend experimenting with that because the earrings from Lovely Indeed had more of a "gold leaf" quality that's amazing.

Double chin... yikes.

They tell you when you're little that your freckles will go away . . . then all of the sudden you're 22 and they're still there.

This was a super quick and easy weekend project that could definitely be customized (change the size, color, etc. . . I'd love to make some in silver). Anyone else in love with these?

Ice Ice Baby

My name is Tucker. I like to go outside for 15 seconds (just long enough to get snow all over my feet so I can get the wood floor wet) and grab gigantic chunks of ice. I prefer to carry them into the living room and crunch on them--as loud as I can--underneath the piano. It's sort of a delicacy.

Things are Getting Fishy Around Here

Today was Rachael's fourteenth birthday. When I was younger, my mom always made us amazing birthday cakes. A few years ago, we started buying ice cream cakes from Cold Stone (they're way easier and they taste great). But this year, Rachael decided she wanted a homemade cake. My mom decided to do a "fish tank" themed cake since Rachael loves shells and fish). We used this pin as inspiration. We used graham crackers for the little towers and crushed grahams for the sand (the original pin uses nuts, but we don't really like them). Our seaweed looks way more pathetic, but that's my fault (fruit roll-ups and laffy taffy are really hard to cut into seaweed shapes). And don't worry, we sanitized all the shells before we put them on the cake.

Happy birthday Rachael!

I hope this year you decide you like pre-made ice cream cakes like the rest of the family. ;)

First Posts are Awkward 96% of the Time

I have no idea what to say in this post . . . so here goes. I'm Kaylee, I'm 22, I'm a senior at BYU.

2012 was my year of adventures. I spent four months living in London and traveling a little bit through Europe (England, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Wales, Scotland). I saw amazing things and went through some hard things, but I think that both of those were important for me to experience. 2013 will probably have fewer big adventures, and since I'm a semi-boring non-adventurous person, that's okay. This year I'm looking forward to graduating from college, hopefully buying a new car, and traveling at least some (the itch is coming back, but after looking at my savings account, my traveling might be limited to a weekend trip to Ogden). I also decided I need to record my life better. Since I'm the worst journal-writer on the face of the planet and only a slightly better blogger, I decided blogging was the lesser (and more fun) of two evils. I'm excited to see what this year has in store for me.

So here's to a return to blogging and an amazing 2013.