CrockPot Chicken Tacos

Happy Taco Tuesday everyone! Today I decided to share one of mine and Austin's favorite recipes. We have this almost once a week, it's so good and easy! If you're a college student, someone who doesn't like to cook or someone with a busy schedule and you don't use a crock pot....what are you doing?! Since I've lived on my own my Crock Pot has been one of my favorite kitchen essentials. I love being able to pot everything in there in the morning and dinner already being done by the time I get home in the afternoon. My Crock Pot is nothing fancy, I think we got it for about $35 at Mejier (best $35 we've spent) and it's perfect. I want to say it's a 6-quart but I could be wrong. However it is the perfect size for two people but when you pick one out you obviously want to get whatever size fits your situation best!

I originally got this recipe from one of my favorite YouTubers, Becca Bristow, then tweaked it just a little. Hope you try it out and enjoy! 

First, I always start out with making a batch of homemade taco seasoning. I like to make mine simply because store bought seasoning usually contains a lot of unnecessary salt.

 For the taco seasoning you will need: 2 teaspoons of chili powder

                                                             1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder

                                                             1/4 teaspoon of onion powder

                                                             1 teaspoon of cumin 

                                                             1/4 teaspoon of salt (couple of grinds)

For the Crock Pot, I always give mine a quick spray with olive oil (nonstick spray) to prevent anything from sticking. Then I add the chicken. I usually use about 1 1/2 pounds of chicken. Then you will also need a can of corn and a can of rotel...that's it! 

 First, put the chicken in. Then add the can of corn on top. I use about half of the liquid that is in the can to make sure the chicken doesn't dry out.

 Next, add the rotel. I always keep the lid on a little and drain as much as the liquid out as I can before I dump it in because you will see when they are finished that there is PLENTY of liquid to keep the chicken from drying out.

Finally, I pour my taco seasoning all over the top of everything. To cook the tacos set the Crock Pot on high for 6 hours. A feature of this Crock Pot that I love is the warming feature. After the 6 hours is up it automatically turns to warm, so that the meat doesn't get over cooked. 

Once were ready for dinner I use some tongs or a fork to break up the chicken and mix everything up. As you can kind of tell in the photo there is a lot of liquid left over. I'm trying to figure out how to eliminate that without drying out the chicken but Austin and I have just gotten used to it. 

I love tacos because they are so customizable. Austin loves to put sour cream, salsa and cheese on his, while I load mine with cilantro, cheese and lime juice! Sometimes we like to make some kind of rice to put on them as well which is super tasty!

    Hope you all enjoy this recipe! :)                                                      

Freezer Friendly Baked Penne For Two

Hi everyone! I feel like every time I get on here to post it's been forever since the last post. Austin and I have just been insanely busy working on the house! Our kitchen is about done but now that the weather is warming up outside we have started to tackle the yard. Since we moved, I've been really getting into having meals ready in the freezer that we can just thaw out the night before, throw in the oven and be ready to go. This is probably one of my favorites to have! I can get all of the ingredients for about $10 and it makes three pans of pasta that are the perfect portion size for two people!

All you need is:

 a box of pasta (any shape/type you want)

marinara sauce

 Italian sausage

mozzarella cheese

these disposable loaf pans (standard size)

First, cook the pasta according to the directions.

While the pasta is cooking brown your meat in a separate saucepan. I prefer Italian sausage for this recipe but you could use regular ground beef and ground turkey! It would probably just require more seasoning on your part. 

Once the pasta and meat are both finished cooking, strain both to get any excess liquid out. Then mix your pasta and meat into the same pan.

To that pan you're going to add your marinara. 

The marinara that I used in this recipe is actually from Aldi and it is the cleanest, lowest in sugar that I can find at my grocery stores. Although it is high in sodium, once I find a better option I'll be switching to that! 

Once all of your ingredients are mixed together, divide it into 3 pans and top with some cheese. I bought the wrong pans of course this time, I usually like to get the ones that come with lids but these work I just had to top them with tin foil. On the lid I just like to write the cooking temp (350 degrees F) and cook time (20-30 minutes). I imagine these would stay in the freezer pretty well for a few weeks/months but we usually eat all three of ours within a month! :)

I hope all of you cooking for two or even one give this recipe a shot and enjoy!

2016 Year In Review

Long time no blog! I haven't posted in what seems like forever! The second half of this year was crazy and unfortunately I let my blog take the back burner :( hopefully this year will be better! This morning I was going through so pictures and rememebered that last year I put together a blog post of my 2015 Highlights and I wanted to do the same for this year. Although Austin and I didn't do as much traveling as we did in 2015, this year was definitely an exciting one! 

January:
As in 2015, January is pretty uneventful but this year was the first year I got to celebrate Austin's birthday with him for his 21st!

February:
We started the month off with taking a trip to Wisconsin Dells for a little get away for Austin's birthday. Our hotel stay came with lift tickets so we decided to give skiing a shot....didn't go to well for me but we still had a great time!
At the end of February we celebrated our first anniversary in Champaign apartment hunting!

March:
The month of March consisted of a trip to visit Mama Sue and Jim up in Wisconsin and a lot of antiquing!

April:
Looking through my photos of April I really don't have any besides these two. Spring time was such a pretty time out at John's farm with all of his flowers starting to bloom. These pictures are from my last full month out on the Nolan Farm and the last picture I ever took with John. Bittersweet but that day forever sticks in my head because he loved being outside and after being sick all winter he finally got to go enjoy the sunshine!

May:
May marked the end of my journey at Waubonsee Community College. Going to Waubonsee was one of the best choices I made and I don't think I'll ever regret going there. I met great people, had awesome professors and just an overall good experience at that school. May was also a sad month because I had to say goodbye to the cutest, sweetest man I've ever known.

 

June:
June was a busy, exciting month!
Started off with one of my childhood best friends getting married, the next week Austin and I moved into our first apartment together and my mom opened her skincare studio!

 July:
The one and only photo I have from July is from the 4th. Austin and I went and watched the fireworks with his sister, Emily, her boyfriend Josh and their daughter Ella.

August:
One of my favorite months of this year. We went to Florida not once but twice! My family always goes the first week of the month then we went for Hannah and John's bachelor/bachelorette party!
My family trip is always so fun especailly this year because Brianna and Joe came along! And we had a blast on the bachelor/bachelorette trip! I could post so many photos from this month but I'll keep it short ;) I have a separate post from my family vacation with more photos, I also have a video from the trip up on my youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUEjWH8R3oE

September:
lol september was the least exciting of the year....no photos

October:
MY BESTFRIEND GOT MARRIED! Hannah and John had such an amazing wedding, so glad that I got to be apart of their special day. I also made a trip down to Missouri to spend a weekend with Ash :)

November:
This month was definitely exciting but more in words than photos. Austin and I really started house hunting this month and found a perfect house for us. We both wanted to be closer to work and closer to both of our families. We found a first house that we thought at the time we loved, it had a huge backyard and deck that would have been so much fun in the summertime, however the layout of the house was super weird and we knew that we were not going to be able to sell it very easily when the time came, so we kept looking. Then we found a house in a great neighborhood, less than a 10 minute drive to work for the both of us, a little closer to my family and still close to Austin's, and plenty of space for us :) so we decided to put in an offer.

December:
WE CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE AND MOVED IN!
We closed on the 14th of December and that afternoon started making it our own. Took out all of the flooring, repainted everything and got new carpet. It's starting to look so cute on the inside :) can't wait to share more photos of the inside of our home as things come together! I will also be creating some videos that will be posted on my YouTube channel!

I cannot wait to see what 2017 has in store for myself and for Austin and  I together. We're working so hard on our house and we are planning on traveling more this year! I am hopefully getting into nursing school for the fall. I also hope to post on my blog more frequently than I did last year.
I hope everyone has the best 2017!

Panama City Beach, FL 2016

Hi everyone! We have had a crazy month already between being in Florida twice in two weeks and me getting adjusted to my new job and getting ready for school to start that I am just now having time to finally get this post up!

I did something new with this trip though, I made a video blog (vlog) of the trip! I will link it below! I had so much fun making the video and will definitely be making more of them :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUEjWH8R3oE

Anyway, this year we stayed at the same condo as last year except this time we had 8 people instead of 6. My sister and her husband came along, my parents, Alec and his girlfriend Kati, and myself and Austin! It's the first trip in a long time that my sister came which was fun! 

We spent a lot more time relaxing on the beach this year and except one day we rented a pontoon boat to go out to Shell Island! We rented our boat from Aquatic Adventures ( http://www.pcbeachadventures.com/) we already plan on doing it again next year! We were able to anchor on the island, grill out, swim and snorkel!

Another day we also rented tubes again, as we did last year, to float down a near by river! We rented from the same place as last year and would recommend it to anyone! The man who brings your tubes and picks you up is so nice and friendly. Also leaving the link to their website, they have a bunch of different rental options!   http://www.chipolariveroutfitters.com/

Of course we went down to Pier Park a couple of times over the week to get ice cream and shop.

Lucky for us it only really rained one day and that still didn't stop us from enjoying the day!

Below I am going to insert some more pictures from our trip and a video tour of our condo! :)

Our condo, Aquavista!