Crock-Pot Apricot Chicken

I have a love/hate relationship with my crock-pot. Whenever I try to cook something on the high setting, it burns. When I try low, it's not fully cooked. I think it just hates me. Yesterday after grocery shopping, I decided to give my slow cooker another change and tried Apricot Chicken from Six Sister's Stuff. I found the recipe on Pinterest. I made a couple substitutions, so I'm not sure if it would taste the same as the original recipe. First off, instead of a packet of dry onion soup mix, I used a can of Cream of Celery soup. I substituted this because I thought I had a packet of the soup mix left over from a previous recipe that I've tried, but alas, I did not and since I had just gotten back home from grocery shopping, I refused to leave again. My second substitution isn't really a substitution at all...instead of chicken breasts, I used chicken tenders because again, I didn't have chicken breasts, but I have a huge Costco-sized back of chicken tenderloins. My third and final substitution again really isn't a substitution. It called for apricot preserves..I used apricot and pineapple because, again, that is what I had in stock from another previous recipe I've tried.

Substitutions/alterations aside, it was good! Had barely enough left over for my lunch today. I didn't put enough chicken in the pot because while they were frozen, I put as much as my crock-pot could fit, but shrunk down when they thawed/cooked. So there was WAY more sauce than chicken, but that's alright, I made mashed potatoes too so I used it as a gravy. Pretty much licked my plate clean. Hubs didn't complain about it either, so I chalk that up for the win category!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I did. (Anyone see the 58-0 shut out of the Cardinals from Seattle?! Crazy!!)

Dec. 8, 2012

Work has been extremely hectic lately with training for a new position and prepping for our HR files to be audited next month. I haven't been very diligent with my 5k training..I might have to put that on the back burner until after the holidays, I'm not sure yet.

Yesterday I took a much needed day off from work. Thank the Lord for PTO! Friend Jamie and I drove down to Woodburn Company Stores outside of Portland to do some tax-free Christmas shopping. I scored as usual at the Gap Outlet for gifts for my second cousins and hubs' nephew. We high-tailed it outta there to get back home in time for my work Christmas party. We had fun, and I was starving so the turkey and ham with all the fixin's hit the spot!

Today has been a very lazy day. I did some cleaning, but not as much as I should have. Paid a few bills, balanced the checkbooks, took the dogs for a few walks..the usual. Tomorrow will consist of more cleaning, laundry folding, more dog walks, and maybe a little shopping if there's time. Who am I kidding? The shopping with most likely happen first. Sundays are my grocery shopping days.

Happy December!

I love this time of year. Christmas is my fave!! I love the sights, sounds, smells, you name it. Since it is officially December, my goal for this weekend is to holiday-ify our townhouse. Last week I hung the stockings above the fireplace. Hubs was none too thrilled [He's a total Scrooge]. He will be putting up the Christmas tree this week on his next day off though. He said he was waiting until December 1st and when I asked him to do it yesterday because it was his day off, he said no because it wasn't December yet. Hmmph I say!

I mailed out our Christmas cards today. Yay! Very excited to get them off our buffet, they've been sitting there for a few weeks now.

I love the festive Forever Stamps!

We also received our first Christmas card in the mail yesterday, Jason's friend, April, who is also a new partner at Jay's dad's CPA firm. So happy for her! I need to figure out how I want to display cards this year. I think I'm going to hang some ribbon on our kitchen cabinets and just paper clip them on...or something of that nature..I'm not sure yet. I may need to peruse Pinterest for ideas.

Thanksgiving Weekend Update

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving with my in-laws. My sister-in-law got engaged a day or two before the holiday, so it was wedding talk extravaganza at the Favors household. Food was plenty, alcohol was flowing freely. (I may or may not have gotten sick from too much champagne..may or may not..)

Favors family tradition is the "In Bed" game with fortune cookies. This was mine. Boom.

Yesterday (Black Friday) consisted of heading over to the local mall so Hubs could go to Express (they were having a 50% everything in the store until noon). The mall was not busy at all, I was surprised. I normally do not, repeat DO NOT participate in Black Friday. I refuse to sit in the cold at 10pm waiting for stores to open up at midnight to get a good deal. I'd rather sleep in my warm bed! Hubs really wanted to go to the mall, so we decided to get in and get out with a mission. We went to two stores, Express and Nordstrom (only because we parked at Nordstrom). Hubs bought a new pair of pants and a sweater at Express. I got a new pair of pumps at Nordstrom. It wasn't that good of a deal, but I loved the fact that they were nude patent leather and not pointy. As I'm typing I am currently wearing them to break them in. I plan on getting a lot of use out of them with two work Christmas parties to attend this year, and two weddings in 2013 already lined up.

After getting out of the mall in under an hour (hallelujah!), we headed down to the Tacoma waterfront to grab seats at a local restaurant/bar to watch the highly anticipated Apple Cup. Washington State University vs. University of Washington football rivalry. What's not to enjoy?? I was the only person in our group rooting for WSU and one of the only Wazzu fans in the bar in general. It was so nice to see all the Husky fans let down :)

Much love,
B-

Relaxing Friday night

Work has been INSANE this week. My supervisor and a co-worker were both out, so I was covering for both of them. Needless to say...I'm pooped.

Did I also mention that I am on call this weekend? No? Well, I am. So I'm having a quiet night in drinking tea and getting my Christmas cards addressed. Early, yes, but it's better to be early than late in my opinion.

Have a great weekend, loves!


Much love -
B

November weekends

When it's a cold, blustery day you don't want to do anything other than lay under the covers in your comfortable bed and either watch movies or play on the internet. There are lot of things I should be doing, but am I? No, I am not. I'm on Costco's website picking our Jason and my's first Christmas card...due to the icky weather, it is proving to be more difficult that I originally had planned..

I've just told myself that I need to be more productive, so as soon as I order our Christmas cards, I will be starting to get dressed (still in my pj's at 3:42pm - so pathetic...) and ready to go to the Super Mall in Auburn for a fundraiser with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. If you don't know, the Super Mall is basically an indoor outlet mall. The stores I usually go to are Nordstrom Rack, The Loft Outlet, Banana Republic Outlet and Victoria's Secret. The fundraiser tonight is you give a $5 donation at the door and get every better discounts that you ususally do. There will also be music and such. I don't know much about it, but I heard more discounts and I invited myself to this shin dig.

1, 2, 3...here I go!

Much love,
B-