Chicken Enchiladas

Last night I made Chicken Enchiladas for dinner. I did this especially for my dear husband because I'm not a big fan of Mexican food. I can eat some stuff but I don't like that classic Mexican flavor. The cumin, chili powder, the flavor of taco meat. Yuck, it's not my favorite.

So I put aside my own feelings aside to make something that my husband would enjoy!! And guess what? I liked them!! They were pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I think part of it had to do with the little bit of cinnamon that was in it. Jon was impressed that it was all homemade. He had never had them homemade and not from a packet before. I've never had them before at all so I didn't really know the difference.

It was really easy though! A super super simple dish! I couldn't understand why you wouldn't do them homemade! They were really really good! I totally suggest you try this one.

I didn't take any pictures of this one.
I rate this recipe 4 1/2 stars. I found it on foodnetwork.com. It was a recipe from Racheal Ray, so it is probably on her website too.

Chicken, Salmon, and Pouches

Okay, so I need to catch up on the food that I've been making!!

Last week I made Chicken Cutlets with Orange and Arugula!! I really liked a lot of things about this dish!! I LOVED the mixture of the bread crumbs that you cover the chicken with, SO tasty, it called for orange zest to be put into it!!!!! I have a weakness for citrus zest, I really do. I love making chicken cutlets! It's something that I never did until I got back from Italy where I had some at a members home! To make cutlets you pound down the chicken until it's very thin, however, we don't have a meat tenderizer which really would have made things so much easier. I ended up using a hammer...not the best idea I've ever had, and the chicken didn't get thin enough so it took longer to cook and in turn the crust was a little overdone. It still tasted pretty good though. Anyway, after the chicken is pounded down you dredge it in flour, then in eggs, then in your bread crumb mixture! And it was really yummy! It was paired with an Arugula salad with oranges, SO tasty!! I would suggest adding some other kind of lettuce with the salad though, arugula alone was a little strong.

I would give this recipe 4 stars!! I found it on foodnetwork.com.

A few days ago I made Teriyaki Salmon Strips. It was a SUPER super simple dish!! It didn't take very long and there were very few ingredients. It turned out really well. Salmon is one of my favorite types of fish and I'm not a big fan of cooked fish, raw is a whole different story, but cooked... not the biggest fan. It was really good though. A little hard to cook well because you are supposed to cook it on bamboo skewers, so don't try to cook in a big skillet like I did. It would definitely be easier with a grill or George Foreman grill or something like that! :)

I didn't take any pictures of this one. I would rate this recipe 3 stars. I found it on
foodnetwork.com.




This afternoon Jon and I made pouches of tilapia for lunch!! We found this idea last night while we were watching Good Eats. Gosh I love that show!! Alton showed a table of all the different ideas to make these and so we made up our own recipe with that! We had tilapia with broccoli, onion, and arugula. Topped with lime slices, oregano, salt, pepper, rice vinegar, and chicken stock. You wrap that all up in parchment paper and stick in the oven for 15 minutes on 425 degrees and voila, you're done! We made rice to put on the side and it was great!!! It tasted so good and it was fun, fast, and super easy!! We will definitely be doing this again!!

I rate this recipe 4 1/2 stars!!



So there we go! All caught up!! :)

Ginger-Garlic Pork with Sizzling Rice

One more recipe down!! It's so nice to be going through my project again! So much fun!

Tonight I made Ginger-Garlic Pork with Sizzling Rice. It was a a little hard and definitely a bit more time consuming than I expected but it was really tasty!! The rice was cooked and rolled into balls or patties and then fried and the pork was dredged with flavorful flour and fried as well. There were a few things I would change about it. The rice was too crispy and hard to eat, I would have done something like roll it in a batter or something before frying it. The crust of the pork fell off while I was cooking it and I think it was because the recipe didn't tell me to dip it in eggs before dipping in flour, I think that would have worked better.

The gravy was absolutely amazing! It took a long time but not a lot of effort and it tasted so yummy! All in all it was a successful dish and Jon and Ben really liked it too!

I would give this recipe 3 and half stars!! I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com!

Orange-Balsamic Chicken with Lemon-Butter Green Beans

I am SO happy to be in my own home and cooking again!! That also means I get to start working on my project again!!!

Tonight I made Orange-Balsamic Glazed Chicken and Lemon-Butter Green Beans with Pine Nuts!

I love cooking so much and these were really fun recipes!! They weren't to hard either, which is always good. Great food with little effort is definitely awesome!! And let me tell you, it was GREAT food!! The chicken was wonderful and the green beans were very tasty!!

The hardest part was cutting the onions and then cooking the balsamic vinegar. They both stung my eyes but the end result was totally worth it! Both Jon and his brother Ben really enjoyed it! Even Ben, who refuses to eat veggies, tried the green beans. He didn't eat most of them but did say they were better than regular green beans so I'm proud of that!

I love the feeling of people enjoying the food I cook! It's such a good, happy feeling!!!

Both of the recipes had a little something that added to the meal in such a cool way. The chicken recipe said to top the chicken with baby arugula and when you ate them together it just added a new dimension to the flavor that made it even better, though it was still super awesome just by itself! The green beans had a similar effect with the added pine nuts, biting into a green bean and a pine nut at the same time was so great! It's fun to experience things like that, the finishing touch that really adds to it! It reminds me of the movie 'Ratatouille' when Remy eats the strawberry and the cheese together!

Both of these recipes can be found on foodnetwork.com and I absolutely suggest that you try them.

I give the chicken FIVE stars and the green beans FOUR stars!! Enjoy!!

Living The Dream

Last week Jon and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee!!!! We'll be spending the summer here while Jon sells security systems with Pinnacle Security! We are super excited for this summer for so many reasons!!! Jon is a manager this summer and has recruited a lot of guys. I'm so proud of him for working so hard!! He's already got 2 sales too, which is freaking awesome!!!

We have so many awesome people who will be coming back to join us and I am so excited for them to get out here!! Most will be here in about 2 weeks or so. We are going to have so much fun and I'm going to have a blast with the wives! It's going to be so great!! This summer is going to rock and I am so so so excited!!!


We have a lot of stuff with us this summer. We usually just pack up what we'll need for the summer but this year we took out everything we own!! We decided to do it this way because right after the summer we'll be heading to Michigan so Jon can start medical school and instead of going all the way back to Utah to get our stuff we decided it would easier to just take everything out. It's a tight fit but we did get everything in our apartment and it's been so much fun to have all of our stuff with us! It took us almost a whole week but we finally got everything unpacked!

My job is going well and, for the most part, I really enjoy it. It's nice to be able to do the work on my own schedule and I think I finally have figured out all of the little details.


Jon got sick again. He's pretty much got sick once a month for the past 3 months which is really weird since he really doesn't sick that often. We did realize that every time he gets sick it is right after a big move. Poor guy, I feel so bad for him. He really really hates being sick. I mean, no one likes being sick but it's really hard for him. Both of the sales he got were while he was sick though, so I'm super proud of him. He's so amazing!!

So life is great and I couldn't be happier!!

My Husband Rocks Friday

Okay, so I know it has been a long time since my last post and it is definitely not like me to do that, but things have been crazy busy in our life lately so at least I have an excuse!

I have also missed the last 2 Fridays to post about my darling husband and being Friday again I think it's time to honor him again!!


This week, and the past few weeks, my husband rocks because he is so much fun and adventurous!! Unlike most of the people that I know right now, Jon is not yet ready to start our family and after a long talk about life in general I realized how grateful I am to have someone like my husband! I'm only 21 after all and it was only after my husband, not anyone else, pointed it out to me that I realized that a big reason I want a baby right now is because everyone I know is having babies and that I feel it's the next big step in our lives. It's not the only reason, I want a baby for many more reasons, but I did agree that I am really okay with waiting. Once we made this decision it was almost like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, a weight that I didn't know was there. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not all of a sudden against having kids early or anything like that and I do still want to start our family very much, I just decided that I'm okay with waiting.


One of the biggest reasons that Jon wants to wait is to be able to really enjoy being young! He often listens to people as they explain that the earlier you have your kids the earlier you can enjoy time alone once they're gone and he really wants to enjoy that time alone while we are still young and have the energy to do all the things we want too. I think that makes total sense and we have decided to really just spend some time together enjoying our youth while we still have it.


A few weeks ago we took a business/pleasure trip together. We drove down to Arizona to take care of some of Jon's recruits for Pinnacle (I am so excited for them to be with us this summer, they are really great!) and once we were done there we drove up to Vegas to spend a night there!! We got a suite in a brand new 5 star hotel right on the strip called Aria!! We even got it for free for spending 10 nights in hotels on our Italy trip!! It was the most amazing hotel I have ever been in! I want to live there! It was so nice!! We spent the night on the strip. We went to see the Bellagio fountain show, ate sushi for dinner, and just wandered around!! It was so great!! We had a ton of fun! The next day I flew home and Jon's best friend Josh flew to Vegas so they could have their bachelor party!! It sounds like they really had an awesome time and I am so happy for them!


It felt really awesome to just go out so spontaneously and do something so crazy and fun!! I decided that I really do kind of like Vegas and I'm looking forward to being fun, crazy, and young with my husband! He makes my life so exciting!! Gosh I love him!!!

Catching Up

Wow, it has been forever since I last posted, at least compared to how often I post, maybe not compared to other people... Haha!!

A lot of stuff has happened this week! On Sunday the 21st we drove up to Pagosa Springs, CO to visit some good friends and for Jon to meet with a few of his recruits. It was snowing on the way up and for the last 2 hours or so of the drive we drove through snow that was worse than any storm we have ever driven in before. It was scary but we made it in one piece. We stayed there for a few days and did a bunch of things. Jon went skiing, I was too scared to go, and he had a lot of fun! We went to the hot springs on night with ROCKED!! It was so fun and it reminded me of the games we played as kids as we hoped from pool to pool over the icy sidewalk!! I spent a lot of time with the Johnsons, who are good friends that I have known practically since birth! It was so nice to see them and it brought back a lot of good memories. I also got to take a few pictures of their daughter and her boyfriend! It was a lot of fun!


On Wednesday morning we drove down to Mesa, AZ to meet with another potential recruit for Pinnacle and we got him signed up before we left only a few hours after being there. My family lived in Mesa for about a year and it was such a flashback of good memories to see it again. I really love Arizona!! That night we drive part of the way home and stopped at a hotel in Flagstaff before finishing the drive back to Utah. We drove straight to the airport where Jon got on a plane to Nashville, TN where we will be spending the summer.


While there he was able to find our apartments for the summer with 2 of the other managers, as well as check out the area and have fun with the guys. While he was gone I got my first assignment for my new job!!! I was so excited! It's due on March 9th, which is such a good thing since the file is 40 minutes long! Yikes! But the quality is really good so it's not too bad. I hope to finish it tomorrow, and definitely no later than Thursday! I had a little freak out moment yesterday because I couldn't get my footpedal to work, but with the help of my father-in-law, I was able to use it today. Thank goodness!!


When Jon got home on Sunday night we went for a drive and talked about a lot of things, we have been having a hard time lately and it was a really good thing to get it all out and now we are happier than ever and super excited to head out to Nashville!!

So things have been going well and I am super happy and excited for the future.



P.S. I LOVE YOU ROCHELE!!!