Monthly Meal Plans & Grocery Hauls Coming SOON

If you're a friend of the blog's on Facebook then you may have been asked to take a survey about what you'd like to see more of here on the blog. First of all I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone that took the survey.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. The number one thing that people said they wanted to see more of was food. Mainly - the monthly meal plans that I did once upon a time and the grocery hauls to go along with them.

So, here's how it will work. On the first of every month I'll post our menu for the month. It will either be broken down by the week or I'll post the entire menu calendar style. I'll also share my grocery list and shopping plan.

Once my shopping is done I'll share my haul on Youtube. Subscribe to my channel now so you never miss a haul or anything else that I may randomly put on my channel. :-)

I'm not sure if I'll do all of my shopping once for the entire month (because now I have more kids and I'm not sure if that's realistic), weekly or if I'll try a grocery delivery service (because those seem like they might be Bae).

Whatever I do I'll share it here and give you my best tips and tricks for feeding a family of five on a budget.

Stay tuned - April's menu will be up soon! Can you believe it's almost April already?! 2016 is not here for games....

The New Menu at Chuck E. Cheese

Last week my family had the opportunity taste the new Chuck E. Cheese menu created specifically for grown-up tastebuds. Before this tasting I was very familiar with the pizza and salad bar at Chuck E. Cheese.

As a kid I had many birthday parties there and now as a parent we go to Chuck E. Cheese a couple times a month for play time and lunch. I love going during the week when it's less crowded. If you've never been during the week I highly recommend it. It's a completely different experience than going on the weekends.

On our next visit I'll be ordering the new BBQ Chicken pizza. It was delicious. The crust was thin and crispy and the pizza was drizzled with the yummiest sauce. My husband and I both enjoyed the flavor of this pizza.


My husband's favorite from the new menu is the Italian Sandwich. We love a good sandwich. It's also a healthier option if you're not in the mood for pizza.

There were so many new sandwiches, wraps (the club wrap was pretty tasty!), wings (the order the sweet chili boneless - thank me later), breadsticks and pizza dogs were all really good.



Once you've had your lunch don't forget to try some of the new desserts. The new and improved cinnamon sticks were so good I could easily see myself enjoying those instead of birthday cake. A San Antonio favorite will definitely be the new Churros served with salted caramel and white chocolate icing. Yes. Yes. Yes.

If you're planning a trip to Chuck E. Cheese soon I encourage you to check out the new menu. When was the last time you took a trip to see Chuck and his friends? What are you excited to try from the new menu?

A Chic Thanksgiving: The Menu

I have been anxiously waiting for this week to come so that I could start my series on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. I do love what Christmas is about but because that is often lost with the "fuss" of Christmas, Thanksgiving has hands down become my favorite holiday.

I love the time of togetherness with my family. I love the way Thanksgiving smells and the way the air feels outside. Y'all already know I'm an Autumn girl and Thanksgiving is one of the main reasons why.  It's a great time for reflection and recognition of all of our blessings. It's also a time to enjoy some amazing food guilt free.

During this series I will be sharing four different posts. The first is about a traditional southern Thanksgiving menu. Right after I got married my Mother made me a Thanksgiving cookbook full of all of our family's recipes. It has everything from appetizers to desserts. She even wrote me a beautiful letter about life, love and marriage. I hope to pass the book down to Savannah with a letter for her when she gets married. 

As a young woman it was so helpful to have this menu. At the time, I wasn't the cook I am today. As an Army Wife, not living near family, I needed this book as a guide. It taught me how to pull off a very successful Thanksgiving dinner with no help. I actually get excited about Thanksgiving. It's like the Super Bowl for women who like to cook, it's a big deal. I find that part of my success comes with keeping it simple and traditional. 

So. If you're someone that doesn't live close to family but you still want to have a bomb Thanksgiving... OR you're someone that just needs a plan for how to do Thanksgiving dinner without getting all stressed, this series is for you.

Here is what we're making for Thanksgiving this year. It's very simple but it's PACKED with comforting flavors. You will love this easy to do meal. 

Coming Up in this series:

A Chic Thanksgiving: The Shopping List & The Grocery Store

A Chic Thanksgiving: Getting It All Done

A Chic Thanksgiving: Decorating and Hostess Tips

Dinner Idea: Crock Pot Gumbo

I didn't decide to make this into a post until after my house was already smelling like a little unknown New Orleans restaurant. Because of that, there are no during or after pics of the cooking process.

It's a good thing that cooking is a results oriented kind of thing. All you care about is how it tastes and possibly how it looks.

This was so easy and fast to make. My gumbo consisted of:

2lbs of boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 Celery Stalk, chopped
1 Onion, chopped
1 Green Bell Pepper, chopped
3 cloves of Garlic, chopped
1 pound Andouille Sausage, sliced
1 pound medium Shrimp, peeled & deveined

Start by lightly browning your chicken in a frying pan. Place it in the crock pot. Cover with chopped veggies and sausage. Cook on high for 4 hours (or low for 8 - I didn't have 8 hours to wait). Shred chicken. Add shrimp and continue cooking until shrimp is done.

For my roux I used:

1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons of Flour
1 28oz can of Diced Tomatoes
2 Cups of Swanson's Louisiana Cajun Broth
2 Tablespoons Creole Seasoning (or to taste)

Heat olive oil and cook flour until it turns brownish color. Add in broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Remove roux from heat and add seasoning. Poor over crock pot contents.



The finished product was so good. It was a bit spicier than what Savannah and Little Mike will eat so I did end up making them something else. Next time I'll use less creole seasoning, but if you don't mind the heat two tablespoons of creole seasoning will get a nice strong kick.
The steam from the bowl fogged up my lens. This is as clear a pic as I could get. It was sooo good! I ate two bowls and my husband said, "It was bangin'!".

Vegas Recap: Flirty 30 Day One

We arrived at the Bellagio after taking a shuttle from the airport. The shuttle was $13 roundtrip per person. Not too bad. The driver was friendly and we didn't have to make many stops. It was actually nice getting to see some of the other properties before being dropped off. 

Once we were at our hotel someone took our luggage and invited us inside. It was beautiful. Just like in the movies and online. 

I thought this silver horse was gorgeous. It's the year of the horse and that seemed to be the theme in just about every property we visited. No one did it like the Bellagio though. Stunning. 

Here is a pic of the famous ceiling. It was even more captivating in person...

And a view of the front desk...

Overall I think the Bellagio made a good first impression. After we got into our room we went down to Café Bellagio to have lunch. It was good. The service was nice. I ordered the Greek Salad with shrimp and was a little disappointed. I think there were maybe three shrimp in my salad. I was not wowed by my lunch at all and left wanting something else to eat. Y'all know I'm a salad girl. While I left no longer feeling hungry I certainly wasn't happy about my meal. Luckily, all of my meals after that made up for it.

Here is a little vlog I did while there. It's random clips from our first day. Enjoy...

I'm not a fashion blogger but I did my best to document all of my outfits. I tried to remember to get pics of them all. Here is what I wore for travel. I was suppose to change my clothes once we got there but I never did. I ended up really liking this laid back look...

My cute little blue dress for dinner that night…

And a close up of our food at dinner. We ate at Noodle in the Bellagio. It was banging. It's a tiny little restaurant so we had to wait some time for a table. It was worth it though. I got the Pho. I can't remember what my husband got but it was good. We shared a chicken dish that was amazing. Great customer service. 

I hope you're enjoying my recap so far! Stay tuned for Day Two...

Quick Dinner Idea: Sofrito Shrimp Tacos

This is one of those dinner ideas that you accidentally stumble upon because you're tired of eating all of your normal meals. You're in the grocery store and you just grab things that you've heard people say a lot on the Food Newtork…Am I the only one that's done that? Maybe so.

This is a less than 30 minute (cook time) dinner. It is so good. When I say good I mean it's so good that there weren't any leftovers. Maybe we were hungry or greedy but it was banging.

So the first thing you'll want to do is season your shrimp with this...

This is the main ingredient for this Sofrito super fast tacos. I get the Goya brand. Cause you know, if it's Goya...


I use about 4 heaping teaspoons for a pound and a half of shrimp. You want it to look like this. Covered and smothered. Pop that in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes.


I then chopped my veggies.


And sautéed them with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper...


These are the tortillas we use. They are so good and good for you...


Here they are on my plate. (don't judge me. i needed all three of these.)


And folded up ready to meet their fate. Yum!! So easy and so fast. I topped them with some of my homemade salsa. That recipe is here...

Will you be making these? They are so good and so fast and easy to make. I can't say that enough, LOL! They are a little spicy if you add the salsa so keep that in mind when you plate for the little ones.

Kitchenista: Cornish Hens

If you follow me on FB you know that our internet is messing up again. I really don't get it but I do know that Time Warner Cable makes me sick. Ugh. All I want for Christmas is an Internet connection that doesn't go down every other month.

I'm doing this post from my cell so I apologize if it's a weird layout. I wanted to share a quick tasty dinner idea with you all. Tonight I made Cornish hens for dinner and they were amazing.

All you have to do is make the stuffing according to the box. Drizzle some olive oil on your birds. Sprinkle your hens with salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme. Stuff your birds. Put a little scoop of butter on the breast before you place it in the oven.




Cover with a lid or foil and bake on 350 for an hour. Remove the lid/foil the last twenty minutes for browning.



This was so good. The hens were so moist and full of flavor. We are before I remembered to snap a pic of the finished product. These little birds are inexpensive and they take an ordinary chicken dinner to the next level. Will you be trying this?

A Chic Thanksgiving: The Recap

Well. Well. Well. It is Monday night and I honestly don't think I have fully recovered from Thanksgiving. Talk about tired. Girl, I am tie-yurd. I had a great time cooking dinner and hosting Thanksgiving this year. We even had our guests over again to eat leftovers. Here are pics of some of my dishes. 

sweet potato pie with streusel topping

squash casserole 

turkey stuffed with lemon, garlic and onion. marinated over night. it was delicious.

cornbread stuffing

mac n cheese

sweet potatoes. ran out of time to do the casserole.

fried corn

chewy cake

green beans

Sav after dinner…

Sorry I didn't get pics of the banana pudding or potato salad. It was all so yummy and we had a great dinner. How was your Thanksgiving?

Dinner Idea: One Arm Chicken

Sunday I made the famous crockpot chicken tacos that are floating around Pinterest right now. I only used half of the chicken breasts from my pack for the tacos and needed to use the other half. I normally don't have luck with chicken breast. I asked my twitter friends to tweet me some of their favorite chicken breast recipes and I was very happy with the suggestions. 

I got a tweet from Walmart. (yes that Walmart) They suggested that I check out their chicken dinner Pinterest board. (I didn't event know they were on Pinterest.) There were a lot of good recipes on their board. I found a picture of a meal that looked pretty good and easy enough for me to whip up. I couldn't find the actual recipe to accompany the photo so I tried my best to replicate what I saw. Here it is. My "One Arm Chicken". I will explain how I named this dish after the recipe.

Season both sides of your chicken breasts with this...

Heat your frying pan/skillet and pour in some olive oil and a scoop of butter...

Also pour in a little white cooking wine and some minced garlic (not pictured)

Once your butter is melted a good bit add your chicken to the pan...

Cook until done... Flip the chicken to brown it on both sides...

Once the chicken is done remove it from the pan...

Pour a little of the white cooking wine in your pan to loosen up any of the chicken bits and flavor...

For the sauce: Add some minced garlic (to taste) and dried basil (i sprinkle in A LOT) to your pan. Pour in a cup of cream. Drain a can of diced tomatoes (you can always use fresh) and add that as well. Cook this on low for a few minutes. Drain the mushrooms. Add them to the pan...

Once your sauce thickens a bit. Add the chicken back to the pan and cover it. Cook on low for about 15 minutes...

It should look like this once it is done... (I know it looks a lot like the first pic but you should see a difference.)

This is my husband's plate...

The potatoes were roasted in the oven and the broccoli was steamed... This chicken was AMAZING!

And I called this recipe "One Arm Chicken" because I cooked it with one arm, haha! I know this may not be the healthiest meal with all the cream but every now and then I have to cheat. I don't normally use canned mushrooms but they were a great alternative. It would have been really hard to chop mushrooms holding a baby. Normally I'm able to put the baby in one of my wraps or carriers when he's fussy but today he wanted the real thing. 

Oh. And not to be out done Savannah drew an entire picture on the counter tops. Thank goodness for anti-bacterial wipes. They clean everything.

Will you be trying this recipe? What are some of your favorite chicken breast meals?