Miscellaneous

I have tired brain this morning from waking up an hour earlier for my new work schedule, who would think that an hour would make such a difference?
On Friday I made up my own recipe just because I was too lazy to actually look up a recipe. It turned out so yummy even if it was a little messy to make.

Ingredients to Nikki's Wonderful Chicken
Chicken breasts
1 cup of Ranch dressing (I used peppercorn ranch so I didn't add more seasonings, you might need to if you use just regular ranch)
4 oz of sour cream
2 - 3 strips of cooked bacon - pulverized (I used my magic bullet, yes I have one of those, don't judge!)
1 - 2 cups of bread crumbs
1/2 cup cheddar cheese

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 350.
Mix ranch and sour cream together. Coat chicken liberally with ranch mixture and then press on bacon. Then coat chicken with bread crumbs.
For a crunchy top add some of the cheese now.
Bake for 40 minutes, take out to top with cheese. Bake for another 5 - 10 minutes.

In other, not food related, news. I went to a laundromat for the first time last week. If that makes me a little snobbish...well I guess there's no preventing that.
A couple weeks ago Winston came running in from the backyard with ubber muddy paws, ran down the hallway and jumped onto my freshly made bed.

Imagine those muddy prints in the picture above all over my new comforter. It was awful. Another awful thing is that the comforter is too big for my front load washing machine. I laid it out in the craft room until I had time and remembered to take it to the laundromat.

I finally remembered to go last week and I made John come with me, well, because it's a laundromat!

At first I felt very out of place and scared (sad I know), but after we plugged in my ear phones and started watching some Netflix I decided that laundromats are awesome! The soothing sounds and smells of laundry in the background, eating candy we bought from the gas station next door, watching TV shows on a little screen, how fun! I wanted another reason to come back, but I'm sure it would get old fast since I hate putting away laundry and usually just leave it in the dryer until it's time to do laundry again...can't really do that at a laundromat.

With a face like that though, I wasn't too mad about the mud. I just close the bedroom door before letting him inside now.

American As Apple Pie

John usually gets a roast from work around Christmas time, but the last two years it has just sat in my freezer. It's too big for just two people, in fact it's too big for 5 people, and it arrives frozen so I cant cut it into smaller pieces.
I asked him this year if he could just get a box of fruit instead not thinking that they'd send him home with 40 apples.
Well the apples aren't as fresh as they were a few weeks ago so I'm trying to use them up quickly before they spoil, last night I made apple crunch pie. It was so good, especially with vanilla ice cream.

Apple Crunch Pie

Ingredients

• 1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust (or be lazy like me and use graham cracker crust)
• 1cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter
• 5 apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced (you may or may not have left over apples depending on the apple size)
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 Tbs flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions


1.Place rack in lowest position in oven. Heat oven to 450 degrees.

2.To Make Topping: Mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon; cut in butter or margarine until mixture is moist and crumbly, and clumps together easily.

3.To Make Filling: In another bowl, toss cut up apples, white sugar, lemon juice, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg. Sprinkle in flour, and stir until apples are evenly coated.

4.Layer apple slices in pie shell. You will have a lot of apples, but they will shrink. Layer them higher in the middle. Pour left over juice from apple mixture over apples. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples to make a top crust.

5.Place pie on cookie sheet in oven to catch juice droppings. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes to one hour; bake until center of pie has no resistance. If top starts to get too dark, cover with piece of foil. Cool on wire rack before serving.

Now I'm on the hunt for more apple centered recipes, I need these apples gone!

I wasn't all lazy this weekend

This weekend I took a break from my TV and movie watching to install a switch I bought months ago. John had quiet a list of things to get done around the house before we left for Cancun and he just never had time to put in the switch.
Since I'm an electrical pro I figured it was a task I could handle. It was a breeze to install and I had it programed in no time.

  It's a switch to have the porch light turn on and off on a set schedule. I'm very picky about wanting the light on all night and I like them turned on the minute it starts getting dark, but I'm not always home to do that, now I won't have to worry. I bought the switch off Amazon since no home improvement store in the valley had anything like it. It's wasn't cheap either, but very worth it in my opinion.
Lets just hope that it turns on tonight when it's suppose to.

I also bought a very tall plant this weekend and now I'm thinking, "this is a very tall plant!" It's suppose to go under that new light switch, but it's too tall for the space. I'll either have to find it a new home or return it for a shorter plant.

Before we left for Cancun John installed a new faucet for the downstairs bathroom. The old one leaked terribly and I didn't want Jonessa and Derek to have to deal with it. The installation really kicked John's butt and the faucet that got installed isn't the one originally bought. The first one came from Wal-mart, but once John got in put in place he realized that it was a used fixture and the hot water leaked. He had to take it out and put in a new one. After many hours of fighting with taking it out and getting the new one (one bought from Lowe's this time) he told me that I'm not allowed to buy any new plumbing fixtures for at least 6 months.

I wish I could say that the downstairs bath is now finished, but water is leaking under the tiles in the shower and leaving it smelling really damp and probably giving us a terrible mold problem. We'll have to take out the old tile and re-tile soon.