Two EASY recipes for a new wife!

Hi everybody!!! I am so excited to do my FIRST post about cooking! These are two different recipes (one is from a box!) and I am also happy to share where I got them! I will also share what I like to cook with them (side dishes). These are things that have been a success for Paul and me.

Being a new wife, I had never really cooked before. Spaghetti was really as far as my experience went. I had made cookies and whoopie pies successfully (with lots of compliments!), but cooking actual meals is new to me. I had never really cooked for anyone other than myself, and that meant a lot of frozen pizzas and grilled cheese sandwiches. But I realized upon getting engaged that there was no way I could get away with feeding my new husband grilled cheese and bagel bites...

So, my wonderful mother and mother-in-law both sent me some recipes to try! One that Paul really likes is my Mom's "Coca Cola Chicken." She told me how easy it was and PROMISED that Paul would love it!

Sorry the picture isn't the greatest. But you can see the chicken, spinach and strawberry salad, and Paul's favorite food...mac and cheese.

So here is what you need for Coca Cola Chicken:

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (I usually make 2)
• 1 Cup Coca Cola
• 1 Cup BBQ Sauce (We like Sweet Baby Ray's)
• 1 tsp salt

*I use one cup of sauce and cola because Paul likes a LOT of sauce on his. For 4 chicken breasts, I would also use one cup for a REGULAR amount of sauce, and of course you can add more as you like! Just be sure to make it equal amounts of each.

1. Place chicken in a 9x13 dish sprayed with Pam (this is for 4. For 2, use a smaller dish OR make a square out of tin foil that is HALF the size of the pan.) This is easy to do if you don't have a small pan!
2. Mix together cola and BBQ sauce in a bowl, and add salt. The consistency is pretty thin once the coke is stirred in. Make sure it is stirred well. You shouldn't see any clumps of BBQ sauce.
3. Pour over chicken in pan.
4. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees until chicken is tender and cooked through. This is about 30 minutes.
5. Every ten minutes, I like to take it out and spoon the sauce over the chicken breasts, but you can skip this step if you like!

And...voila! You are done! 

Side dishes we like:

Spinach and Strawberry Salad: (Mixed greens, chopped strawberries, cheddar cheese, almonds, raspberry vinaigrette dressing) 

Macaroni and Cheese (for Paul!)

Cream Corn and Biscuits: (Don't knock it til you try it!) We bake Grands Southern Style Biscuits, make some cream corn (from a can!), cut the biscuits in half, and spoon cream corn on top. Seriously....try it.

MY FAVORITE SIDE DISH: Wash 1 to 2 potatoes, slice them VERY thin, place on a baking sheet sprayed well with Pam, cover potatoes with olive oil, and sprinkle cayenne pepper and black pepper. Bake at 350 for as long as you like! I LOVE them spicy, so I use a lot of cayenne. I think it would also be great sprinkled with parmesan cheese!

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Recipe #2

"Homemade" Bread

I was grocery shopping at the commissary the other day, and I was starving. They say not to grocery shop when you are hungry, and this is correct. BUT, if I had not been so hungry I may not have bought  my new favorite thing to bake! 

Paul and I are about to go on a trip, so we didn't want to buy a whole loaf of bread. But we needed bread...which leads me to ask: why has no one thought to sell bread in "Half Loaves??" Just a thought. ANYWAY, I was on the baking aisle looking for a dessert to make for company who was supposed to come over. I didn't end up buying a dessert. Instead I found homemade bread mixes! We don't have a breadmaker. Probably never will....but this only called for an oven! I am a bread junkie, and I always have been. I could live on bread even though I know it is not good for me. So I HAD to try this mix!

I believe it was around 1.50 at the commissary. It was definitely less than 2 dollars! It is Fleischmann's Simply Homemade bread mix. 

I bought the mix in country white. Seriously....this is the easiest thing I have ever baked. All you need is included, except for tap water and a tsp of flour! Here is the VERY easy process:

 Here is my finished product. It doesn't look like the picture on the box....duh. Does it ever?

1. Mix the yeast packet and sugar packet with one cup of very warm tap water. Stir together until it is well blended, and then let it sit for 2 minutes. It is ready when it starts to bubble a little bit.
2. Add the dough packet. Stir until it becomes a ball. Mine was a little sticky! I think my water may have been too hot. But a very simple fix: add flour! I used a spoonful. 
3. Next it says to place the dough in a warm area, draft free. So I placed a large mixing bowl over the dough and sat it in the corner of my kitchen. Let it sit for 25 minutes. During this time, the dough rises. It doesn't do anything major, like double in size, but it does rise.
4. Shape the dough to either make it look like a typical bread loaf, or a circle. I did the circle, because I knew I would fail at making a pretty loaf! The recipe suggests making a couple of cuts into the top of the bread. 
5. Place onto a cooking sheet (I sprayed Pam on mine) and bake for about 20-25 minutes. The bread should be a golden brown on the outside and bottom. 

This bread was a success! It tastes DELICIOUS, like it spent hours in a bread maker. The only mistake I made was not baking it for the full time suggested. Our oven gets a little too hot, so I cut a couple of minutes off the baking time. It still tastes great, but it is a little softer than I would like. It is still great though! And it is smaller than a loaf bought in the store, so none will go to waste before we go out of town! It is delicious alone with butter, but I also like to eat it with soup. I toasted a piece of it and used it instead of croutons!

I know these aren't fancy things to make, but they have turned out great at our house! I hope you enjoyed reading!