One dish meal: Roasted Chicken, Carrots and Potatoes

In my quest to find meals that my family will eat, I discovered a meal by accident. I am a huge fan of one-dish meals, because quite frankly, who likes to do the dishes? So, one night, I was trying to make a chicken dish (I honestly forgot the name of it), and I didn't have the white wine that the recipe called for. So, I decided to just wing it. Usually, this turns out badly, but it didn't this time.

I honestly eye-ball this recipe, but I am going to try to give measurements.

3-4 boneless chicken breasts
4 red potatoes, diced
1lb baby carrots
1/4 cup olive oil
1-tsp Tumeric
1-tsp ground thyme
1-tsp garlic powder
1-tsp onion power
1-tsp poultry seasoning
1-tsp seasoned salt
salt and pepper to taste

-Preheat your own to 400 degrees.
Dice up your potatoes and set them aside. - In a small bowl, combine the olive oil and all the seasonings and spices and mix them well. Season your chicken with salt and pepper on both sides. Place the potatoes and carrots in a 9x13 baking pan/dish (I line mine with tin foil for easy clean up). Put the chicken on top of the veggies, and pour the seasoned mix over the veggies and over the top of the chicken coating evenly. I use a rubber spatula and mix the veggies in with the oil mix really good and make sure it is all coated well. I then season with salt over the top, then put it in the oven for about 35 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and the veggies are tender.

My husband and kids really like this meal and so do I. We usually have it once a week.

A Recipe

I am not a cook.Very truly, I am not. My kids are beyond picky, my husband is not a big fan of my cooking...so we stay in a slight rut of the same foods every week. Our menu usually consists of a makeshift tomato "sauce" and pasta, maybe spaghetti...flank steak, tacos...yea. It's boring. So, I ventured out into a recipe my husband found on WholeFoods.com,so I thought I'd share my experience with it.

Honey Glazed Pepper Crusted Roast

Honey-Glazed Black Pepper Roast Beef

The roast after it was seasoned with salt and pepper

The ingredients. Balsamic vinegar, pepper, coarse salt, and honey

 Serves 6 to 8

Enjoy this sweet and peppery beef with baked sweet potatoes or roasted broccoli. Leftover beef makes great roast beef sandwiches.

Ingredients

2 tbsp	coarsley ground black pepper
1 tbsp	coarse sea salt
1 (4 lb)	beef top round roast
6 tbsp	honey
3 tbsp	balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp	expeller-pressed canola oil

 Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Rub beef all over with pepper and salt and place on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast beef, undisturbed, for an hour.

Meanwhile, whisk together honey, vinegar, and oil in a medium bowl. After 45 minutes of roasting, brush beef all over with honey mixture. Continue to cook 15 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Roast 10 to 30 minutes more, until roast has reached desired degree of doneness, brushing it every 15 minutes with glaze. Note that the meat will continue cooking while it rests after being removed from the oven and the temperature will rise another 5 or 10 degrees. Let meat rest 15 minutes before slicing thinly. Serve with pan juices drizzled over the top.

It was pretty yummy!

**I followed the recipe exactly. The downfall, I am not sure if my oven is the culprit (sometimes it is), or what, but the meat came out over cooked. The flavor was really good, and I made smashed potatoes and green beans with it. Next time, I will cook it at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

Halloween Part Deux

Halloween 2013 was a wet, windy evening that caused our city to decide to hold off on any festivities. So this evening, Brian and I decided to take L and A to Middletown, with another couple and a friend of ours and their kids. How fun it was! Now, there weren't a ton of houses giving away candy, but seeing my two year old run with his big brother and the other kids was just gave me joy. A is on the autism spectrum, and he managed to see his Spiderman mask on for a good chunk of the evening {which is a huge accomplishment!!} Having that time together with my family and friends was just awesome.

The next eight weeks will be interesting to see how they work out. I ended up in four classes for this term, and two are quite extensive {math and biology...gulp!}. I am also taking on babysitting my youngest nephew, Dalton whom will be eight weeks old, as well as my other nephew who is 14 months. I am tellin' ya, I don't know what I was thinking. :) It's gonna be crazy in the Williams household.

Still working my Thirty-One business, and loving it. It's starting out slowly, but if you love something, you can share it with others and God led me there so I trust His plans are going to be good for me. My long term goal is to become a Director with Thirty One.

So, I am going to link my Blog on Thirty One to this one, and you guys can keep up with all the awesome offers that Thirty One has to offer,

A New Opportunity

Life has been good and busy. My husband, our sons, school, Aidan's OT...it's all been a balancing act. The best part? I mentioned before that I felt led to join Thirty-One Gifts. Well, I made the leap on Friday, and received my kit today. To say that I am excited is an understatement. There are things that our family needs {like a second vehicle, extra income so we can save up for a house, paying off school loans...etc} and I want to help my husband in providing income.

I am giving this whole movement to God, because I can't do this without Him. I am not a saleswoman, am painfully shy until I get to know people and I am not pushy...so I am very much out of my element and out of my comfort zone. I want to live for Him, and I feel like I am being called into the Thirty-One Ministry.

So, if you don't have a Thirty-One Gifts consultant and are interested in their products here.

You can host an online party and earn free/half priced products, or even become a Thirty-One Consultant yourself. The rewards are great, and the incentives are awesome!

Emotional overload

I will forewarn you, my scarce amount of readers, that I am an emotional wreck. Why? I honestly have no clue. Life has been difficult lately {isn't it always?}, but the prospective that I have taken from two different situations and put them together has seriously just blown my mind. Hormonal imbalance probably plays into it as well, but oh well.

I am a Christian. You probably know that. I do not hide it. I am not the best at living the way my God has intended for me, but God help me, I am trying. I have discussed in a previous post, that my friend Three nearly lost her life due to pregnancy complications. She ran our city, and two surrounding cities OUT of blood. The beautiful thing about this is, she LIVED. God's healing hand was on her the entire time. He was in control. That just blows my mind, fills me with joy...I don't even know what else to say about it.

So, these past 3-4 weeks, a guy whom I have known for at least 15 years, has been going through some serious pain himself. I won't name names, or explain the situation for his privacy...but I will say this. I have encouraged him to read the Bible, the book of John to be exact and prayed for him. What never dawned on me, is that he has never heard the Gospel. He knows Jesus died for him on a cross, but that's it. I totally missed the point here, and now I am trying to figure out if I truly get it.

My heavenly Father loves me. He loves US. He wants US. He holds our lives, our world, in His mighty hands. HE is in control...and He wants whats best for us..Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, "11For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." 
Why are we walking away from Him? Why do we question His authority and try so desperately to do something on our own, only to fail? 

To be continued...

Late Birthday Pictures

I had every intention of posting the boy's birthday pictures. I did. But then, I saw how they came out and I was not impressed. So, instead of posting pictures of children with frosting all over their faces, I did a simple and quick photo shoot in our backyard. Aidan does not like his picture taken, so I am amazed these came out as well as they did. Liam, well, I had no worries. He is such a ham. So, here they are. My boys, at ages 8 and 2.

Close call..

What a week this has been! Making some major decisions, and saying "YES!" to God, and dealing with the near loss of my best friend. Aye...my brain is frozen.

So, we'll start from the beginning. My friend Three and I have known each other for years. We had about 3 years of no communication, but we came back around and are happy again. I reached out to her right after she'd found out she was expecting her 2nd child. Yay! I was excited for her. We met at Steak and Shake...and we talked for about 3 hours. We don't quite text on a daily basis, but I always checked in on her, and vise versa. Well, I knew this pregnancy was going to be complicated, but to hear how complicated it got is insane. Three was admitted into the hospital for placenta previa. She was hospitalized for a month. They had the intention of delivering baby Ella on August 5th, so she'd be 32 weeks. God had other plans.

Three's uterus ruptured and an emergency c-section was done along with a hysterectomy. Baby Ella was born, and was very strong. Three, well...she bled. A lot. In fact, she bled so much that they ran out of blood {they only used 58 units..only}. The doctors could have let her go, and but they kept trying. Three kept fighting. She was placed on a vent in CCU. I have never, in my life, prayed as hard as I did in those 24 hours. I am thankful for Facebook because had it not been for Facebook, I would not have known. So, today is four days after the fact...and she is alive and well. She is off the vent, sitting up in a chair and hopefully today, she'll be moved to a regular room. Ella is one strong little girl. At 31 weeks, she is off of the oxygen, and is taking a pretty good amount of food. Praise be to God! I am telling you, it's all a miracle!

So, saying "yes!" to God entails some risk taking, of course. I have been playing with the idea of being a Thirty-One consultant for years. I love their bags, and knowing a friend of mine is a consultant herself and is very successful excites me. I have thought about it for two years, but fear of not succeeding always stops me. I researched, and researched some more...and found out that there is no obligation. You buy the starter kit, which gives you some pretty awesome bags...and your goal is to sell $200-300 worth every quarter. If you don't sell, you still keep your stuff and you keep going. I want to contribute to serve God, contribute to our income, pay off school loans, and maybe take my kids on a trip. I feel like this could be the way to go. So, I prayed about it, and I think it's time to say "OK! Let's do this!" So...I plan on joining at the end of August or beginning.

I never post pictures on here because I simply forget. So, here is some pictures that are long over due.

Aidan at Emily's Birthday party at Incredible Dave's.

Hailey at the party too.

How sweet is this little man? My nephew Lucas

What can I say? My brother, Lucas and Hailey