Chicken Cordon Bleu Cassy

What day is it!? HUMP DAY!!! Happy Hump Day Y'all!!

I hope all of you have been keeping busy and enjoying the weather. Its been nice here in Pensacola. Thank God the rain has, for the most part, stayed away! We are actually under a flash flood warning again, but where I'm at now is just overcast. 

I also hope y'all had a great Mother's Day! Whether you were enjoying it as a mom, new mom or just celebrating your mom! David and I both got to have a nice convo with our mom's to wish them a happy mother's day, and he spent the weekend spoiling me.  I cant complain :) We had our first baby class Saturday, Infant Care, went for a nice lunch down town, and then he took me shopping and got me a new phone as my Mother's Day gift... Hello iPone5s! On Sunday, we went to church, had a nice brunch at the Broken Egg and went shore fishing at the beach! It was a great weekend! I'm not a full mother yet, but growing a child counts for something right!?

On to the reason for this post.... Chicken Cordon Bleu Cassy!! 

I made this last night for dinner and it turned out pretty good! Dave took the leftovers for lunch today, I'm kind of bummed I don't get anymore. Especially since I don't really eat leftovers. I found this recipe a couple weeks ago while browsing Pinterest. I was looking for something that sounded good but also wasn't too much work. I don't like to always cook the same things for dinner every week. 

I made some alterations to the recipe, and I would recommend serving this with some buttered egg noodles or some white rice. Maybe even baking this in the oven with some rotini too. 

So..... here it is! Chicken Cordon Bleu Cassy. Its super easy to make and really inexpensive. I'm sure you have at least half the ingredients in your kitchen already. 

What you need Part 1:
Chicken: recipe calls for a rotisserie chicken. I used 3 chicken breast I got on sale as buy one get one. They were huge breasts so I hammered them out and pan fried them (seasonings of your choice. I used rosemary and garlic) and then cut them up.

Ham: recipe calls for shaved ham or deli ham. I used ham cubes because they were so much cheaper than buying deli ham. 

Swiss Cheese: recipe calls for Swiss cheese slices. I used shredded Swiss because the store had a sale of buy 2 for $5 and we eat a ton of cheese. 

What to do Part 1:
Preheat your oven to 375.

LAYERS!

Spray the bottom of your baking dish with some Pam. Layer the chicken on the bottom, then the ham and finally the Swiss cheese. SUPER easy!!

What you need Part 2:
Flour: recipe calls for 4 tablespoons. I used 2.

Butter: recipe calls for 4 tablespoons. I used 2.

Milk: recipe called for 3 cups. I used 1.5 cups. 

•  I didn't think I would need all the sauce that it makes so I cut it in half. turned out well, but if you're going to put this over noodles or rice, Id recommend making the full batch. 

The rest of the ingredients I didn't measure, click the link if you'd like exact measurements.

Lemon Juice

Dijon Mustard

Paprika

Salt & Pepper

Garlic & Horseradish: recipe didn't call for any but I added some and it was delish!

What to do Part 2:

Its time to make a rue!! Don't be afraid, its really not that hard. This is the basis for making your own cheese and Alfredo sauce too. Super easy.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. I added the garlic with the butter and let it saute a bit.  Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute or so. 

Slowly add the milk and keep whisking to avoid clumps. A tip I learned from the Chew was to heat your milk first before adding it to your butter/flour mixture, I just popped it in the microwave for a couple mins.  Turn the heat up and cook until the sauce thickens, whisking often.  

Once its thick, turn the heat off and add the remaining sauce ingredients.  Once mixed and tasting to how you'd like, pour the sauce over your layered meat and cheese. 

What you need Part 3:

I didn't measure these at all but if you'd like full measurements, click the link above. 

Panko

Parmesan Cheese

Butter

Seasonings

What to do Part 3:

In a bowl, season your panko if you didn't buy seasoned panko already. I used paprika and my natures own seasoning.

Add some Parmesan cheese. I didn't have shredded so I just used the stuff you usually sprinkle over spaghetti. 

I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter and added that to my panko mixture. 

Mix it all up and sprinkle over the top.

Bake in the oven for about a half hour and BAM... you have yourself a yummy and easy dinner!

Again, this turned out awesome! However, when I make this again, I'll either be adding some rotini to the bottom and bake it that way, OR I'll make some buttered egg noodles or rice and put this over the top. It was yummy without it, but I think it would add a little something to the dish. 

I hope you enjoy!! Let me know if you try it!

~Eat, Drink n Be Crafty

Spray Painting Masterpiece

Happy Thursday, Y'all!

Its been crazy here in Pensacola the last couple of days. We had some really severe thunder storms, tornado warnings, funnel clouds, and lots of flooding. The flooding was so bad my husband couldn't even make it to work yesterday (yay for me), AND today there was an explosion at one of the jails! Crazy! At least its not snowing, right!?!?

I've got a pretty cool craft project to share with you today. I made this in maybe an hour last Friday, so it really doesn't take too long. 

Since we moved to Pensacola, we moved from a couple of small apartments to a house. LOVE being back in a house, there's so much room to actually move. With that being said, that leaves a LOT of open space on my walls. I've been looking at different photos and paintings to hang that would go with the color scheme of our current decorations, but I haven't found anything that I really LOVE or that I was willing to pay for. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and make something myself. 

I remembered seeing something on Pinterest awhile back about making your own quotes on old pictures and then spray painting them, check that out here. So I took a trip to Michael's last week and bought some supplies. I did tweak mine a bit but its still the same concept. I picked up a 2 pack of canvases and some removable stencil stickers. I had the spray paint left over from our wedding. 

I didn't want the back ground to be white so I gently spray painted the background brown, let it dry and then added the stencil stickers.

After I arranged my quote the way I liked it (which took the majority of the time), I spray painted over everything with the red. I had to cut up my spray paint sessions because I didn't have enough letters to complete my quote. I just covered that with a piece of paper so I didn't spray over it and then once I was done with the letters on the top, I placed them on the bottom. 

I sprayed the remainder of the canvas, let it dry and came out with my completed project! I can now move it to my "completed" section of my boards on Pinterest!!

I love how it turned out and I love that I was able to make my own decorations for my house. I'm going to hang this on one side of my TV in our living room and make another canvas for the other side. I saved so much money! I had a 40% off coupon for Michael's, the canvases came in a two pack for $9.99 and had a special running for buy one get one, and the reusable stencils were only $7.99. LOTS of projects for a little bit of money. 

Let me know if you try this out! Its super easy and fun :)

~Eat, Drink 'n Be Crafty~

Its been FOREVER!!

Hey ya'll!!

I know its been forEVER since I've had a post. Life sort of got in the way! Ya'll know how that can be. Let's see if I can catch you up on some things...

I had a job at a newspaper that I really loved that consumed the majority of my time while living in South Carolina. On the weekends, the husband and I would be found exploring the gorgeous town of Beaufort, SC. Which is the major reason why I lacked on the posts. Booo, I know. 

We spent a year in Beaufort and then moved to San Fran in November for my husbands Job. Shortly after moving there we found out we're expecting!! Its been so awesome to know I'm growing a child! I've been reading and researching like crazy. I did find out that I have hypothyroidism but they caught it early so all should be well. We did find out what we are having, check out the video, Baby Busch Gender Reveal.

San Fran was short lived (thank GOD) and we are now in Pensacola, FL! We moved here the end of March. Its so nice to finally have a house again after living in an apartment for close to 2 years. Now that I have the majority of things set up in our new place, that brings me back to my Blog!!

I'm going to try and have a new post every week, lets hope I stick to that. I dont really have any excuse not to! I think I'm going to try and take a new approach to my posts. I know a ton of people use Pinterst and just pile stuff up on their boards. I've actually created a board called Completed Recipes and Crafts. I think it would be cool to post about what I've completed and my adventures on how I got there. Most of the time I just take the basic idea of something I see on Pinterest, and try and make it my own. This will also help me actually USE the things I pin! and hopefully will help you too!

So.... I hope you stick along with me for the ride!!

Eat Drink 'n Be Crafty