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Several months ago my sister & I were talking about dinner recipes (and my complete and utter lack of wanting to make dinner most nights) and so she shot a few easy ones over to me to try. Tonight, I dug that email out (which was burried deep in my inbox) and decided to try this one. I went for the Honey Chicken because I had all the ingredients on hand and it looked really quick and easy.(Butter, honey, mustard, salt & curry make up the sauce)

Honey Chicken 

3 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large bite-size pieces

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup prepared mustard (Dijon is best)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp curry**

 Directions:

Melt butter and mix all ingredients in a bowl (see above.) Pour over chicken in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. 

*Since we love curry, and so does my sis, she recommended adding more. We added about 3 tsp's.

(The Honey Chicken ready to go in the oven)

I found after 30 minutes the chicken was still pretty pink so I turned up the heat to 375, but then ended up over-cooking it. Balls! I'll need to keep a better eye on it next time. This recipe gets major points for being easy and quick and it was a hit with the kids (except for Henry who won't go near anything saucy.) Even with the extra curry, it didn't over power the meal. The honey was the most prominent and gave it a nice mild sweetness. We served it on top of rice and drizzled the extra honey mustard sauce on top of the chicken.  Oh and a side of veggies. If you are looking for a new recipe I think you'll really like this.

Enjoy!

xo

 Not in the mail yet, but the quilt for Baby B. is finally finished. I don't know why it took me so long, it was only a baby-sized quilt. I used the same fabric for the binding that I used for Mrs. Miller's quilt. You know, the quilt that I didn't actually have any decent pictures of? Yes, that one. It was already cut so that saved some time and it was a good match. From the picture above it looks like the quilt is primarily blue, but there is actually a bit of yellow, pink and green represented, too.  You may or may not remember that I was given strict instruction not to show the whole quilt until Baby B gets the real thing in the mail (baby and mama want to be surprised), so I'll just show this sneak peak from the back. The strip of patterned fabric was left over from the quilt that I made for my Aunt Cheryl before she passed away. The entire strip was already sewn and while none of these fabrics are represented on the other side (the front of the quilt) the color scheme is the same so I feel like it works. The pink & white is seersucker which puckered up so nicely when it was washed & dried; it's so soft! Pulling quilts out of the dryer is my favorite part of the whole quilt making process with machine quilting all the layers together coming in a close second. Third, incase you lay lying in bed at night wondering, which I know you do, is hand sewing the binding. That I can do while vegging in front of the t.v. while watching a movie (preferably Sleepless in Seattle or While you were sleeping…or any other sleeping-titled movie).

I'm starting another quilt tonight.

I'm kind of going through a quilt phase incase you couldn't tell…
 

You would be wrong if you thought I wasn't riddled with guilt making this baby quilt for a girlfriend who is expecting a baby boy in August. You see, my sister, my very own sister, my flesh and blood,  had her baby nearly 3 months ago and I have yet to finish the quilt for her cute little Bridgette. Not only have I not finished it, this is the 2nd quilt I've completed before finishing her's (here's the part where I probably should not mention that I also made a cloth robot for a very sweet 1 year olds birthday party last weekend…but I mention anyway…I am going to be so busted)  And I've been promising my sister it'd be finished this weekend (many weekends have come and gone- she is on to me…)But I found myself on Friday night, the eve before the big baby shower, with absolutely no gift in hand. Unacceptable! So I pulled my big scrap bin out of the closet and started yanking out any and all fabric that resembled boy colors. Piece by piece,  it slowly started coming together like a jigsaw puzzle. This was it. I really had nothing else to work with so I had to make this work (note to self: start replenishing fabric stash with orange & blue fabric STAT!) I have to say, I really liked how it turned out. The elephant print was used for the binding and on the back. It was left over from pajama's that I had made Henry. I must have purchased an extra 1/2 yard because I had a good amount of it left. Anyway, crazy-no-rhyme-or-reason quilts are becoming a favorite of mine. I hope the new little one gets some good snuggles out of it.

Vanessa I just wanted to say 1) put down that thing you want to throw at me and 2)I put some good hours into your quilt this week and it's 3/4 done. I know I'm starting to sound a lot like the girl who cried weekend, but seriously, I think yours will not only be done this weekend, it will be in the mail! Kiss kiss!

 Included, (but not limited to):

Camping at Carlsbad State Beach with lots of extended family. 

4th of July at the Hollywood Bowl with wonderful company.

A visit from favorite North Carolina friends: The Harrises (and Diddy Reese Ice Cream for dessert)! 

A late night trip to the ER (I'm okay).

Recovering & looking forward to the weekend!

Enjoy yours!

xoxo

We made it back from our camping trip just in time to make it to the Hollywood Bowl for the annual 4th of July concert. Kate nearly waved that little flag for the entire sh0w! Hope you had a wonderful 4th! Our group of 18 had a ball tonight.

Will share camping pic's soon!

xo

Photo credit: here

That photo reminds me so much of Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. I always miss that place this time of year. I'm not sure where it was taken, but I love it.

We are headed to the beach to go camping for a few days.

We need a little relaxation and sand in our pants.

See you soon~

xo

 

We survived the last day of school on Friday and I was able to eek out the teacher gift just in time.  Just in time meaning I was up until 5 a.m. the morning of the last day of school. The teacher gift was this quilt. All the children drew pictures and each picture was framed in a printed fabric border. I didn't get the last drawing from one of the children until Thursday a.m. hence the all nighter. The back of the quilt had a message to the teacher and a separate fabric piece of all the chidren's names (try to ignore all the strings!) I hadn't worked at all with inkjet compatible fabric in the past and I'm really interested in learning how to make my own now that I've seen the finished result. I had a lot of fading on the pictures which I was super bummed out about but it was a learning experience. Something happened to my camera after I took this pic, so I don't really have a pic of the other side…. I'll see if I can track one down.

First day with no school= awesome! Chris left  last Friday to go fly-fishing with his twin brother for the weekend in Southern Utah (a birthday gift for both of them as their birthday was last Fri.) and will be back tonight. I'm ready for a break 🙂

I can't believe July is this weekend!

Just popping in to say we had the most lovely day at the beach on Monday. We took a friend along with us from Henry's class. We didn't have bathing suits (it was very last minute) so they stripped down to their skivvies and went crazy. I am totally ignoring the growing piles of laundry, stacks of dishes and overflowing garbage in order to get Henry's teacher's gift done in time (2 more days!) All of the children in the class contributed so the pressure is on. I have been sewing like crazy and am hopeful it will be done by Friday. 

Back to the grindstone!

What a week. I'm not going to lie, it sucked pretty royally. I'm exhausted from it sucking so bad (is that possible? It is possible. I'm just going to relish in it) I'm not going to share the worst of it with you, but I will say that when we had to make an emergency run to the pharmacy  on Monday, all was not well. I let Kate push the cart, she kept bumping it into my heels, (you know what I mean), and then my shoe broke (awesome). I'm holding Charlie, but he doesn't want to be held, which makes holding him a major chore. We grabbed a 1/2 gallon of rainbow sherbet (I promised)  and we self-check out. It's our fastest option. We make it out in 10 minutes. I'm relieved. It felt like the longest 10 minutes of my life. Oh there's our car, hooked up to a tow truck. It's just after 4:00 and there's no parking after 4 p.m. The $88 ticket on my windshield isn't enough. I have to pay the tow-truck driver $225 to lower my two front tires back on the ground. He didn't tow my car 2 inches. This was not the worst of it (you can see now how one would be exhausted). I'm tired. It was just the beginning of a very long, hard & exhausting week. Anyway, we drowned our sorrows in free kids quesadilla's, rice & beans and Pork Barbacoa Salad from Cafe Rio in Manhattan Beach.Mexican food makes us feel better,  plus Kate loves the salad dressing so much she drinks it straight from the cup! 

Here's to a better week next week and our last week of school. Woohoo!!