Chicken with Mushroom Cream Sauce (sugar free • gluten free • low carb)

This is comfort food to me.  This is an easy recipe that you can whip up quickly and will taste like you worked much harder on it.  It's great for company too.  The sauce doesn't get quite as thick as if it had flour in it, but it's nice and creamy and tastes delicious.  You won't miss the flour at all!

Start off heating up 1/2 stick of butter.  Toss in a chopped up yellow onion and saute for a few minutes.

Add about 10 oz off sliced baby bella mushrooms, parsley, oregano and basil and continue to saute for another 10 minutes, until the mushrooms are nice and browned.  Feel free to add butter if your mushrooms are soaking it all up.

Then deglaze your pan with either a dry white wine or apple cider vinegar.  I prefer the dry white wine, but either works...  Add in your cream and turn up the heat to bring to boil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Heat up butter in another skillet and drop in your chicken.

Once sauce comes to a boil, reduce hit and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cook up those chickens nice and browned.

Once your sauce is thick enough to stick well to your spoon, it's ready! 

Plate chicken, and cover with sauce.

CHICKEN WITH MUSHROOM CREAM SAUCE

(sugar free • gluten free • low carb)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C (1/2 stick) Butter
• 1 small to medium Yellow Onion, chopped small
• 10 oz Baby Bella Mushrooms
• 1 tsp chopped fresh Parsley
• 1 tsp chopped fresh Oregano
• 1 tsp chopped fresh Basil
• 1 C Heavy Cream 
• 3/4 C Dry White Wine (or Apple Cider Vinegar, but it will have a stronger taste)
• 4 Chicken Breasts, pounded down and flattened
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat Butter in skillet and add chopped onion, saute for a few minutes.
2. Add Sliced mushrooms, parsley, oregano and basil to pan.  Continue to saute for another 10 minutes, or until mushrooms are nice and browned.
3. Add in the Wine or Vinegar and stir to deglaze pan.  
4. Slow stir in cream.  
5. Add Salt and Pepper to taste.
6. Turn up heat to bring to a boil.
7. Heat up more butter over medium high in another skillet for chicken.
8. Once sauce is boiling, reduce heat to bring to a simmer.  Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until sauce is creamy and sticks to your spoon.
9. Salt and pepper chicken and add to skillet, cook till browned on both sides and cooked through.  This usually takes me 6-7 minutes per side.
10. Once chicken and sauce are finished, plate your chicken and spoon the sauce over the top.
11. Enjoy!

This sauce is also delicious served over grilled chicken!  I like making extra and bringing it to work for lunch the next day heated up in my toaster oven.

This post is part of the Nourishing Gourmet's Pennywise Platter, Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday, the Healthy Home Economist's Monday Mania and Real Food Forager's Fat Tuesday.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sunday was my mom's birthday.  My sisters and I all found sitters for the kiddos so that we could join my mom and dad at her favorite restaurant.  It has been years since we have all been out to eat together.  With all the little kids and all of our crazy schedules, it's just not that easy to accomplish.

We headed down to the old, historic part of town.  It's a beautiful area where they have maintained and restored the history of the neighborhood.  The street is lined with restaurants and bars and little shops.   Dinner was delicious and the conversation and company was even better. 

Afterwards, we headed outside and took a few photos.

My Parents

Sister Erin and Man Chad

Erin and Mom

Mom and Me

Mom and Sister Amy

The Girls

Striking Some Poses

I am mad I didn't get a pic of me and Joe!

It was a great time.  I think my mom really enjoyed getting our undivided attention, which is something that pretty much never happens.

I am so lucky to be blessed with such an amazing mom (and family).

Summer Update

Summers are always so incredibly busy.  This summer has been no exception.  In fact, it's been one of my busiest ever.  I haven't had a single free weekend yet.  We keep trying to get some things done around the house (like cleaning our basement, which has become a dumping ground), but every time we try to find some time on the weekends, it ends up booking up from Friday till Sunday before we know it.  I even wrote "Clean Basement!" in the calendar for this coming up weekend, but it has since been marked up with a child's birthday party, a swimming date with some friends and their kids and a meeting on Sunday with our new sitter who will be watching the munchkin while our current sitter is on maternity leave.  So naturally, blogging has been on the back burner.  Which sucks, because then I get behind and don't even know where to begin.

This past weekend was super crazy with a friend's wedding, in which Joe was a groomsman.  I have some pics to post of that later.   In the meantime, I have some pics I have had accumulating in a folder for posts that I might eventually get around to.  I figured I might as well throw them all together for an update or they may never make it on the blog.

I can't believe I haven't posted much this summer other then a few recipes!  Here's my mom hanging out with the girls on Father's Day.  The were swimming in her little baby pool and playing with the "fishing poles".

This little bikini just cracks me up.

We had some friends over for Joe's birthday party near the end of June.   Usually it's always hot for his birthday.  We got lucky this year.  It was beautiful outside.  In fact, I think it was the last nice weekend we have had.  It's been pretty much scorching hot ever since.  We hung out with some friends, drank some wine and even enjoyed a fire in the fire pit.

Here's me and my oldest and dearest friend Anna chillin in my garage.
Her baby is due in about a month!!

My sis Amy and I.

My  friend Gina breastfeeding her beautiful baby boy.
I just love this shot.

I have had great luck with my herbs this summer!  It's been so nice walking right out to the back deck to grab what I need to toss in with dinner.  I had been waiting until we moved again and could have an actual garden, but who knows when that will be.  Container herbs work just as well!!

Currently, I am growing basil, parsley, thyme, oregano and cilantro.

This little dude has been hanging out on our little deck for weeks now.  He's super cute and tiny (only about 3/4" long).  The munchkin points and yells "Froggy!! Ribbit! Ribbit!!"  She then proceeds to squat down and hop around like a frog.  It was so hard to get a decent pic, but I'll share anyway.

I just really can't believe it's August already.  I have started planning the Munchkin's 2 year birthday party with will be on Sept 10th.  Two Years!  I just can't believe it's been that long already.

She picks up so much new stuff all the time.  She's been talking in sentences now and uses words to describe things instead of only sticking to mostly nouns.  She can point out letters of the alphabet, colors, shapes, and can count to 12 all on her own.  I am sure this is all typical for her age, but to me she's a super genius! Only a year ago, she could barely talk at all!  It's just so crazy.

When she does something she wasn't supposed to, she'll say "sorry guys!",  even if it's only me.  She loves pointing to the food on my plate and saying things like "those are mommy's eggs" or to my seat, "that's mommy's seat".  Some parents count how many words their kids have, but I am too lazy for that.  I wouldn't even know where to begin.  Her vocabulary exploded so fast, I don't know if I could even guess within a decent range at this point.  She's definitely a talker.  She LOVES puzzles.  It's one of her favorite things to do.  She'll ask me to get them down for her and we'll sit at the kitchen table and put them all together.  She likes to hold up her cup and say "cheers" until you clank your drink with hers.  She is still only drinking water and milk and loves them both dearly.  She is a cheese freak, just like her momma.  She also loves her eggs.  Her other faves are, salmon, tacos (which is really just a bowl of seasoned grassfed ground beef, cheese, avocado, tomatoes and some sour cream), avocado, broccoli, pretty much any green vegetable, carrots, mushrooms, any she especially loves berries.  We got pretty lucky with this one actually, she'll eat just about anything I give to her.

I feel like she gets cuter and cuter every day.  How is that even possible?

I hope everyone else is enjoying their summer so far!

A Day at the Park

Spring is finally here! I called up my sister, we grabbed our families and took the girls to the park today. They had a blast!

A Birthday Party and Some Fun With the Cousins!

Last weekend we went to my friend Gina's son's bday party. The munchkin had a blast. I couldn't believe how much fun she was having! It was a big room with HUGE inflatable slides, bounce houses, animals, really just a bunch of stuff to run around on and jump in and on.

It was definitely her idea of the perfect party.

It was fun playing around in there with my new camera. The lighting was so weird due to all of the crazy colors reflecting off of everything and the fluorescent lights, but it's all a learning process.

On a side note, my new lens that I have been waiting for and that has been on backorder forever has finally shipped!! I should have it by Monday. Yay!!

Here she is peering into the entrance of one of the giant slides.

Crawling around checking things out.

She's always been a sucker for a ball pit.

It was fun for us too! We got to carry her up and slide down with her.

After a few times, she was even brave enough to climb up on her own.
We still slid down with her though.

Crawling through an obstacle course...

Here's Gina and her adorable little man G. Seriously, how cute are they?

The munchkin just loves to feed people.
Here she is sharing her crackers with another little girl.

Snuggling up with daddy.

She pulled some "food" out of Joe's shirt and fed it to Michele (that's her new thing).
I bet Michele loved eating whatever was found in Joe's shirt.

Feeding dad.

She was so wiped out after the party. We came home, ate lunch and she crashed. I think I thanked Gina and her hubs B for planning a party at 10:00am, several times. It might seem early to some but it really couldn't have been more perfect for us. The munchkin takes a nap like clockwork every day at 1:00. And girlfriend gets crabby if things are thrown off schedule. Seriously crabby. The party was from 10am-12pm, and after going home and eating lunch, she was down for her nap by 1:00.

Sunday my family came over for dinner. Both of my sisters came and brought their girls. My parents and my grandparents were in attendance as well. I love it when all of the girls get together. The munchkin has so much fun with them.

Here's her oldest cousin Aubrey. Isn't she sweet?

Starting from the back left, The Munchkin and her (6 weeks) younger cousin Q (Amy's daughter), then in the front Aubrey, who will be 4 in June and Alex, who just turned 2 in December (Erin's girls).



I am excited for the munchkin. She gets to grow up with all her cousins, so close in age and living so close by. Me and my sisters are pretty close with one another, so these kids are gonna be together alot!

It's amazing how much destruction four little girls can do to a house. By the end of the evening, it definitely looked as if a small tornado had made its way through our home! Ahhh to have that kind of energy again!

I am so glad it's Friday. It's been a long hellish week at work and I am so ready for the weekend. My bestie Anna has agreed to blow off work early and meet me for some retail therapy. I am really excited! I haven't seen her much lately and I miss her gobs. Plus she's pregnant and I need to rub her belly. We are going to head to the outlet mall to hit up Gap and Old Navy with our 30% off coupons. I haven't bought the munchkin clothes in a while either and poor girl is looking sad with her short pants and belly-showin-out-the-bottom shirts. We went to a friends house last night and I caught grief for her super short skirt. Yeah it was a 12 months skirt... I still thought it was cute. Ooops. Hopefully I can stock up on some new clothes for her this weekend!

Happy Friday Everyone!!