Good evening & hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend! 

Today, my boyfriend, Andy, & I went to church & afterwards wanted to try out a new recipe I got from RealSimple.com called Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans. Here's the recipe straight from RealSimple.com:

PAN-ROASTED CHICKEN WITH LEMON-GARLIC GREEN BEANS

Ingredients

• 6  tablespoons  olive oil
• 2 lemons, 1 thinly sliced, 1 juiced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1  teaspoon  kosher salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4  pound  trimmed green beans
• 8 small red potatoes, quartered
• 4 chicken breasts (bones left in, with skin, about 3 1/4 pounds)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Coat a large baking dish or cast-iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Arrange the lemon slices in a single layer in the bottom of the dish or skillet.
2. In a large bowl, combine the remaining oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper; add the green beans and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the green beans and arrange them on top of the lemon slices. Add the potatoes to the same olive-oil mixture and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, arrange the potatoes along the inside edge of the dish or skillet on top of the green beans. Place the chicken in the same bowl with the olive-oil mixture and coat thoroughly. Place the chicken, skin-side up, in the dish or skillet. Pour any of the remaining olive-oil mixture over the chicken.
3. Roast for 50 minutes. Remove the chicken from the dish or skillet. Place the beans and potatoes back in oven for 10 minutes more or until the potatoes are tender. Place a chicken breast on each of 4 serving plates; divide the green beans and potatoes equally. Serve warm.

I took a before & after shot. This was a fun dish to make & very very EASY! Only downfall was that it took a total of about 1 1/2 hours before we could finally eat. We like our food so don't like waiting -- but it was definitely worth it. *Suggestion: Use frozen green beans instead of store-bought. I made the mistake of buying green beans from Walmart & they had a funky taste. We determined it wasn't our faults - ha! - but assumed it was probably just a bad time of year for beans. 

Before:

(Andy wanted to add some parsley he had leftover from another meal we'd tried earlier in the week. We also thought adding some butter might be a nice touch, too.)

After:

I would highly recommend this dish to anyone! Like I said, it's very easy & very delicious! 

Enjoy your week!

Kristin :)

Happy Thursday, everyone! Almost time for the weekend!

I wanted to share a project idea with you that I was inspired to recreate via Keepers Ministry . Such a creative idea, a 2013 jar full of happy memories that happened throughout the year. Then, read them all on New Year's Eve & reminisce the many happy things that took place in 2013. I am so excited about this! After a full year has passed, it's always hard to remember everything that happened that year, or we tend to remember the bad things that happened. So why not write down the positive things? This will be fun at the end of the year. Until then..I will include things like movie tickets, funny quotes people have said, happy memories, pictures, brochures of places I've visited, etc. Great idea!

 So all it took was a glass jar from Walmart - it was around $3.00 or so; some scrapbook paper I had lying around; & my not-so-talented penmenship skills to write the year. You could also use wrapping paper, stickers, scrap paper, or any other crafty things to decorate the jar. I wanted to keep it simple so I can reuse the same jar for years to come & not get sick of the design.

Hope this was helpful! Just a fun (& simple!) idea to try! 

Happy crafting!

Kristin :)

Hello all!

I am extremely new to this. This will be my first blog ever but eventually hope to use it mainly for posting Pinterest projects as well as mixing in some random stuff every once in a while, too. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

Kristin :)