Jalapeño Popper Chicken

I love to cook, but sometimes getting take out seems like the easier and tastier option, ya feel me! 🤷‍♀️ I get sick of the same old dinners all the time, and honestly I don’t always have the extra pep in my step to bust out a new recipe. But! I got a wild hair today (probably because it was my day off 😂) so I tried something new and this chicken was so good!! And honestly was pretty easy for a yummy mid week dinner !

Now I’m usually just an “eye ball” it type of cooker but I tried to pay attention to my ingredients so I could share! My sauce portions made quite a bit but in this family we like a little bit of food to go with our sauce so I always go heavy on it! I cooked four chicken breast’s into it, you could probably do at least 6! Also you can make this recipe with canned diced jalapeño, I’m telling you take the extra effort and dice fresh, raw jalapeño, so much better!!

Recipe;
4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
(I made four but my sauce was enough for 5 or 6 if you need extra)
1 can of chicken broth
3 medium jalapeños - seeds and membrane removed
1 clove garlic
1/2 onion (I always cook with sweet yellow)
1 8 oz package cream cheese
1 1/2 cup of shredded cheese (I used Colby / Monterrey jack blend)
Spices:
Cumin (a little goes a long way)
Chile powder
Garlic salt
Salt
Pepper
All to taste, I didn’t measure I just use a few dashes of each to season my chicken and a few dashes in the sauce while it is simmering.

Finely mince your garlic clove and onions also mince jalapeños removing the seeds and membrane. NOTE: it was a little spicy if you want to tone it down use 2 jalapeño instead of three. Trim and season each side of your chicken

Heat some olive oil in a pan and cook chicken for about 4 minutes on each side, med /high heat to get a crispy outer layer, then remove from pan and set aside, you will simmer later to finish cooking it,



Put  jalapeños, garlic and onion in the pan and cook on medium heat for a few minutes to soften.

Add in your brick of cream cheese and half your can of chicken broth (I ended up using the entire can because the sauce gets pretty thick once you add your cheese, if you want thicker sauce go with half or continue to add until you get the consistency you like. Once your cream cheese is soft add in your shredded cheese and continue to stir.

Place chicken back in the pan and smother with sauce. Cover and let simmer over medium heat for about 10 more minutes (or until your chicken is cooked thoroughly)

I served mine with rice and asparagus! So choose a side, smother with sauce and enjoy!

Wine Cabinet Makeover

I’ve been wanting a wine cabinet for months now. Justifying paying $300-600 for one was definitely holding me back. I’ve also been scouring KSL and Facebook marketplace hoping for one to show up. I literally have been looking randomly for months and finally I found one! Even better than that I paid $40.00!! Yes that’s correct, $40 flipping dollars!

Granted she needed some TLC but after my recent dresser makeover (a post for another time) I was up for the challenge... so I thought 🤦‍♀️ But it was in good shape, nothing cracked or broken and I had dreams of where this cute thing could go, so this is what we started with. Nothing a little paint and hardware can’t fix right??

I would LOVE to say this was a simple weekend project but it didn’t quite happen that way, a gal can dream right? I’m actually physically and mentally exhausted from this project 😂  but that’s because I took the scenic route, lessons learned.

I sanded the entire thing, the wine racks took some extra time, turns out it’s really hard to sand in between wine rack slots. After the sanding I put a couple coats of minwax stain over it. I had other plans for the drawer, cabinet doors and the racks. I wanted a distressed white wood look so I took to my trusty chalk paint. I do a pretty thick coat covering the surface then wipe away excess and sand down to the stain to create the weathered look. THEN my fatal mistake 😩 for reasons unknown I tried to do the same on each side of the walls where the shelves are. It looked awful. So I had to strip the paint, re-sand and stain about 5 coats to get it to match again. Grrrr stupid imagination.

We then decided the white clashed too much so I put a thin coat of stain over the chalk paint and it left me with this

I won’t pretend that was my idea, it was hubby’s (he actually had a good idea 😛) turns out it matched my floors almost exactly!! And I still had my weathered wood look I was dreaming of.

I sealed it with minwax polycrylic in satin. I wanted more matte but a little shine. I could have probably gone with polyurethane but polycyclic is better for chalk paint so I just used the same kind over the stain as well, it worked out good enough! I did 3 coats over the entire piece and about 5 over the high traffic areas (doors, drawer, wine holders, top)

Annndd for the finished product 🥁 🥁🥁

Worth all of the blood sweat and tears 😭 it fits perfectly where I wanted it to and fills up my sad, empty kitchen wall!

DIY Home sign

Okay, I kind of felt like a criminal after this one, I did some scanvanging for this project!
Our neighborhood isn’t quite finished yet so one night while I was walking Kygo (my dog) I noticed a stash of “garbage” which was actually a goldmine of wood! So I may have taken a few pieces. It was for a good cause, right?🤷‍♀️

I started with this splintery piece of wood, that happened to already be cut perfectly for the size I wanted, thanks construction workers, you da real MVP’s!

and just did some light sanding on it to remove any dirt and pieces that were splintered off. Then I did a coat of Minwax in the color Jacobean (which I had left over from a previous project) PS Jacobean is my favorite color I literally want to redo everything in my home with it!

Anyhow, while the stain was setting I went to Michaels, where I found the letters, they were on sale and I had a 20% off coupon! These are thin wood letters which I planned to hot glue so I didn’t want them to be too heavy!

Once my stain was dry I lightly brushed and distressed the piece with some ivory chalky paint which I also used to paint the wood letters! The wood was pretty rough so I did really light streaks with a paint brush then scrubbed with an old rag and sanded off some to make it look more distressed

After the paint was all dry I hot glued my letters on and had some extra paper twine I added!

Easy project! If I didn’t include my trip to Michaels this literally took me a half hour! I’m putting mine inside, however it would look awesome on the porch too!!
Happy crafting 😊