A New Meaning to "Black Friday"

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their family and friends. We spent the morning talking with the family on Skype. Not the best, but you have to take what you can get. Since this was our first Thanksgiving by ourselves, we had our own little dinner.

There's Robyn, trying to get a bit more work in before the turkey kicked in. And yes, we have our Christmas decorations out already. Who said we had to wait until Thanksgiving was over?! We made a little turkey in the slow cooker, which made the whole apartment smell delicious. We also made the necessary sides, including the stuffing and potatoes. Everything was done in two pots and a cookie sheet, within an hour.We just had one slight issue, which is the reasoning behind the title to today's post:

The sweet potatoes were the last thing to be done, and they were well done. I set the timer for the broiler, thinking to myself that it was indeed too long, but I'd take them out before it was over. So much for that. The timer went off and when I opened the door, there was a poof of smoke. I'm most thankful that the smoke detector didn't go off last night. Fortunately, the marshmallows came right off the top and the potatoes were eatable. We also made a fall sangria, with wine, apples, and pears, which we enjoyed very much! And on top of it all, we've been having nicer than average November weather- today was 50 degrees and sunny. Last night, we turned our Christmas lights on and can now not be made fun of for having our Christmas decorations up! All-in-all, it was a nice, relaxing day.
Now it's time to get cracking on our holiday projects. Thanks for stopping by!

A Great Start to the Week

Happy Monday! We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We had pretty non-exciting weekend. It rained all weekend, but today wasn't too bad. The sun peeked through at times, which is always nice! But, now it's time to get back to work after a much needed Spring Break. So, since it's back to work, we don't have much time for our own crafts, unfortunately. On top of work, we have two sets of wedding invitations to do, which is super exciting!
Anyway, since we're trying to get back in the groove, today's post is different than our usual posts. This is what we had for dinner tonight, and it was just so good, we had to share!

It's not the best picture (I thought the smudge was on the front of my phone. Turns out I was wrong). Anyway, this is our Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Shells, and it is amazing! We were first introduced to this buffalo dip by our Aunt, who refused to give us the recipe. Luckily, everything is on-line, so we were able to come up with our own recipe. The dip by itself is delicious enough to have for dinner (which we've done!) The stuffed shells idea came to us last night as we were perusing Pinterest. I don't remember exactly how we came up with the idea, but it seemed like a genius idea. And, of course, everyone and their mother has already made them. Oh well. We made ours a slightly-lower fat version.

Here's how we did it:

1. We cooked 3 large chicken breasts and then cut them into chunks. Some people shred theirs, it's more of a personal preference.

2. As the chicken is cooking, start cooking the pasta shells. We didn't stir them too often, so they wouldn't break. (We cooked about 20 shells, but had enough dip leftover to fill another 4-5 shells)

3. As the chicken and shells are cooking, we mixed together the rest of the ingredients: 

     * 8 ounces (1 box) cream cheese, softened (we used reduced fat cream cheese)

     * 1/4 cup both ranch dressing and plain Greek yogurt

     * 1/2 cup both buffalo sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese (more or less cheese...)

4. Once the chicken is cooked, mix it in with the buffalo mixture. Take the mixture and begin filling your shells. Place them in a greased dish, keeping some room, just so everything gets warms evenly. When all of the shells are full, bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melty.

5. Enjoy! We had three each, but I'm sure a few more could have been devoured. We needed to save some for tomorrow's lunch!

Well, I totally recommend making this dish! It is so good! And now it's time to get ready for another work week! Thanks for stopping by!