Slow Cooker Pesto Ranch Chicken

Hey guys! I hope your new year is going well and you're mostly sticking to your resolutions. I pretty much have. I've been slacking on the oil pulling but the others on my list, I've been doing.

I thought I'd share this super simple chicken recipe I found on Pinterest which came from Picky Palate. You will only need a few ingredients and a slow cooker to enjoy this dish.

Ingredients
2.5 lbs of frozen chicken thighs
6 ounces of pesto
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 packet of ranch dip mix

Place all of your frozen chicken thighs in the slow cooker.

Empty your jar of pesto right on top of your chicken.

Add 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar to the nearly empty jar of pesto. Shake it up to get all of the pesto out of the jar and add it to the chicken.

Add your packet of seasoning to your pesto and chicken. 

After you've added all of your ingredients into the slow cooker, try to distribute the pesto and ranch all over the chicken. Put the lid on and cook on low for 8 hours. You might need to add a little salt, I did, but my husband liked it without. I served this over pasta one night and the next day I ate it with rice.  

Enjoy! 

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year! I hope you've all enjoyed and recovered from your holidays. I have! A couple of people have asked me what my new years resolutions are so I've compiled a little list. You'll see that many are food related. Enjoy and tell me what changes you are making in the new year or what resolutions you are keeping from previous years.

1. Continue to strengthen my relationships with my family and friends. 
2. Go on at least five vacations. We started the year with a staycation at the Loews Coronado Resort and we have two more vacations booked. My little family is off to a good start.
3. Drink green smoothies daily. I make them with spinach, almond milk, chia seeds, and frozen blueberries. Sometimes I switch out the blueberries for PB2.
4. Drink a shot of apple cider vinegar mixed with Emergen-C daily.
5. Start my day with a warm cup of water with juice from half of a lemon. 
6. Pull coconut oil.
7. Make fish for dinner at least once a week. 
8. Make soup for dinner at least once every two weeks.
9. Of course exercise more often. I already bought new workout clothes, my sweet husband gave me blue tooth Beats headphones for Christmas, and my cousin bought our entire family Misfit Flash fitness monitors.  They're pretty awesome.
10. Organize and decorate my home so I enjoy it more. You can follow along with me on Pinterest.

I wish you much love and happiness in the new year. 

Non Dairy, Egg Free Pumpkin Ice Cream

Guys! Another ice cream recipe for ya! This one is nearly vegan because it uses honey.  You could omit it but I've already photographed my ingredients.  Too late for me! And honestly, it wasn't sweet enough with just the honey.  It was a little flat.  So I had to add a 1/4 cup of light brown sugar and pinch of salt.  All better.   

Ingredients 

15 ounces of coconut cream

15 ounces of pure pumpkin

15 ounces of full fat coconut milk

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice 

2 tsp vanilla extract 

4 ounces of honey

1/4 cup light brown sugar 

1/4 tsp salt 

To make the ice cream, you're going to combine all of those ingredients and then add them to your ice cream maker for 30 minutes.  Then it has to set up for at least 3 hours in the freezer. After 3 hours it will have a nice scoopable texture. After 24 hours, it's going to be rock hard. In order to serve it, it needs to sit on the counter for 20 minutes. 

You can see I topped mine with Hershey's Kisses.  Mmmm, so good.   

Enjoy!