Honey Mustard Chicken

Its spring time in the Kansas City area which means BBQ season! Sadly We have yet to actually grill out (so need to do that soon). While I LOVE BBQ I also don't do a lot of grilling myself, unless you count the indoor grill/griddle we have. Today's Recipe came to me in e-mail from allrecipes. They send daily recipes and I rarely actually cook any of them but this one sounded awesome and I thought I might be able to get a taste of KC BBQ without having to turn on the grill. I wasn't disappointed.

Fresh off the grill.

I only made a few small changes to this recipe. I added some seasoning to the chicken (I really don't think you'd notice without it). Also being from Kansas City I had to add a little KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce (original) to the mix. I added about 2tbsp to it. Also since I didn't feel like firing up the big BBQ grill outside for just a couple pieces of Chicken I just used our "Forman Grill" (Not really a Forman grill but similar). The chicken still turned out moist on the inside and BBQ flavorful. It was wonderful! I really loved it, my husband said it was Good but wouldn't give me anything more then that. I know he wouldn't lie about it but I didn't get the overwhelming "Oh wow this is good babe!" That I would get if he LOVED something. That aside I LOVED it.

Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is and I just finished eating it!

Today's recipe like I said came from allrecipes.com here is the link.
Allrecipes Honey Mustard Chicken

Honey Mustard Chicken

Prep Time:  15 Min   Cook Time: 20 Min   Ready In: 35 Min

Servings  (Help)

US Metric Calculate  
Original Recipe Yield 4 servings

 

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon steak sauce
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions

1. Preheat the grill for medium heat.
2. In a shallow bowl, mix the mustard, honey, mayonnaise, and steak sauce. Set aside a small amount of the honey mustard sauce for basting, and dip the chicken into the remaining sauce to coat.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill chicken over indirect heat for 18 to 20 minutes, turning occasionally, or until juices run clear. Baste occasionally with the reserved sauce during the last 10 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent burning!
   
   

DIY Rapid Bath Cartridge Refill!

Ok, so this isn't a recipe but I just had to blog about this. Depending on the size of your dog though I guess it could make your house smell pretty heavenly!

We have two large dogs, 60lbs each at least (they haven't been weighed in some time). One is a Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix. The other is a Carolina Dog/Husky mix. For any Husky owners out there you understand the huge coat blow out twice a year. Carolina Dogs do that as well. Needless to say this time of the year and in the fall we have HUGE fluff balls all over the place. Its a mess and we sweep and mop consistently to try and win the battle. We never do till she is through her blow out season. This dog Twix is her name is the wildest dog I have ever owned. When I say Wild I don't mean like hyper and crazy, I mean like WILD as in I'm pretty sure she's part wolf. We have never been able to get her to accept bath time, even though I bathed her often when she was a small pup. There are just some things we can't get her to accept period, when the Rapid bath system came out I was interested yet cautious. Could it really be true? 5min to bathe a dog and even the ones that fight bath time stand still for it? I have to admit I thought that last part was impossible but the fact that it would be easier to bathe her even if she was fighting appealed to me.

Our dogs are the two on the right that are waiting for their treat facing my husband. This was Twix's birthday party complete with a cake made just for the dogs that was safe for them to eat.

So a couple of years ago we bought one at Walmart. It came with the shower conversion kit that would allow us to use it indoors or out. We loved it, yes Twix really does stand still for it. She doesn't LIKE it but it doesn't spook her for some reason as bad as a regular bath. Not only that but it does a great job, the dogs get super clean and smell great in just a few minutes.

So last night I was bathing the dogs outside, hey KC hit a record high temp yesterday of 92 and its only April folks! Perfect time to bathe the dogs outside! As I was bathing the dogs I ran out of the shampoo in one of the cartridges... No biggie I had a 2nd one ready. When I was done I got to thinking, I wonder if these things can be refilled at home? I've seen blogs where people show you how to refill your swiffer wet jet bottles maybe I can find something online about refilling the rapid bath at home too.

So I googled it, the only thing I found was a message board where someone mentioned doing it with a syringe and how she was able to take the top cap off. But no pictures and no step by step directions. So I sat down and started playing with it myself and guess what? I DID it! So here are your step by step instructions WITH pictures! :)

Highlights Studios is my photography business.

Supplies:
Your empty shampoo cartridge
Your shampoo of choice
Pliers
Syringe, this one is a 3cc/ML but I read that a 2oz one with a 60cc tip works great too. This is just what I had on hand. Its nice having 2 kids cause you have all sizes of these laying around. This one was small so I had to refill it several times but it got the job done.

Visit: http://highlightsstudioskc.com for my business webpage.

 Step 1:
Use the pliers to remove the small white cap. 

The cap shown off, there is a small black cork thing inside the hole.

Step 2:
Remove black cork.

Showing the opening after removing cap and cork.

 Step 3:
Make sure syringe tip will fit in opening.

 Step 4:
Fill syringe with desired shampoo. I used dawn dish soap, its gentle for the dogs (even dogs with skin allergies it helps) and it kills fleas, smells great and makes the dogs coat super soft. Not only that but its much cheaper then the dog shampoo's you can buy. Its a win win win win!

Step 5:
Inject shampoo into the cartridge.

Step 6:
Repeat steps 4 & 5 till the cartridge is full.

Step 7:
Replace black rubber cork.

Rubber cork inserted.

Step 8:
Replace white cap.

Your done! Its all put back together and ready to reuse!

The refilled cartridge ready to use!

And just because I can I decided to try storing it this way to keep it from leaking.....

Vacuum sealed and labeled to keep from spilling.

I don't know how many times you can refill these but we'll have to see. At $3.99 a cartridge its not a bad price really and I can easily bathe 3 dogs the size of my 2 dogs on one cartridge. But any little bit of savings helps. I figure if I can refill it a few times it will pretty much cost us just pennies each time we bathe the dogs. Which will mean bathing them more often. What I love about this system is we can do it at home, no pricey groomers or self washing stations that still cost $10 a dog or more.

And finally, this is what my Daughter thought about the whole process as she was watching me work. I was so excited while I was doing it. Clearly she was less excited. Ha

Now get out there and wash those puppies! :D

My awesome pizza with a twist

One of the recipes I've blogged about was this awesome home made pizza crust. After reading some tips on how to improve on homemade pizza crusts I tweaked it some and I believe I blogged about that too and how that came out (even better!) I've been trying to get my family on a healthier eating habits, so the pizza hasn't been one I've been as willing to make. Last week my husband requested that I make the pizza again, so I did that over the weekend. I wanted to try and make it a tad healthier for us so I made some more adjustments.

For the dough I made a couple of adjustments. I think I will try getting rid of the brown sugar all together in my next attempt.

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
   
   
   Here's what I did, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of honey, I was going for the honey wheat taste however the honey flavor was very slight so I think I'll try completely replacing the brown sugar with honey. I have been told I should do more honey then the amount of sugar called for so next time I'll try that for sure
   
   Also since I wanted to make it more healthy I got rid of most of the white flour, not all but most. The recipe calls for 3 1/3cups flour so I did roughly 2 1/3rd cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour. That seemed to be a pretty good balance. It depends on the weather on how much extra flour you have to add to the dough to get it not so sticky and I found that it was right around a cup that I added.
   
   I don't have a pizza stone, which I've heard makes the pizza that much more fantastic. I did read on another blog though about how if you don't have a pizza stone you can turn a cookie sheet upside down and bake the dough on the bottom of the pan. I have a round pizza pan so I turn that upside down and place the dough on it for baking. It seems to work really well and it helps to bake the pizza evenly. If you don't have a pizza stone bake the dough before adding the toppings for a short time to make sure its well done.
   
   This recipe makes a large amount of dough, easily enough for 2 smaller pizza's. In the past I've cut just under 1/2 the dough off and use that to make bread sticks. This week I was lazy so I just rolled out the dough. However it greatly overlapped the pan so I decided to roll the edges up. Since I was going to roll the edges up I thought it would be good to put some string cheese in the crust. Sadly I only had 1 stick left, so I tore it into little strips but I didn't really have enough to really notice it was there. I have before used the string cheese and rolled the bread sticks around the cheese and had cheese stuffed bread sticks were were awesome. So I think next time I'll make sure I have plenty of string cheese on hand. We're not much on toppings in our house, so for us it was just plenty of cheese on the pizza.
   
   The result was pretty awesome, I over baked the pizza a tad... Oops but only the cheese was burnt on top, however that left the crust slightly tough and not as crispy as I would have liked. But my husband really loved the pizza and can't wait for me to make it again. 
   
   

   

   Wheat super thick crust! You should have seen it before it baked! Yumm

   
   

   

   I burnt the top... I really need to remember NOT to bake it on the top self as it burns the cheese to quickly!