Creamy Italian Chicken (aka Bay of Chicken)

Fam over for dinner so I thought I'd do a crockpot so that we could spend more time together and less in the kitchen. It was a HOT day so I tried something new and put the crockpot outside. When I say hot, it was already reaching the 90s at 9am. This worked out brilliant and I'll do it again. Yes, I know the crockpot doesn't radiate a lot of heat but even a little bit helps when it's a 104 degrees outside.

Creamy Italian Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
bag of brocolli and cauliflower
1 envelope Italina salad dressing mix*
1/4 water
1 pkg 8oz cream cheese
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
a little milk to make sauce less thick if needed
1 cup mushrooms
hot cooked rice or noodles (like bowtie, penne, etc...)

*homemade seasonings: 1/3 cup Parmasan cheese, 1 Tbl garlic powder (or crushed garlic), 1 Tbl onion powder, 1 Tbl paprika, 1 Tbl Italian seasonings, 1 Tbl basil, 1 Tbl oregeno, 1 Tbl crushed black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt

1. place chicken and veggies in crockpot
2. combine seasonin mix and water; pour over chicken
3. cover and cook on low 6-8 hours.
4. In small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and soup until blended; stir in mushrooms
5. pour over chicken and cook another hour
6. server over rice or noodles

So this recipe got it alias "Bay of Chicken" because in my overzealousness to make the seasonings myself I confused fresh dried bay leaves for basil leaves. They both start with b but only one can be eaten while the other is strictly adds flavor and should be pulled out prior to eating. It tasted wonderfully but we had to pick out the pieces of bay leaves that I managed to crush really, realy small. Note to self for next time.

Oh, Honey

I had some leftover honey from work and decided to make something sweet to celebrate the mother's in my life - my wonderful mom and my sister, the wonderful mother to my 1-1/2 nieces. I followed this up the next week with easy cookies. Thank you bees!

Honey Oatmeal Cookies
Oatmeal Cookies - These were so good and so easy to make! I will definitely be making these again! Makes 2 dozen.

3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup Splenda
1/3 cup honey
2 egg
2 tablespoon water
1 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpouse is good too)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups rolled oats (aka oatmeal)
1 cup cranberries (also use chopped dates, raisins, nuts and/or chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray
2. Mix together the butter, applesauce, sugar, honey, eggs and water thoroughly.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients then stir in the oats.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix. Add any additional ingredients you've chosen.
5. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Strawberry Honey Muffins
I also made strawberry honey muffins and a honey cake but I can't find my recipe notes. I'll update this post when I clean off my counter and find them :)