Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

Since it's officially fall I broke out the crock pot. I just love when the whole house fills with the smell of yummy comfort food! This recipe for chicken and dumplings is one of the many I have pinned on Pinterest to try. It was really good on a chilly, rainy day like today.



4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons butter
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth
1 onion diced
1 tablespoon dried parsley
4 grands flaky refrigerator biscuits

Put chicken in crock pot with butter, soup, broth, onion and parsley. Cook on high for 4-6 hours. Once cooking time has elapsed, break chicken into pieces. Cut each biscuit into nine pieces. Add to crock pot and stir. Cook an additional 30 minutes.

Easy Pumpkin Muffins

I have seen the recipe for these pumpkin muffins all over the internet, and decided they were way too easy not to try. All you need is this:


Yup. A box of cake mix and a 15 oz can of pumpkin.

You just mix the cake mix and pumpkin together, put in a greased muffin pan or liners, bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. You don't add the eggs, oil, water, etc. The recipe actually called for either plain yellow or spice cake mix, but the store was out of spice cake and yellow just seemed too boring to me. I tried it with this cinnamon swirl and they came out pretty good. I think I will try it again with the spice cake mix because the cinnamon swirl cake is pretty sweet and I prefer spicy pumpkin. Still delicious though, and they are the moistest muffins I've ever tasted!

Baby Update

I just realized I haven't posted a baby update in forever! We are currently in the middle of the 28th week and have a little less than 3 months to go. I can't believe how fast time has started to fly by! I think the third trimester is going by the quickest for me. Emmett should be roughly the size of an eggplant now, and should weigh a little over 2 lbs.



We're getting pretty excited for his arrival. Justin has almost finished the drywall in the nursery. I know it seems like that has taken forever, but he's doing it by himself and it looks like a ton of work.





We plan to prime/paint it this weekend or next. After that Justin just has to put the ceiling fan/light fixture up and then we will order carpet. We haven't ordered nursery furniture yet because we can't decide what we want. I think we are going to use Justin's childhood dresser, so once we get that cleaned up we will probably pick a crib that matches it.

I was also given this adorable diaper cake as a gift yesterday! It was so cute, and I can't imagine how much time it took to assemble that whole thing!






We have an elective 3D/4D ultrasound scheduled for October 1st and I can't wait to see our little guy! We are also attending an all day birthing class and taking a tour of Labor & Delivery at the hospital on October 9th. It's all getting so real now! :)

Mini Pineapple Upside-down Cakes

These didn't come out as I had expected, but they were pretty good. I used a can of sliced pineapple since I am way too lazy to cut up a fresh one. The canned slices are a little too big for the muffin pan so my cakes came out a little messy/lopsided.



2 tablespoons melted butter or vegetable shortening
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 small pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch slices, or 1 can sliced pineapple
12 maraschino cherries, well drained
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350° F. Coat the bottom and sides of 12 muffin cups with 2 tbsp. melted butter or shortening. Set aside. In a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat. Spoon 1 tablespoonful into each muffin cup. Top each with a pineapple slice and a cherry. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thickened and lemon-colored. Beat in the oil, sour cream and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to egg mixture and mix well. Fill muffin cups to the top. Bake for 25-28 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto wire racks to cool completely.

Source: The Comfort of Cooking