Garlic Chicken and Baked Potatoes

*thank you Derf and copykat.com for your pictures

Last night was another adventurous cooking excursion for me. Garlic chicken sounded pretty good and I also found out how to make baked potatoes with crispy and salty outsides. YUMMM.

I started with the baked potatoes.
1. Clean your potatoes.
2. Coat the skin in olive oil
3. Pour some sea salt on it.
4. Put it in the oven on 400 degrees for an hour.
You say, it can't be that simple. But it is! I couldn't believe it.

For an even bigger surprise, the garlic chicken was quick and easy too. The night before I set out some frozen chicken tenderloins because who wants to go to Walmart just to get some fresh chicken? And when I got home they were ready to be cooked.
You need:

4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil

I used already minced garlic cloves because let's be serious, I can't cut an apple without an apple cutter thing. It says how much one clove is on the bottle, mine was 1/2 teaspoon. I used a little extra because I read that it isn't as strong as fresh garlic, naturally. Anyway, here are the steps.

1. Up your oven temp or start preheating to 450 degrees. Put aluminum foil on a baking sheet or dish.

2. Saute your garlic in a pan. (for how to saute garlic go watch this video)

3. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.

4. Coat the chicken in this mixture -coat it real good.

5. Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes.

It turned out to be another success, luckily. I've also added it to the meals I will be fixing often :)

Tell me how yours turns out!

Experiment: Crockpot Lasagna

*thanks tablespoon.com for your picture

LASAGNA.
Of course!
Crockpot lasagna none the less.
This is looks SUPER easy and it's Tyler's favorite food so why not get him to be the one to truly critique it?

What you need:
1 lb ground beef
pasta sauce (I used a can of Hunt's sauce from Dollar General)
lasagna noodles
2 & 1/2 cups cottage cheese
4 cups mozzarella cheese

First things first, brown the meat. Apparently that is pretty important. Then, stir the pasta sauce in with the meat. Put 1/3 layer of meat sauce in the bottom of crock pot and layer with noodles (you do not have to cook these first). Mix the cottage cheese and mozzarella together in a separate bowl, then put 1/3 mix over the noodles. Repeat the meat, noodle, cheese steps two more times. Then all you have to do is cook it on low for 4 hours!

HINT: If you have a new crock pot you might want to lessen the time to 2 or 3 hours.

I must say that Tyler was pleased with the results and so was I! It was, however, burnt all around the edges because our crockpot is so new. I think this recipe is going in my favorites though! Now, what to cook next....