Bourbon Pecan Chicken

This is an old picture, but this is the meal I made for Joe last February for Valentine's Day. He still tells me it is all time favorite meal that I have cooked! I got the idea from one of our favorite restaurants, City Range. They have Bourbon Pecan Chicken on the menu and I order it every single time we go there! I have been craving it and am thinking about making it this week, so I thought I'd share the recipe!

Hope you make it and love it as much as we do!


BOURBoN PECAN CHICKEN


Ingredients

* 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
* 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
* 8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
* 1/4 cup clarified butter, melted
* 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
* 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
* 2 2/3 tablespoons bourbon whiskey
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
* 3/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
* 1/2 cup sliced green onions


Directions

1. Stir together the pecans, bread crumbs, and 2 tablespoons of clarified butter. Spread the mixture out on a plate. Press the chicken breasts into the mixture to coat on both sides. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of clarified butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Place the coated chicken breasts in the pan, and fry on both sides until nicely browned and chicken meat is cooked through, about 10 minutes per side.
2. In a small saucepan, whisk together the Dijon mustard, brown sugar, bourbon, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce until smooth. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, then remove from the burner, and whisk in the 3/4 cup of unsalted butter one piece at a time. Do not return to the heat.
3. Arrange the chicken breasts on a large serving plate. Pour the sauce over the chicken, and sprinkle with green onion.

My First Wedding Planning Experience!

Everyone has their absolute dream job, and being a wedding planner is mine! I also LOVE floral design, photography, and designing wedding stationery. My HUGE dream is to one day own some kind of full service wedding company! Has anyone ever read the The Bride Quartet of books by Nora Roberts? The books are about a group of friends who live in a fabulous wedding venue, and offer all of my favorite things. If you haven't read them, you must...such a guilty pleasure!

Anyway, enough rambling; I got to have my first real experience (outside of my own wedding) doing all of my favorite things when my sweet friend Rebekah got married and asked me to be the planner/florist/director. I had the most amazing time helping her, and am so sad it's over!

When she first got engaged and asked me to help, we sat down and looked through the hundreds of wedding inspiration I saved on my computer, and also did Google Image Searches for "rustic weddings," "outdoor weddings," "wildflower bouquets." She is a girl who loves to be outside and her favorite place in the world to be is riding horses.

Soon after she was engaged, I went to her hometown, and we toured a lot of potential venues. She knew she wanted the ceremony and reception to be outside, and after seeing a few no go's, we found the most perfect place.

She decided to get married under this beautiful magnolia tree, on the lawn of a gorgeous historic home in Camden, South Carolina. I was so thrilled she picked Louise C. Proctor Hall because I had a million ideas running through my head the second we pulled in the driveway.

We scoured the internet some more and found the perfect collection of inspiration pictures:






*Image from Tahni and Joseph's Wedding by Clayton Austin

The rest of our inspiration came from one of my favorite blogger's beautiful wedding. Samma, from Spice and Sass became Rebekah's wedding crush and we loved everything she did! We especially loved all of the flowers, and decided that we, too, wanted the look of wildflowers!

Here are a few pictures from her gorgeous wedding!






How beautiful was her wedding? I absolutely love the look of all of the different color flowers in the bouquets. I could go on for days about everything I loved about Samma's wedding!

With our newly found inspiration, we were all set for the wedding of Rebekah's dreams!

Coming up: Pictures of Rebekah's special day and all of my hard work!

Shrimp and Grits

Since moving up north, I have been craving some good ol' southern comfort food! I have been thinking about Shrimp and Grits and have been salivating for weeks, so I decided to finally make my favorite dish!

My mom found a recipe for Shrimp and Grits in Cooking Light that is almost like the version from our favorite restaurant in Simpsonville, Stella's Southern Bistro. By the way, if you live anywhere near Simpsonville or Greenville, SC; you absolutely have to go there and order the Shrimp and Grits (well, everything they have there is heavenly!)

Here is the recipe from Cooking Light (changes I made are in parentheses):


Ingredients

* 3 cups low-fat milk
* 1 cup water
* 1 tablespoon butter
* 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
* 1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits
* 1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
* 4 slices applewood-smoked bacon (I like a lot of bacon so I used 6)
* 1 pound peeled, deveined large shrimp
* 1 cup thinly vertically sliced white onion
* 2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
* 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce or chopped chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce
* 1/8 teaspoon ground or crushed red pepper (I omitted both the pepper sauce and red pepper because I'm a wimp!)
* 1/4 cup green onion strips


Preparation

1. Combine milk, water, butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer; gradually add grits, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat to medium; cook 4 minutes or until thick, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in cheese.

2. While grits cook, cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings; crumble bacon. Add shrimp to drippings in pan; cook 2 minutes on each side or until done. Remove shrimp from pan. Add white onion to pan; sauté 1 minute. Stir in bacon, tomatoes, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon black pepper; sauté 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add shrimp, pepper sauce, and red pepper; cook 1 minute or until shrimp are heated. Serve over grits; sprinkle with green onions.


I'm telling you: this recipe will change your life! You're welcome! :)

Quick Fix!

My grandparents got new dining room furniture this past year, I was the lucky recipient of their old set! I knew we wouldn't have room for all of it in our studio, so we stuck it in my parents' attic until we move somewhere with a dining room.

Fast forward to the first week of August (a week before the big move;) I had a huge "AHA!" moment after searching high and low for two chairs I could use as extras for our dining table. I already have 4 shabby chic white chairs, but I wanted two totally different chairs to use when we have guests over. I never could find exactly what I was looking for until I was in my parents' attic packing up boxes for the move. I thought, "DUHHH!", why don't I just reupholster two of the beautiful wood dining chairs that my grandparents gave to me??

I've helped my mom reupholster her dining room chairs before, so I knew it would be super easy and a quick fix! I headed out to my favorite fabric store in Greenville in search of the perfect fabric. I knew I wanted something fun in one of my accent colors (aqua, pear green, or orange), and in a fun, graphic pattern to contrast my floral pillows on the couch. After walking round and round the store for way too long, I found the perfect fabric. I bought a yard for $10, and was so excited to get started:


(new fabric on the left, pillow fabric on right)

I absolutely LOVE the polka dots with the floral pattern. I am a huge fan of mixing patterns...some may think that's against the rules, but I say go for it!


(original chair and fabric on the left)

It was super easy to reupholster! I unscrewed the seats from the chair and laid it down on the fabric to see how big of a piece I needed to cut. After cutting the fabric, I used an electric staple gun and stapled the new fabric to the underside of the seat; making sure it was taught all the way around.

They look amazing and are exactly what I wanted! What a cheap, and quick fix!



Here they are in action (not being used since we don't have any friends yet! haha!):


I have seen tons of chairs at thrift store and on Craigslist that are in need of some love! If you are in need of new chairs, think about doing this quick fix!

Picture Wall

I.LOVE.PICTURE.WALLS!

No matter where we moved, I knew that we were going to have a picture wall somewhere! Luckily, our new apartment had the perfect place for one: behind our couch! I can never decide on one picture, so it's only natural that I would want a huge wall of a ton of pictures! I've been collecting inspiration pictures for what seems like forever, here are a few:

My favorite bloggers at Young House Love have this adorable picture wall in their little girl Clara's nursery. LOVE!







After gathering inspiration pictures, I had to decide how I wanted my picture wall to look. Straight, and grid-like, or random and funky? I decided to go the random and funky route because, let's be honest, it was a lot less work! I HATE measuring and using a level to hang pictures, so by doing it this way, I was able to hang it however I pleased! The next decision I had to make was the color and style of the frames. I love the look of using different colors and styles of frames in one picture wall, but I decided to use all black frames to tie in the black dresser that houses our TV (and all of Joe's clothes.) I did change it up a little bit and used some ivory mattes, and some bright white mattes (yeah, yeah, I'm crazy like that!)

I already had a black frame of four Charleston pictures I took on a past trip, so that was my starting off point. Joe and I went to Ikea this past Friday, and I may or may not have laid out an entire grouping of frames on the floor of the picture frame aisle. He was a little embarrassed, but hey, it got the job done! I got 6 black (super cheap) Ribba frames in different sizes, and one other frame that I can't remember the name of. If you have an Ikea near you: run, don't walk and get you some frames (you're going to hear me say this a lot!) When I got home, I ordered the wedding pictures I wanted to put in them on Snapfish, and got to work finalizing my plan!

I was a super dork, and laid all of the frames out on my bed just like I did in the Ikea aisle.


Then I was an even bigger dork, and drew it out on a piece of paper so I would know what I was doing once it came time to hang the frames. It was a HUGE help!


Then TA DA! It was a cinch to hang them! Love, love, love how it turned out! It's exactly what I wanted! Forgot to mention the big blue "F": that was a wooden letter from Hobby Lobby that I spray painted with my favorite blue spray paint. Told you it's my new best friend! I just stuck that sucker up with some velcro strips!




I have some other really great ideas to fill up big empty walls: coming soon! I sure wish I had enough walls to do them all! :)

My Best Friend...Spray Paint!

I have always loved spray paint, but it definitely became my new best friend this summer! Since we were decorating on a budget, it was a lot easier to buy something and spray paint it the color we wanted it, rather than buy something full price and brand new. Also, it's a quick and easy way to personalize something and make it all yours!

One of my favorite bloggers from Three Men and a Lady was one of my biggest inspirations! Here are some pictures from a recent post she did about her new guest bathroom. It is full of things that she spray painted; they were once old, and now look brand new!

She spray painted an old, cast iron bird and it is precious! Here is the before:


And here's the after...is this not too cute??


Here is an estate sale mirror she found. I love it in gold and would look so good in a room with an eclectic style, but I absolutely LOVE what she did. I think anything spray painted white turns out perfect!



Here is the after! Don't you just love the white? Love the contrast between the fancy, curvy mirror and the stark white paint!


This is my favorite thing from her new bathroom because I did something similar! You can find these types of frames anywhere! I have found a lot of them at TJ Maxx and Home Goods. Here is her before:


And the after...LOVE it!


I was silly and forgot to take some before shots (just picture them plain and white before), but here are two things I painted with aqua spray paint I bought at Home Depot. For around $6, I totally revamped a picture frame and a cabinet that I already had! Can't get any cheaper than that!

Here is the picture frame. Love it! It adds the little pop of aqua that I wanted in my living room!


This is a cabinet I've had since elementary school. It used to hold all of my Disney princess VHS tapes, my Pogs collection, and old notes from middle school crushes. It was kind of sad to clean it out and paint it, but I love the way it turned out! Since storage in a studio apartment is limited, I decide to bring this cabinet to store my massive collection of jewelry, and also all of my paints and paintbrushes! I spray painted it the same blue as the picture frame, but sanded down all of the edges to give it a weathered look. After that, I still wanted it to be a little more rustic, so I dry brushed on some black craft paint, then wiped it off quickly to give it a little more depth! I also spray painted the old hardware gold, and used a fun glass knob my mom already had! Here it is:





So, the moral of the story is: spray paint can be your new best friend, too! You won't believe the difference it will make! Happy painting!

We're finally in NY!

WOO HOO! We finally made it to New York!

After months and months of planning and packing, and two long days of driving, we made it to White Plains and are finally settled in!

Last week was really hectic: trying to unpack all of the boxes that took over our entire studio, making sure all of our furniture actually fit, and finding a place for everything took a while! Everything is unpacked and put away (for the most part), and it finally feels like home!

I have been collecting furniture and different things for the apartment for the past year or so. I knew that I had to stray away from all of the pink I used in my college apartment, and use a color that was more male friendly! I decided aqua blue would be perfect and wouldn't overpower our tiny little studio apartment. Since it is a studio and is very open, I used the same aqua color throughout the space without overdoing it (in my opinion!)

I also wanted another pop of color in the living area, so I decided to use orange and pear green. I LOVE the way it turned out! We kept the wall colors the way they were when we moved in (beige) and used fun pillows, fabric, and accessories to jazz it up!

Here is what it looked like in when we started, and when it was FULL of crap:







Here are some "After" pictures...or more like "During" since I'm not quite finished!







I have lots of "how to" posts coming soon with detailed pictures!

My sweet friend, Allison, posted about our apartment on her blog, The Owen's Opus. She and her husband live in Colorado, and I miss her terribly. Check her out!