I Heart Chicken Parm...

I branched out tonight and made something other than baked chicken... one of my all time favorites, Chicken Parmasean. Okay, okay, so it's still in the chicken family, but this time I had to coat it, and pan fry it, and bake it, and turn it... there were multiple steps I had to follow which upped the cooking difficulty for me, so I consider it branching out. I found the recipe on a healthy cooking website, so it was actually fairly low in fat and calories - a definite plus! And since I got a late start on dinner, I just paired it with a ceasar salad - fat free dressing, of course. :)

Logan asked me to save the recipe, which means the meal was a success! If you're interested in the recipe, here it is:

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 breast half)

Ingredients
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
3/4 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Cooking spray
1/2 cup jarred tomato-basil pasta sauce
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 450°.

2. Combine first 3 ingredients in a shallow dish; place egg whites in a bowl. Place panko in a shallow dish. Dredge 1 breast half in flour mixture. Dip in egg whites; dredge in panko. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken, flour mixture, egg whites, and panko.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan; cook 2 minutes. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Turn chicken over; cook 2 minutes. Coat chicken with cooking spray; place pan in oven. Bake at 450° for 5 minutes. Turn chicken over; top each breast half with 2 tablespoons sauce, 2 tablespoons Parmigiano-Reggiano, and 3 tablespoons mozzarella. Bake 6 minutes or until chicken is done.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 401
Fat: 16.9g (sat 6.4g,mono 7.6g,poly 1.3g)
Protein: 44.4g
Carbohydrate: 15.9g
Fiber: 0.6g
Cholesterol: 95mg
Iron: 1.8mg
Sodium: 719mg
Calcium: 352mg

I took this picture of Logan, patiently waiting for dinner to be ready. I thought it was cute.
If anyone decides to try the chicken parm, be sure to let me know how it turns out for you!

Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Connell!!

This past weekend, Whitney and Cody got married!! The wedding was absolutely beautiful - even if the venue did change 28 days before the big day. :) (We think it made it even better.)

We started the weekend out with a bridal lunch at the Pyramid Room at the Fairmont downtown, and then headed over to the Nail and Spa for manicures and pedicures. (Love that place!)Next was the Rehearsal. The wedding took place at the Meyerson Symphony Center downtown. Here is a shot I got of Whitney and Cody practicing their vows. Afterwards we headed over to the original El Fenix for the Rehearsal Dinner. We had tons of yummy Mexican food, wine and my favorite - Sangrias! Here's Dee Dee and I.And one with the bride-to-be!The next morning, everyone headed back over to the Fairmont to get ready. Whitney getting that gorgeous gown on at the Meyerson!Whitney and her sweet mom, Ginger, just a few minutes before the ceremony. Aren't they beautiful??The bride and groom at the reception!I LOVE this picture of Whitney and Cody cutting the cake. (Click on it to enlarge it. It's worth it to see how happy she is.)Feeding the cake to each other. No icing anywhere! Dancing the night away...Towards the end of the night...With my sweet Children's friend, Angela. I love her! MY hubby and me! :) (It's a little blurry, but it's the only one we got together all night.)

Congratulations again Whitney and Cody! We love you guys, and can't wait till you get back from your honeymoon!

Cooking...

Turns out I still really enjoy cooking, and I don't think I'm half bad either! (My only consistent critic is Logan though, and he's pretty easy to please when it comes to food. Works out well for me!)

For some reason, I like taking pictures of my "cullinary masterpieces" when I'm finished. I guess coming from a family that ate out every meal, cooking something at home is an accomplishment to be proud of, so I feel the need to document it. Indulge me. ;)

Anyway, the other night I baked chicken, and roasted veggies, rosemary potatoes, and asparagus. The chicken wasn't the best I've made, but I've got the sides down!

Next time I'll try to branch out and attempt a slightly more difficult meal...

The Wedding Slideshow

We recently got our wedding proofs back from the photographers, and I LOVE them! It will still be a while before we have the CD of all the images for me to post favorites, but for now, enjoy the wedding day slideshow they made for us. Just click on the link below. (It may take several minutes to load, but I think it's worth the wait!) ;)

http://www.images.bludoorstudios.com/lorinandlogan/

Enjoy!

Oh, so homey!

Since the wedding, I've been working on making the condo more cozy with all of our wedding gifts and gift cards, and thought I'd show the progress!

We LOVE the wine bar my parents got us, along with the wine glasses from Pottery Barn from my grandparents. The McNulty's also gave us the great wine bucket from PB and we've already discovered how much we love it. We'll put the wine in the bucket and bring it over to the ottoman for easy refills while we're watching a movie on the couch. Genius! We used money from gift cards to buy the great mirror and rug for the living room. As you can see, Lucy enjoys the rug. (We keep finding her rolling over and over on it...)My parents also got us the candlesticks from Pottery Barn. Seriously - I love that store. They're perfect right next to the fireplace. My sister in law Jessica got Logan and I this cute sign that says "The Lowrys, Established 2010", and we finally found the perfect place to hang it! We also used gift card money to buy these shelves from Pottery Barn for the bedroom. The room finally looks like grown ups live there. :) When we bought the TV for the bedroom, the plan all along was to wall mount it. I'm happy to finally see it on the wall! The first two months of married life have been great, and I've had a lot of fun decorating our place, making it our home. :)

Our Wedding Tree...

A friend of mine from work at Children's showed me this idea of The Wedding Tree, and I completely fell in love with it and decided to use it for our wedding day. Guests place their fingerprint on the branches as a leaf and then sign their name around it. It becomes sort of a guest book you hang on your wall.

My good friend Jenny is incredibly artistic and did an amazing job creating the tree for us. She was sweet enough to take pictures of the process along the way. A close up of the fingerprints and names on the finished product. Our Wedding Tree! It's hanging over our fireplace where we can see the names of our guests who celebrated our wedding day with us. Due to the rain on the wedding day, I don't think everyone got a chance to sign the tree since it was located on the porch of Rosine Hall for a good part of the night, but I still think we had a great turn out with the number of "leaves" we got! I just love how our tree turned out. :)

Whitney's Bachelorette Party!

It's officially Whitney's wedding season! To kick it off, we surprised her by having her bachelorette party in Downtown Dallas at the Joule Hotel in an amazing suite. Her sister, Laura, did a fantastic job of decorating the place. Everything was adorable! A couple of the gifts...So cute!After opening her lingere, we headed up to the Joule's pool on the roof of the hotel! There were amazing views of the city there. Next we headed over to The Girl's Room for a really fun pole dancing class! We had no idea what a serious workout pole dancing is. It was so much fun, and even though I hate working out and sweating, I'd totally go again. (The girls voted me the one who could spin around on the pole the most times. Logan was proud.) We headed back to the hotel to have some snacks and clean up before going out downtown. I brought Whitney the veil I wore at my bachelorette party. While she didn't wear it out, I sure thought she looked cute in it!After getting ready, we walked over to the Iron Cactus and sat on the upstairs patio. Sandeep from Children's even joined us! All the girls at the end of the night. We had such a great time celebrating with Whitney. Now there's less then 4 weeks until her big day, and I can't wait!