Lemon Chicken Breast w/ Roasted Broccolini and Green Beans!

These are two recipes that I have seen on TV a few times being made and finally I was like..ok they look too delicious so I am gonna print out the recipes and make them for dinner one night!!

The Roasted Broccolini and Green Beans is a Rachel Ray Recipe and the Lemon Chicken Breast comes from Ina Garten aka The Barefoot Contessa! I watch both shows everyday (just ask Danny he now HATES the Food Network!! LOL) and love most everything they make!

So here are the recipes!! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did...and if you end up trying them please come back and let me know what you thought too! :)

Roasted Broccolini and Green Beans

Ingredients

• 2 bundles broccolini, trim off ends
• 1 pound string beans, trimmed
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Arrange broccolini and beans on a cookie sheet. Coat the vegetables in oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast 15 to 18 minutes, until nutty and crispy at edges.

Lemon Chicken Breast

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic (9 cloves)
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on (6 to 8 ounces each)
• 1 lemon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, and cook for just 1 minute but don't allow the garlic to turn brown. Off the heat, add the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice,oregano, thyme, and 1 teaspoon salt and pour into a 9 by 12-inch baking dish.

Pat the chicken breasts dry and place them skin side up over the sauce. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and tuck it among the pieces of chicken.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts, until the chicken is done and the skin is lightly browned. If the chicken isn't browned enough, put it under the broiler for 2 minutes. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the pan juices.

And....this is my finished plate! To go along with the Chicken and Vegetables I just made a herb/butter rice side dish that came out of a packet. I wanna say it was the Lipton Rice Side! The whole meal had tons of flavor and the chicken was very juicy!! Now get cooking and enjoy!! :)

P.S. I forgot to mention if you can't find chicken breast with the skin on and no bone (like me) just take it up to the meat guy behind the counter at your local grocery store and ask him to do it!! They will be happy to! :)

rATG and things..

I know I said I would update up all once my 5 day treatment was over...but once I got home I still had the body aches and slight itchiness that went alone with the drug. So I was in no mood to type an entry. Plus I was on a temporary "house arrest" since the rATG completely wiped out my immune system so I was told to stay aways from large crowds for a while!

I go back up to Gainesville on the 22nd of August to do another bronch and hope that all the rejection is gone! ***Everyone cross fingers***

Then at 1:45 I have an appointment with the vascular surgeons who worked on my leg...I have been having some swelling in my left foot and I just want to make sure everything is all good. So at 1:45 I have a ABIS test done to measure the pressures in my leg and then tuesday morning and 9:20 we have an actual appt with the dr who will go over the test results....and then we will be heading them!! :)

The last couple of weeks have been kind of boring for me being locked in the house and everything but its over now so I am a happy camper! I am eager to get back to the gym couldn't do that the last 2 weeks either so I am sure all the soreness I worked through all ready is gonna be back in full force!! Ouch...

The only other new thing I have been doing is seeing a massage lady once a month to work on my leg/foot pain and the pain I get in my lower back....it seems to be going good. I figure since I have the numbness in my foot/ankle/leg sometimes that the massage is good to getting the circulation moving around those ares again and I am hoping the feeling comes back!

Also, I used to write on this blog all the time because that's all i did was write about things that were going wrong with me. Well now that that has faded I think I am gonna try and change my format a little. I will still update on my health cause u know we all still have our ups and downs there just not as frequent!

So since I LOVE to cook every night and my friends are always asking for the recipes I figured every night after dinner (or lets be honest maybe the next morning) I will post the pictures of what we ate plus the corresponding recipe to that picture! Plus I am in the middle of re-doing some of our rooms so I will post pre and post of those projects as well!!

Well what do you think would you read a semi health/semi cooking/semi decorating blog from me?? Let me know what ya'll think!! :)

Bronch Results

Hi all!

Last week (Tuesday to be exact) I had a bronch done up in Gainesville. I had a regular check-up scheduled for that Wednesday but had been coughing a little bit so I called and had a bronch scheduled just to be on the safe side. On a side note Danny had been sick for like 3 days with coughing/runny nose so I was just hoping I didn't get anything from him. We took precautions and had him sleep downstairs and all but still you never know...

Well I just got the call from my coordinator and I have Acute Rejection! So they are admitting me on Monday and they said plan on being there for 5 days for treatment! :(

I am not looking forward to being admitted...but hopefully whatever my wonderful doctor does will nip this rejection in the bud and I can go back home feeling great!

I will update while I am there also to let you all know how I am doing...talk to you soon!

XoxoX

p.s. any good movies or whole seasons of shows u suggest that I could bring with me??

Its been WAY to long...

I don't even know where to begin! Its been so long since I wrote a blog and everyday I tell myself ok I am gonna write one and then I just don't.

I have been feeling SO great lately and am hardly ever home during the day anymore and thats when I usually wrote my blog post! But tonight I was like ok this is getting ridiculous, sit down and write something....so here it goes! :)

In the last month, I had my 6 month transplantaversary, my 4 YEAR wedding anniversary, been to Orlando twice (once for a the weekend with Danny for a Disney trip for out Anniversary and once for a week with my parents at there time share) both trips were awesome and I had a blast!

I think the best part for me about Disney was the fact that we got there at 8:30am and didn't leave the park till 10:30pm and I walked ALL day with out being out of breath, tired or needing any breaks besides when we stopped for food/drinks. My brother-in-law who is a firefighter actually started complaining about his feet hurting around noon...by the end of the day I told him if I had to hear about his feet one more time I was gonna punch him in the eye!! LOL

A few weeks ago I joined the gym around the corner from house. I started with just doing the treadmill for 30 minutes and now am up to a little over an hour there doing both the treadmill and weight machines for my arms and legs. I go pretty much every other day and I really enjoy it. At first I was SO sore but now its much better and I can feel myself getting a little stronger every week! I have finally gotten brave enough to try a spin class so I think my SIL and I are going to try a class sometime next week. The only sucky thing is the class is usually at like 9am and I am SO not a morning person and neither is my SIL Stephanie! But I am willing to get up and give it a try because everyone who takes the class just loves it.

I think I mentioned before that Danny was re-doing the downstairs bathroom and guest room. Well he has been working so much that its taken awhile to get things done but the bathroom is FINALLY done and the bedroom is almost done so I will try and get pictures up of the final product....I just LOVE my bathroom! :)

On a sad note a good friend of mine that I met last year past away this past Sunday. Sara lived in my town and had 2 tx's in Gainesville where I had my surgery. About 3 weeks ago our Dr sent her home with nothing else he could do for her chronic rejection and after being home for a week they called in hospice. On June 17th, Sara and her boyfriend Jesse were married in a little ceremony outside there home and on the following Sunday (June 19th) she passed away. I got to see her and say goodbye on Saturday and I have to say it was very heartbreaking for me but I am glad she isn't suffering anymore. Nobody should have to go through that...the person or their family. Its very sad. She was such a loving, caring and kind person and if you knew her and were lucky enough to call her your friend then you know just how special she was. No matter how sick she was she always took the time daily to text me to see how I was doing and was truly 100% happy for me that I was doing well and living life to the fullest...and I honestly don't know how she did it cause I don't think I am that type of person....but hopefully I can take a little piece of Sara with me and strive to be more like her. The world would be a much kinder place with more people like Sara in it.

On that sad note (now that I am crying once again) I think I will end my post for tonight and I will really try to update more often! Tomorrow I will try to get some pictures up of my 2 mini vacations when I get home from the gym!! :)

Good Night!!

XoxoX

Last Week...

Well last Monday my SIL Stephanie took me back up to Gainesville for an x-ray to see how my little lungies were doing and he ended up scheduling a bronch for that afternoon and I was admitted again! :(

Steph spent the night with me and then headed home the next morning after we woke up. I am so lucky to have a SIL like her...she is ALWAYS there when I need her no matter what!

Unfortunately, we aren't entirely sure what is going on with me. When he does an xray and bronch it looks like pneumonia in the left lung but I have had no fevers at all (knock on wood!) and my biopsy's keep coming back negative for rejection but for some reason I don't think he is happy with those answers and thinks something else is going on! He said infection/rejection can look the same in a bronch so sometimes its hard to tell. So at the moment I am on IV cefipime twice a day and while I was admitted into the hospital I did 3 days of high solumerol IV and now I am on a prednisone tapper. Oh I am also on coumadin for a month (hello bruise city!) because I had a CT scan last week that showed a small blood clot so they are treating me for that as well! I tell yeah if it isn't one thing its another! :(

Easter was great. Dinner with my family was awesome and I am glad I wasn't in the "Get Well Hotel" as one of my friends calls it! I was there for 4 days last week but was able to leave on Friday to join my parents and little sister in Panama City Beach for the weekend to visit my Aunt and Uncle! It was a nice but WAY to short of a trip....next time it will have to be a longer

visit and maybe Danny can go too!

Our little family at Easter!

Me & Danny! :)

Me & Jessie in Panama City Beach!

Speaking of Danny...while I was away my awesome husband checked some things off his Honey-Do list and painted/added chair-rail to the living room and dining room. I am so thankful to have a husband that is handy AND motivated to actually do the projects that I think up in my head! :)

boring living room from when we first moved in....

slowly getting there...

Dining room from when we first moved in...

Now! :)

Well, thats all I got for now...I am on IV's for the rest of the week and have to go to a clinic appointment on May 11th so we will see what he says then. I have a meeting tomorrow for Jen's Kids so we will see how that turns out. The hospital unfortunately hasn't done a darn thing while I was away so we are meeting to decide where to go from here. I am kind of disappointed in them that they dropped the ball so we will see.

Anyway....have a great week everyone!! XoxoX