It's Not Easy Being Green

I have been living with green...and when I say green, I mean GREEN!  Green carpet, green paint and even green inset paint on the doors!  I have patiently waited months...make that years for the green to be erased.  I even shared my hate for the green in this post. Finally this weekend the green carpet was evicted!

We had no idea what was under the carpet, so I was a little nervous knowing we'd be living with whatever it was for a while as we paint and re-floor the entire upstairs.  I had nightmares of broken floor boards from the 1900's full of splinters that would get in people and animal feet!  Boy oh boy was I surprised!
First layer under the field of green was of course carpet padding...

second layer...

VINYL!  I couldn't believe it!  It's a sheet of vinyl on top of the original floor boards...what a relief!  Laying a new floor will be simple (so we hope) on top of that!

We have a bit more carpet that has to come up, then we'll paint and lay a nice new floor!  I can't wait...stay tuned...I'm sure it won't be this easy much longer!

Simplest Chicken Ever!

Just the other day suzyhomemaker shared a simple recipe for chicken in the crock pot.  Coincidentally, my grocery store had whole roaster chickens on sale for $.99/lb so I thought it was the perfect week to try this new recipe!

The recipe is SO simple...rub the chicken with some spices, plop it in the slow cooker and you're done!
Suzyhomemaker suggested a few seasoning options but since I am planning to use the leftover meat in a tortilla type soup I opted for something with a bit of...we'll call it Mexican flare!

I cooked mine on low for 8 hours, but by 6 hours the popup had popped so I tested it with a meat thermometer and it was done.  Since it was done early, I basted it with its own juices and put the slow cooker on warm!  The meat was so tender it was falling off the bone just from the pressure of the juices flowing over it!  At that point my mouth began watering...but I had to wait another 2 hours for dinner, so I put it on warm and basted it a few times.

Finally, it was dinner time...I was very excited to try this chicken that was smelling so yummy!  I attempted to lift it out to carve it and the entire chicken crumbled!  Apparently it was overcooked! The bones and cartilage just fell to pieces.  I was heartbroken...but I saved a good amount of meat, which was delicious!!

I will definitely make this chicken again, but now I know the correct timing!
Lesson learned: The chicken keeps cooking, even on warm!