I really love easy meals. Half the time I want to add the word “easy” to my recipe titles, because a lot of them really are easy! I don’t really like cooking or preparing difficult dishes.. complex steps and crazy ingredients don’t catch my eye. I am not sure about other people, but when I find a recipe I like on pinterest, I visit the actual site before pinning it to make sure they aren’t fooling me. I don’t want to pin a whole bunch of things I will never make. Maybe I should rename my “cooking” pinterest board to “EASY MEALS!!!” You can check out my pinterest boards here!

Barbecue Dijon Chicken in the crock pot!
4-6 chicken breasts, frozen or fresh
1 bottle BBQ sauce, about 12 oz – I love Sweet Baby Ray’s and it’s gluten free
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing – or pretty much any vinaigrette, I think I used a parmesan basil dressing
1/3 cup Dijon Mustard
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Mix the BBQ, vinaigrette dressing, dijon, worcestershire sauce and onion in a bowl. Pour this mixture over the chicken and make sure if covers the chicken, or mostly covers. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours. Occasionally flip the chicken if you’re able. 1 hour before the chicken is to come out, I will shred the chicken with 2 forks. Sometimes it shreds easily in the crock pot, other times I pull it out and shred it on a cutting board and put it back in for about an hour. This chicken is great with baked potatoes, chips or on sandwich rolls!

Also, I have some exciting news!

5 weeks ago I changed the focus of my blog. I had been posting more about what was going on in mine and Ryan’s lives, but now the focus of The First Year Blog is DIY/tutorials for recipes and crafts. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still learn things about us, but I love what I am blogging about now. In the past 5 weeks, I have been learning a lot about recipe/craft blogs, link parties, and what it takes to reach your audience.

In the midst of the change, I was receiving a lot of visitors and positive feedback about the recipes and crafts I was posting. My goal for the month of January was to get 3,000 views, and at one point I didn’t think I would hit that number. But I have been completely blown away! The First Year Blog received 5,495 views in January and was featured on 19 blogs (see here)!!! I am so thankful and appreciative of everyone who has visited!

Linking to these parties!