chili.

There is finally a chill in the air......time for chili.  Here is my recipe.  I hope you enjoy!

easy V-8 chili

1 big bottle of v-8

3 cans of beans ( i like black beans and kidney beans for chili)

cholula hot sauce

1 can of diced green chilis

chili powder

1 can diced tomatoes

Get a big stock pot and put it on the stove.  Turn the burner on to a medium high heat.  This soup cooks up quick, which is how I like it.  Open all your cans and dump ingredients in.  Do not drain anything.  Add all the juices from your cans.  You want this chili to be easy.  I'm sort of lazy when it comes to cooking and most of the time I want my meals to be quick and easy.   Next, pour in your v-8.  v-8 is amazing in soups!  (It is so good in taco soup and tomato soup.)  Then add your spices as the soup comes to a boil. Taste test periodically to taste if you got it spicy enough.  Remember, the flavors will merge as the chili cooks.  You probably won't need to add much spice, unless you're like me and like it good and hot.  Once you've got it perfect, serve it up with a little shredded Mexican cheese on top, and maybe a sprinkling of goldfish crackers.  I like to set out raw baby carrots to eat on the side (they are cold and feel good on the tongue if your chili is too hot).  We like to have root beer with chili, and if we're really hungry, we'll cook up some hot dogs (hebrew national is the only way to go).  The best thing about chili, besides the fact that it tastes great and is super healthy, is that you can throw in whatever and it somehow still always turns out fantastic.  You really can't screw up chili.(Sometimes I add meat to my chili - ground turkey or extra lean ground beef -.  If I do want meat in it, I will brown the meat in the stock pot first, and season it with chili powder.  I also like to add extra fresh or canned veggies sometimes too.  Mushrooms, onions, zucchini, squash, corn....whatever you have on hand.  Sometimes I'll throw in a can of tomato paste or a can of rotel.)

Send me a link to your chili recipes!!  I'd love to know how you make yours! Fall food is just the best.  I can't wait to try out some of the fall recipes I have been seeing pop up in my I Heart Fall class....they look so yummy.  I'm going to try some new ones I've been wanting to also, like roasted pecans!  What are you making this fall?

Hallelujah we have a working oven!

Thanks to my grandma getting a new oven, we finally now have a working one.  I am beyond grateful. Since Tuesday night we've had these dinners:

-chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, green beans, walnut chocolate chip cookies
-DiGiornio pizza & bread sticks (supreme), broccoli, peaches
-pork loins, roasted carrots & potatoes, cinnamon apples

Yum.
Having all your kitchen appliances in working order makes it so easy to get dinner on the table.  Yes, I could have (and did) prepared meals without an oven, but it's nice to not have to stress over weather you can prepare the diner or not.  I mean, it's hard enough deciding what to eat in the first place!  Trying to eat healthfully, affordably, and excitingly (eventually Subway gets very very old) is extremely difficult to accomplish every night.  There is peace of mind that you are doing the right thing when you cook meals for your family and eat with them.  The kids can feel special when they help prep food (and the teaching opportunities are endless), you know exactly what is in your food (it is so hard to have an actual balanced healthy meal when you get take-out all the time).  Even at sandwich joints, which is where we ate from most of the time (enter kid meals that come with a choice of chips or a cookie.  I'm talking about you Quiznos).  It's also great to teach manners.....like cleaning off a dish and thanking the person who cooked you food instead of just throwing trash away.  Veggies becoming a dinner staple again (not just a random pickle in a sandwich), have become a great bargaining chip too.  Yeah you can have a peach.  After you eat all your broccoli.  Breakfast was pretty simple to do without an oven.  We did have a range top that worked.  :)  But it is fun to know that we can now have things like quiche, and muffins.  So yes, I am beyond thrilled.  And just in time for my favorite season!  What are you all cooking up?

the meat train

I think I want to be a vegetarian.  I've been really grossed out by meat lately, particularly in the last week.  I'm really not sure what it was that made me want to jump off the meat train.  It will most likely be a gradual process.  I'm not ready to give up fish and seafood yet.  And I will never ever become a vegan.  I love milk and cheese and eggs waaaaaaay too much! 

My reasons to give up meat:

1. It's expensive.  Especially if you are purchasing organic meat (which you should be doing, but that is a whole other topic).
2. It's disgusting.  I've always been creeped out about raw meat.  I just hate walking past the butcher section in the grocery store.  It stinks.  And all those neat little packages of bloody meat lined up in neat little rows on display just feels terribly wrong.  Raw meat has bothered me since I was a little girl.  I have to double bag it and place it on the bottom of the cart so it doesn't touch any of my other food.  In the check out I ask that the meat be put in a separate bag.  And when I have to cook meat I usually don't want to eat it.  I still eat it.  Meat tastes good.  But preparing it yourself is awful.  Eating out is worse though.  I can't believe the things they try to pass off as meat!  Those cold slimy slices of chicken with fake grill marks in salads, the bacon in sandwiches that is either burnt crispy ash or greasy transparent floppy slices of fat with a little meat mixed in, the steak in a fancy restaurant that leaks blood, the shriveled up chewy chicken patties, the ground beef and pepperoni that is bathed in orange grease......uuugh.     *shiver*
3. It makes me feel good to not eat it.  My body actually feels better.  My mind feels clearer.  My body less lethargic.  Food tastes better.  And I like animals.  Cows, lambs, pigs, chickens.....all very cute.  I've seen animals get mistreated and slaughtered inhumanely and it makes me want to throw up.  I understand the food chain, and that animals eat other animals and all that.  I'm ok with others eating meat.  I don't think it's incredibly unhealthy.  I will still serve it to my family on occasion.  I would never ask someone to prepare something special for me at their house.  It's simply a personal choice.  Eating meat is just something I'm not comfortable with anymore.

Just thought I would share.....and share some lovely paintings from one of my favorite artists Mark Ryden.  You should check out his other work as well.  It's hauntingly beautiful in a funny way.  Here is a link to his official site.

packaging whore

  I hate soy milk.  It's barftastic.  I just couldn't resist the adorable packaging.  I buy anything if it's cute.  Screw the contents.  It's a weakness, I know.  I did try the soy milk.  Gross.  Just as I had suspected.   But I don't care.  I have my pretty package.  It's worth it because it makes me happy every time I open the fridge.  Are you a packaging whore too?

picnic

We had a lovely lovely lovely picnic today.  It was a little humid but not too hot.  Lazy daisy day.  There was a slip & slide involved (not pictured), yummy food, painting, and cloud gazing.  I began the day with wonder and excitement.  We had a busy slow moving morning (installing a washer/dryer & re-arranging the girls bedroom).  Then we went out for supplies.  All I wanted was to go to Michaels to get a metal ringed sketch book to use as an art journal.  I have a million notebooks that would have worked.  I even have a nice Moleskine journal.  But I wanted one that could expand if I did some mixed-media in it.  Anyway, I made the mistake of bringing the girls to the craft store with me.  I get plenty distracted on my own, let alone the girls asking for stickers and stamps and their own art journals.  We walked out of Michaels with 3 art journals, paint, watercolors, oil pastels, paintbrushes, scrapbook paper, stamps, stickers, and rhinestones.  Um.  Yeah.  Then we went to the grocery store to get picnicy food, picking up every sample they offered because by then it was nearly 3 and I'm pretty sure the girls ate real food, but I ate chips for breakfast.  So starving I frantically threw together this picnic for the front yard so we could eat.  I guess Pumpkin was hungry too, cause he wanted what we were having!  After our bellies were full we got lazy again and life got slow.  That's the best thing about picnics I think.  They seem to go on forever.  It reminds me of summertime when you were a kid and you had the whole summer to do nothing and everything.  We should picnic more often.  It's a nice change of pace.

egg on toast

One of the most simple & delicious breakfasts ever.  Toast a piece of bread, crack an egg into a pan of hot olive oil, cook til over-easy.  Put your egg on toast and sprinkle on some sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.  Devour.

weeknight brushetta

Weeknight Bruschetta

french baguette

can of diced tomatoes with onion and garlic flavor

fresh basil

shredded mozzarella cheese

olive oil

 Preheat oven to 350.  Slice baguette.  Pan grill bread slices in olive oil over medium high heat.  This will take a few minutes for each side.    Set bread slices aside.  Chop basil.  Drain tomatoes.  Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.  Arange slices of bread on cookie sheet.  Place a few tomatoes on each slice.  Sprinkle on basil and cheese.  Bake for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.


This was such a simple recipe to throw together, and it turned out to be a big hit.  Fresh tomatoes would make it better of course, but they aren't in season here yet, and I really don't like chopping tomatoes (too gooey).  We made pasta with a simple butter herb sauce too!  I just boiled mastacholi noodles (adding olive oil and sea salt to the water), then drained the noodles and returned them to pan, added fresh chopped herbs (basil, oregeno, rosemary, and sage) and a half a stick of butter, some shredded parmesan, a little more olive oil......bliss. 

This would also make a great date night meal, or a good appetizer for late night guests.  I would imagine it pairing well with a fresh salad, and some Riverboat Red. 

let's play house

Tomorrow I'm bound and determined to find Daisy's lost camera. My first stop on a long list of cleaning/organizing duties-under Daisy's bed. It's my only hope at maintaining a decent blog. What kind of blogger would I be without pictures?! A pretty dull one.

I'm excited for this weekend because I get 3 days of pure domestic bliss. I'm gonna try not to get on the computer until chores have been done, and boy do we have plenty! I've been reading the FlyLady book for cleaning inspiration. So, inspired, I will tackle our bedrooms, the kitchen table, the living room, and laundry. I don't believe in God, but pray for me. Jesus, lord have mercy. It's not the cleaning part I despise actually, it's the clutter. The never ending piles of papers and laundry and toys. sigh.

I'll be doing a lot of cooking this weekend too. Over the next 3 days we'll be eating New England clam chowder, homemade bread cones filled with chicken salad with a side of cucumbers and balsamic vinegrette, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and tacos. yum.

Hopefully all the cooking & cleaning will lead to snuggles & family movie time!

what's for lunch?

While browsing blogland this morning, i found some handy tools for feeding little ones. I saw this really cool lunch box that reminds me of a binto box. It has a bunch of little compartments, but it's all one unit. Plus it comes with a drink bottle, it's dishwasher safe, and comes with a ton of stickers for personalization! At $30 it's a bit pricey, but in terms of a convenient way to pack a healthy and fun lunch, I believe it will be well worth it. I also saw these cute little nutrition and fitness trackers too. Now if we could only find such fun, healthy, and convenient dinner options!