Zippy Three-Bean Chili

Chili is always a good freezer meal, one you either have cooked and vacuum-sealed and put in the freezer ready to defrost and reheat or one that you’ve prepped all the ingredients and then stored in the fridge or freezer and then pop it in the Crock-Pot before you leave for work one morning.

I have this recipe book and have made this chili a number of times. It’s probably my favorite because it’s low-fat and high protein…and inexpensive!

Organic is great if you can find it, buy if you can’t you can try substitutions or a brand you have researched that has come away from using GMO or excess refining in getting the foods to you. Always read the ingredients; don’t trust the name on the label. Growing your own food, you’ll always know what is added.

But I’m not a vegan, so I started with ground turkey…after rinsing the beans and chopping my veggies. I used my homemade taco seasoning which was as simple as looking at the ingredients on my favorite taco seasoning packet and comparing it to several taco seasoning recipes I found with an internet search. I put all the spices in the recommended proportions in one of these small dispensing jars (exciting find!) that is made by the same company as the common mason jars not worrying about the spices sticking together or those other ingredients that are used to preserve or keep the spices from clumping since we use this seasoning surprisingly often. It would dissolve and break apart in most recipes anyway.

I like to get a brown on my veggies as well as the meat before adding liquid to enhance the flavor of the end result, but it doesn’t always say to cook the veggies ahead of time in a recipe. If I have to brown the meat, I might as well toss the veggies in there after I’ve drained the fat; the veggies can soak up some of the flavor from the meat. I do it unless the recipe doesn’t list it AND I’m in a pinch for time. Both factors have to be in the equation for me.  Then, adding the liquids help deglaze the pan getting all of that yumminess into the sauce.

*I entered the final product into the Chili Cook-off at my church one year and didn’t even place, but then again, chili doesn’t traditionally have beans in it!

Who can resist chili and rice?!

Try it and tell me how it goes!

Zippy Three-Bean Chili

Herb Chicken and Mushrooms

Photo by M. Sandoval

Ah, mushrooms! Delicious. I used to put them in everything–all of my pasta dishes, rice dishes, raw in salads…then I had kids, and my taste changed. It’s finally back, mostly. I still can’t eat pickles or tomatoes like I used to, but mushrooms are back on the menu.

Shallots replace onions in most of the recipes that I test. This recipe also called for dried tomatoes, so I used sun-dried tomatoes, 2-3 cut up with kitchen shears. It came out very nicely! I’ve tried it with rice and again with fettuccine, and found I like it much better with rice. The pasta tends to dry up too quickly and makes the leftovers less than ideal.

I also sautéed the cremini mushrooms with olive oil, the garlic, and shallots to give it a better flavor while leaving the white mushroom as-is to see if there would be a better texture in the outcome. The frozen chicken was cooked on High for 4 hours ahead of time in the Crock-Pot with salt and pepper and then chopped and transferred over to the pot with the veggies (we actually invested in a second Crock-Pot to save time and not have to wash it to finish recipes) and cooked on High for 2 hours. Comment if you tried this or made any of your own adjustments or substitutions and how it came out!

Here’s the recipe I tried: http://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/herbed-chicken-and-mushrooms/

Cherry-Orange Oatmeal

For those lazy weekends when you want to wake up to a hot breakfast, this recipe is easy to throw together and forget about until you wake up to the smell of hot cocoa filling your kitchen. This is another one of those recipes where we usually have all of the ingredients already in the pantry. If not, blueberries and/or bananas will substitute nicely in this one. You can play around with it a little; just think about your favorite chocolate covered fruit and try that fruit with this oatmeal. Tell me how it turns out!

4 cups water

2 cups old-fashioned oats

4tablespoons sugar substitute

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups fresh pitted cherries or frozen dark sweet cherries

2 cans (11 ounces each) mandarin orange segments in syrup, drained and rinsed

Combine first four ingredients in Crock-Pot, cover, cook on Low for 8 hours. Divide evenly and top with cherries and orange segments.

In my attempt at this recipe, there was a little bit of burned oatmeal stuck to the bottom of the Crock-Pot which I had to end up soaking and using a rubber spatula to scrape out later.   So to keep it a “lazy weekend” recipe, I would suggest using a cheat such as cooking spray, plastic wrap, or aluminum foil to line the Crock-Pot; something you’re comfortable with using or recommended for your slow-cooker.

This recipe is from the Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Recipes binder we found at Costco. I love it! We have found several recipes in there that have become part of our regular monthly menu.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Overnight Oats

I stumbled across this recipe one day while looking for a particular recipe I had seen for overnight refrigerator oats. The overnight oats phenomenon seemed to have quieted down and while I had tried a couple recipes, apple-cinnamon oatmeal and vanilla-banana (or something like that), I thought I’d give it another shot as well as having my man try some out.

I never found the original post I was looking for, but am thankful for this discovery as it’s Mike’s new favorite office breakfast/snack! I have the Apple Pie outcome on a previous post and while it was good, we were amazed out how delicious the peanut butter recipe is (I, personally, leave out the chia seeds–can’t deal with the slim and digging them out of my teeth)!

This recipe is relatively easy to put together and I prefer to prepare them for the week to minimize the mess. The key is to have the containers lined up. We use two-cup storage bowls putting two servings in each. That’s going to get you through most mornings! I fill the containers with the dry ingredients and only add the syrup and soy milk the night before. The peanut butter is shamefully messy when I’m measuring it. You could probably eyeball the two tablespoons per serving, but I’m in the habit of using the measuring spoon.

Here’s the gang all set for a night in the fridge!

 

Top it off with your favorite fruit (here we have dried strawberries; Mike’s favorite is sliced bananas–yum!) and you have a very sophisticated PB&J!

½ c oats

½ c soy milk

2 T peanut butter

T maple syrup, honey, or your favorite sweetener

1 ½ T chia seeds (optional)

½ c blueberries

All of which I doubled making it two servings per container.

Here’s the recipe I tried out (adjusted to our taste):

Peanut Butter Overnight Oats (5 Ingredients!)

Lemon Pasta with Chicken

One of the great thing about friends is that you have common interests. I have friends who post, or rather, re-post recipes they see on social media, but I’ve never known them to cook! So, I steal (another great thing about friends is they don’t mind this) those recipes and try them out for myself. I usually end up posting the results myself which may partly explain the long intervals between my posts here (but that’s another story)!

This recipe has become one of my favorites for a zesty, quick dinner. We usually have these ingredients in the fridge, and most people have some sort of pasta in their pantry at all times if they like pasta at all and can cook well enough. Hover your cursor over these photos to view captions.

I always like to use shallots in place of onions.

The sauce with butter, olive oil, crushed red pepper, garlic, and shallots.

I use the Crock-Pot regularly to cook my frozen chicken. It saves from under- or overcooking the chicken every time; it also prevents the kitchen from warming up especially now that it’s summer! I like buying my frozen chicken from Costco to save money and always have some in the freezer ready for a last minute recipe.

Oops! I forgot to chop up the chicken before adding it back!

Yup, I had to take the spinach off! I used cooking tongs to remove the chicken and hold the piece while I chopped it, then put it back in the pan. At least, it’s not like baking! You can fix most mistakes before the end, and it generally comes out the same taste-wise (according to the family, anyway)! Hover your cursor over these photos to view captions.

That’s better!

And the spinach…

Ready to plate!

Try it and tell me what you think of the result!

Here’s the recipe: http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a47922/lemon-butter-chicken-pasta-recipe/

Apple Pie Overnight Oats

There’s got to be something as easy as instant oatmeal that you can make fresh, right? Yes! This is too easy, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s faster overall than pulling over on the way to work and waiting in line at a drive-thru for one of their breakfasts. Recipes can sometimes be intimidating, but I find that once you have worked through them the first time, you can’t really deny how quickly you can throw them together again, especially once you’ve tasted the finished product!

Some of these you can use for other recipes; it’s great having them in the pantry all the time to quickly throw something together!

 

Ready for the fridge!

Top with some chopped nuts when ready to eat!

Take some common pantry items and see what you can do! Here’s everything put together in a portable storage container you can take to school or the office or eat before you leave home in the morning.

 

 

I made more than one container divided into portions. Overnight oats left more than 48 hours should probably be thrown out. I prefer to portion out the dry ingredients into containers for the week and then add the wet ingredients the night before. Here, I would add the syrup and milk as wet ingredients or risk it not mixing evenly or the oats become mushy.

Crispy apples, pecans, and cinnamon sprinkled oatmeal!

Here’s the recipe I’ve adapted to make sugar-free:

http://aseasyasapplepie.com/apple-pie-overnight-oats/

I’m going to start posting reviews. I recently read this book to my kids only letting them watch the movie once we were done. I believe this way, there’s less anxiety and they know the ending, so anything “scary” they might see, we have already talked about. //ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=dreamecrit-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=059035342X&asins=059035342X&linkId=26abed5e6f0d683339a14f8fd98668c6&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066C0&bg_color=FFFFFF