Playoff Baseball, Football Season, and Chili!

I am re-re-posting a couple of chili recipes in anticipation for the St. Louis Cardinals being in the post season (again) and the Rams not stinking it up too badly either.  There are a couple of our favorites.  Hope you enjoy!

P.S.  If you have any recipes that you have tried over the last several months, I would love to give them a try on my food blog.  I plan on posting on there again very soon . . . check it out here (if you haven't already) Meals For Real

Chicken and Bean Chili adapted from Meatless Monday
1lb ground chicken
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can black beans, drained
1 can navy beans, drained
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can red kidney beans, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 16-oz can diced tomatoes
2 8-oz can tomato sauce or 1 16oz can
1-2 cups water
1 small can (4 oz) green chiles
1-2 Tbsp chili powder
1-2 tsp cumin
1 tsp basil

Salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup dry red wine (optional)


Directions:  Saute onion, garlic, and bell pepper in olive oil until soft. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 20-30 minutes.


Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream if desired.

Here's what you'll need:

Chop up the onion and garlic.

Put the ground chicken in a Dutch oven to brown.  Throw the onions and garlic in with the chicken.

Drain and rinse the beans.

Add the beans to the pot. 

Add the can of diced chilies.

Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.

Add the seasonings.  Simmer and serve.

Good 4 You -White Chicken Chili


1 or 2 Lbs. cooked & cubed chicken breast (I cut it up and cooked it in my crockpot for 30 mins on high with the oil)

1-2 Tbs oil

Packet of McCormick chicken chili seasoning

1 ½ cups chicken broth

1 or 2 cans great northern beans with liquid

1 can white or yellow corn

2 small cans green chilis –optional


Directions:  You can cook the chicken in the crockpot.  To the cooked chicken, add seasoning mix and broth. Then add beans, corn, and green chilis, keep on low in crockpot for 2-4 hours…OR stovetop for just 20 mins…top with lowfat shredded cheese, lite sour cream, and chopped green onions…serve with baked corn tortilla chips ! YUM!


Modifications:
-I added a can of pinto beans.

-I left out the cheese, sour cream and chips.

Here's what I started with:

Here's how I did it:

#1 I put 2 frozen chicken breasts in a crockpot with a couple Tbsps of olive oil and let it cook for about an hour.

#2 After the chicken and thawed and cooked for about an hour, I cut it up into chunks and then seasoned it with Home Seasoning.

#3 I added the white chicken chili seasoning, chicken broth, corn, green chiles and beans to the crockpot and let it cook for about 5 hours.

The Finished Product:

Travel Review: Grimaldi's in Fashion Show Mall-Las Vegas

I have been to Las Vegas more times than I can count but this past trip we ventured down to the Fashion Show Mall, about a 20 minute walk from Harrah's, to have lunch at Grimaldi's Pizzeria. I am always looking for new places to eat in Vegas so I was excited to try it out.  I can assure you that this place will be on my list to go to again and again.

These pizzas are made in a coal-fired brick oven that gives a smokey flavor to the crispy crust.  The service was great and the pizza was outstanding.  


The one bad side to this place is that it is in the middle of the mall and not the easiest place to get to but it was well worth the walk.


My friend and I split a sun-dried tomato, pesto and garlic pizza with a carafe of their house red wine.  I HIGHLY recommend it.

We loved this place and will definitely go back.

Fitness Friday-Already on Vacation and Recipes

Love to read about fitness, running, and healthy eating?  Join up with this wonderful blog hop:

I've got to be honest with everyone here, my mid has not been on working out this past week.  The St. Louis Cardinals are in a heated battle with the Milwaukee Brewers.  Kanin has started hockey and had his Fall Party, and we leave for our late honeymoon/anniversary trip on Tuesday.  I'm barely holding my head above water between driving down to the stadium, the hockey rink, school, shopping, packing, laundry, etc. etc.

The one thing I have been keeping up with, though, is my food.  I've actually eaten pretty "clean" this week and I've tried to do abs everyday (gotta look decent in my bathing suit, right?).

I'm so happy that I'm at a place where I'm not down on myself for slacking on the exercise part.  A year ago I would have been devastated and would have felt like "I've ruined everything".  Over the past few months, though, I've realized that life happens and to just move on.

I didn't take any pictures of this because both of these dishes were so easy but this week I've had grilled tomatoes and a spinach, bulgur salad as my entrees and they were delicious.  I've been trying to cut back on meat and dairy and with both of these dishes, I still left "full".

Grilled Tomatoes

1 large organic tomato, sliced into thick slices

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Preheat grill.  Grill each side of the tomatoes for 2-3 minutes.  Drizzle with 1 cap full of olive oil.  Salt & Pepper.  Enjoy.

(I also ate this with grilled zucchini and couscous)

Spinach and Bulgur Salad

Handful of spinach

1/2 cup bulgur wheat

2-3 Tbsp red onion

1 cap full of favorite Italian dressing.

Cook bulgur according to directions.  Put spinach and red onion in a bowl.  Drain bulgur and add to spinach.  Mix together.  Drizzle with Italian dressing.

(Of course, you can add tons of options to this-veggies, protein, cheese, etc.)

I loved that this spinach kind of wilted when I added the warm bulgur wheat.  It was great!

A Recipe: Slow Cooker Stuffed Pepper Casserole

While reading Dixie Bell Designs WILW post, she mentioned that she is participating in Crocktober.  I LOVE crockpot recipes so I figured I would link up and post here in case any of you wanted to participate or at least get some easy dinner ideas.

Crocktober is hosted by the Larson Lingo.  This is a new blog to me so I'm excited to check it out.

Slow Cooker Stuffed Pepper Casserole adapted from Heartfelt Balance, Handmade Life

7 Bell Peppers, cut into 1" pieces--I used Green

28 oz. can Crushed Tomatoes

3 Garlic Cloves--minced

1 lb. ground chicken

1 mild Italian Sausage--skin removed

1/2 tsp. oregano

1 Tbsp. dried Parsley

1 Tbsp. Onion Powder

1/2 tsp dried Basil

Dash of Black Pepper (or to taste)

1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

1 Bag Steamfresh frozen Brown rice

Directions:  Take the skin off of the sausage and break apart to brown it in a skillet on the stove. Brown the ground chicken with it. Once it's browned, put all ingredients except the rice and parmesan cheese in the crockpot. Cook on low for 6 hours. Add the frozen rice and parmesan and heat until rice is warmed. We were busy yesterday, so it actually stayed on warm for a couple hours after I added the rice and it was still good. The rice didn't get mushy.


Modifications:

-Instead of all of the herbs, I used a Zattarains Dirty Rice Mix.

-I used 2 cups of whole grain brown rice instead of a Steamfresh frozen bag.

-I used a turkey bratwurst instead of Italian Sausage.

Here's what you'll need:

Brown the ground beef.

Remove the casing from the sausage and add with the ground beef.

Mince up the garlic cloves and add to the meat.

Roughly chop up the peppers, I used 4.

While the meat was still cooking, put the peppers in the crockpot.

Put the meat on top of the peppers.

Add the can of crushed tomatoes.  I also filled the can of tomatoes with water and added it to the crockpot.

Add the seasonings

Add the rice.  I used 2 cups of whole grain brown rice.

Cover and cook for 4-6 hours or until rice is done.  Once done, add the Parmesan cheese.

Here's what you'll end up with:

Our Thoughts:

Scott loves stuffed bell peppers and normally I make them like THIS, which he absolutely loves.  Recently, though, we have really changed our eating habits and I didn't want to use the enriched white rice of the Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix so I used the brown rice.

When planning to make this I thought that the spice/herb mixture of the Zatarain's came separately from the rice.  When I opened the box, though, I realized that it was all mixed together.  We love the taste of that Dirty Rice and I had my heart set on that flavor so . . . I tried to strain the seasoning from the rice.  I did get some of it but not all so I ended up using some of the herbs listed in the actual recipe.


This is definitely an easy way to make this dish.  It took very little effort and had a great flavor.  The rice was cooked perfectly and not mushy at all.

Hope you enjoy!

April