The Best Mashed Potatoes Ever

I love me some mashed potatoes! If it was up to me, I'd eat them everyday. However, my mashed potatoes are pretty killer, and I should probably limit it to once a month. Maybe twice. You see, what makes these mashed potatoes so killer is the tons of yummy goodness that I add into them. Basically, most dairy products from my fridge end up in this recipe.

With Thanksgiving coming up, I figured I'd share this recipe that makes it way to my table for most holiday celebrations. It's relatively easy to make, so it's perfect for when you have other dishes that you have to focus on.

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds Russet Potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter
• 8 oz (1 block) Cream Cheese
• 1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1 cup Sour Cream (or Greek Yogurt)
• 1/4 cup Half & Half
• Salt
• Water

Instructions:

1. Add the potatoes to a large pot and add enough water to cover them. Salt the water liberally and bring the water to a boil.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, quarter the butter and cream cheese, then add them and the cheese, sour cream and heavy cream to a large mixing bowl.
3. When the potatoes are tender (15-20 minutes), drain well and add them while still hot to the mixing bowl. Whip until smooth. I prefer to use my KitchenAid stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
4. If the potatoes are too thick, slowly add more half and half (or milk) until they reach the desired consistency.

Serves: 6

The best part about these potatoes is that my dad said they taste better than the ones my mom makes, and mom makes some rockin' potatoes!

Are mashed potatoes your favorite Thanksgiving side dish too? 

Baked French Toast

This bread pudding-like dish was first introduced to me by one of my very best friends. We got together for Easter one year while our husbands were deployed and this is what we ate that day. Since then, I've traditionally made it for brunch on Easter as well as on Christmas morning. It's safe to say that I'd eat this baked French toast everyday if I could, but I'd probably end up with diabetes.

Before I get into the recipe, let me note one things. The recipe calls for a loaf of Challah bread. Apparently, there really hasn't been a huge Jewish culture anywhere that I've lived, because the stuff is impossible to find. Brioche is a good substitute, and if you can't find that either, a French loaf will do the trick. I used egg and butter rolls this last time and the dish turned out perfectly.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf Challah, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 stick (8 tbsp) Butter, softened
• 5 Eggs, beaten
• 2 cups Heavy Cream
• 1 tbsp Vanilla
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tsp Cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan. Spread bread evenly into pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1 cup sugar. Add eggs, cream, and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Pour egg mixture over the bread and mix gently until evenly distributed. 
4. Sprinkle top of bread with cinnamon and sugar mixture. 
5. Cover with foil.
6. Set the pan of bread into a larger pan. Add water to the larger pan until it is within half an inch of the top of the bread pan. 
7. Bake covered for approximately an hour and 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the top browns
8. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Enjoy!

My favorite thing about this French toast recipe is that there's no syrup necessary.  It's plenty sweet on it's own!

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Two-Ingredient Homemade Dog Treats

My sweet Caesar boy got a bath the other day. Although he was extremely well behaved, I know it isn't exactly the most pleasant experience for a dog. For that reason, I thought he deserved to be rewarded afterwards.

Not too long ago I saw a Facebook post about homemade dog treats, so I decided to give my own easier version a try. These treats took only a few minutes to mix together

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups Oatmeal
• 2 4oz jars Turkey/Chicken & Sweet Potato/Pumpkin Baby Food (make sure that baby food doesn't contain garlic, onion, or other ingredients which may be harmful to your dog. 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grind up the oatmeal in a food processor.  
3. Add the baby food to the food processor and combine with the oatmeal to create a thick mixture. 
4. Use a spoon to drop balls of the oatmeal mixture onto a baking sheet. I did tablespoon sized balls for my big guy. 
5. Bake for approximately 20-22 minutes. Smaller sized treats will require less time. 
6. Cool completely and store in refrigerator. Recipe yields about 15 tablespoon-sized treats.

Caesar loved how these turned out and I was pretty impressed too! Since they were made with ingredients that I actually eat, I gave them a try too. Yes, I tried dog treats. They weren't bad! Now, I'm looking forward to experimenting with some other treat flavors in the future.

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Date Night Dinner at Home

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Like I mentioned recently, Hubster and I don't have many chances to go out on date nights. That doesn't mean we don't enjoy having date nights at home. For me, date night usually revolves around a nice dinner. A few of my favorites include Ruth's Chris, The Melting Pot, and Texas de Brazil.

For Valentine's, I though it would be nice to make a nice dinner at home, inspired by Ruth's Chris. I've made it before, and I was surprised by how effortless the process was. I used a few tricks that I learned on the Food Network, and the meal turned out a million times more delicious than I was expecting. The only thing missing from this ritzy dinner was an ultra attentive waiter and a pricey bill at the end. And maybe some creme brûlée, but I might even be attempting that this time around.

So.. On the menu: baked breaded mushrooms, filet mignon, and creamed spinach. The key to getting this dinner to come together at the same time is to be working on all aspects at once. It might sound complicated, but since everything is so simple, it's relatively easy to do all at once.

Baked Breaded Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 8 oz box of whole mushrooms
• 2 Eggs 
• 1 tbsp Milk
• 3/4 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Lightly spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Clean and dry your mushrooms.
3. Whisk together eggs and milk in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, and salt & pepper.
4. Dip each mushroom in the egg mixture, then bread crumbs, and coat evenly.  Dip each mushroom a second time in the egg mixture, followed by bread crumbs, and place on baking sheet. 
5. Lightly spray the tops of the mushrooms with cooking spray before placing in the oven.
6. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Filet Mignon

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 2 Filets/Boneless Tenderloin Steaks
• Salt & Pepper

Directions: 

1. Remove steak from refrigerator approximately half an hour before cooking to allow it to come to room temperature.
2. Heat a pan over medium-high heat until hot. Melt butter in pan. 
3. As the butter is melting, pat each steak dry with a paper towel. Season each side liberally with salt and pepper.
4. Once the butter is hot and melted, add your steaks to the pan. DO NOT TOUCH THEM once you place them in the pan.
5. Let each steak cook for approximately 5 minutes on each side without moving them. Depending on the thickness of your steaks, you may need to cook on each side a little longer, but you should only touch them once in order to flip them. Five minutes on each side of an inch(ish) thick steak got me medium rare. Use a meat thermometer to be sure it's done to your liking. 
6. When done cooking, move the steaks to a plate, cover with foil, and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Creamed Spinach

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp Butter
• 1/2 small Yellow Onion, chopped
• 3 cloves Garlic, minced
• 10 oz. package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• dash Nutmeg
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions: 

1. Melt butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic, and saute until soft, about 2 minutes. 
2. Add spinach to pot and stir, until heat through.
3. Add cream, nutmeg, and salt & pepper. Mix well to combine, and cook until cream has reduced by half, and is thick. 

Our plan is to be glued to Netflix all day catching the new season of House of Cards. I stocked up on Ben & Jerry's when I went grocery shopping this week. They had $1 off 2 coupons, and I couldn't resist.

Hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's day!

Linking up here!

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The Easiest Most Delicious Bread You'll Ever Make

Who else is excited that college football is finally here?! I've been waiting since January for this! There is nothing like ESPN College Game Day on a Saturday morning.

We'll watching the Notre Dame game this afternoon at a friends' house, and I've elected to bring some beer bread. They had never heard of beer bread, so I'm excited for them to give it a try. Can you honestly think of anything better to go with football than beer? And bread.

This stuff is seriously delicious and SO easy to make. Only three ingredients and no bread hook or machine necessary. It mixes just fine in my stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups Self-rising flour
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 12oz bottle Beer

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.
2. Combine the flour and sugar in a large bowl. If you don't have self-rising flour, you can use 3 cups all purpose flour, 1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder, and 1 1/2 tsp salt.
3. Pour your choice of beer into the flour combo and mix. Do not over mix. Just enough to make a lumpy sticky batter.
4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50 min to an hour until the crust is golden and crispy. 
5. If you're feeling extra adventurous, pour 2 Tbsp of melted butter over the loaf immediately after removing it from the oven.

Obviously, the type of beer that you use makes a difference. Do not try Corona! I've had the best luck with varieties of Blue Moon and Shock Top. Really, any darker beer is pretty good.

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Berry Sexy Vanilla Sunrise

This is a compensated campaign in collaboration with Latina Bloggers Connect and SlimFast. This post is brought to you by SlimFast. All thoughts and content are my own.

TGIF! If your week has been anything like mine, you're probably in dire need of a drink or four. Lucky for you, I have a fantastic drink recipe to pass along. Slim Fast sent me a product sample as well as drink recipes to try and share. Now I have to admit, I wasn't all that keen on trying an alcoholic drink with Slim Fast in. For me, alcohol and dairy type drinks don't mix. I've never had a White Russian, nor do I know what it is, or anything like Bailey's. I've never tried SlimFast either.

Even though I was a bit hesitant, I am so glad I tried a Berry Sexy Vanilla Sunrise. It was GOOD! This drink, and a few others, were created exclusively for SlimFast by DR Mixologist, Darryl Robinson, host of “Drink up” on The Cooking Channel. You can check out the recipes for the delicious cocktails and mocktails here. Each of these drinks contains only 130-190 calories per serving*. I'd say that's a win.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz SlimFast French Vanilla Shake
• 1 oz white rum OR 1 oz raspberry rum
• 1/3 cup frozen mixed berries
• 1-2 pieces of fresh ginger - to taste
• 1 tsp agave syrup OR 1 tsp honey
• 1 ice cube; Add more as needed for smooth consistency
• Additional berries for garnish

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to blender and blend until smooth.
2. Enjoy responsibly.

Prior to this I had never tried SlimFast, I'm almost positive that I'll be picking up a case when I go shopping next week. Not only was the cocktail great, but the shake itself was good! I'm looking forward to trying the other cocktail recipes.

Check out the new SlimFast cocktail/mocktail recipes and start slimming** for summer by visiting http://wow.slim-fast.com/cocktailrecipes.pdf

*Cocktails are not a part of the SlimFast 3-2-1 plan. Only occasional use recommended. You must be 21+ to consume alcohol and please drink responsibly.

**Losing more than 2lbs per week is not recommended. Exercise 30 minutes daily and follow the SlimFast plan.

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Green Breakfast Smoothie Recipe

In the quest to become healthier Hubster and I have tried to make some better choices as to what we put into our bodies. Now we aren't going super crazy by completely cutting carbs or dairy or anything like that, but we are trying to incorporate more fruits, veggies, and lean protein. For the past month or two Hubs and I have been making green smoothies for breakfast. It was scary to try at first, but these actually taste pretty good and they allow you go start your day with some fruit and vegetables in your system.

Ingredients:

• 2 Bananas
• 2 cups Milk (your choice, but obviously the healthier, the better)
• 3 tablespoons Chocolate Powder (think Carnation Instant Breakfast or Ovaltine)
• 1 cup Frozen Spinach
• 3 - 4 Ice Cubes

Directions:

1. Start by tossing your banana into your blender. You don't have to slice it, but I've found that breaking them in half works best.
2. Pour in your milk and chocolate, then blend until smooth
3. Add your frozen spinach and ice cubes. If have a good blender, you can just dump everything in at the beginning. 
4. Blend until the little green chunks are gone. About 30 seconds.

Recipe makes 2 servings.

We love these smoothies because they're super quick and easy for breakfast, and taste great! Other than having it's green color, you can't tell that there is spinach in it at all. While this smoothie may not be the perfectly healthy option for everyone, these are perfect for the everyday person just looking to replace their doughnut or muffin in the morning. And worry not vegetable haters, you don't taste the spinach at all! It blends right in and hides.

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Easy Peasy Key Lime Pie

Do you like Key Lime pie? No? Me either. At least, not until I tried this recipe. Being from Miami, Key Lime pie was one of those desserts that was at every get together. My mom always made it, but I hated it because it was just too tangy for my taste. I altered her recipe a bit and cut out about 15 gallons of lime juice, and now it's something that I'll eat.

I don't know how or why I started making Key Lime pies, but during our time in Georgia, it became the famous dessert between my friends and I. So famous in fact, that one friend requested it as one of the first things he wanted when he returned from Afghanistan. After a while, I got kind of sick of making it every weekend. Since it's been a while, I figured I'd make it for dessert this weekend. It's a light and refreshing dessert, perfect for warm evenings. I'll be making it again next weekend when aforementioned friend visits us in Missouri.

Ingredients:

• 1 9" Graham Cracker Pie Crust
• 1 Egg White
• 5 Egg Yolks
• 1 cup Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream
• 1 14oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 3/4 cup Lime Juice (it can be fresh squeezed from Key Limes, or the bottled type)

Directions:

1. Start by preheating your oven to 350.
2. If you like your pie crust nice and crispy, brush it with egg white and bake for about 10 minutes. If you like a nice chewy crust, skip this step.
3. Combine your egg yolks and Greek yogurt/sour cream in a large bowl. Make sure to do these two first to avoid getting chunks of yogurt/cream later on.
4. Add the full can of condensed milk and mix well. Just try not to add to much air to the mix since it will cause bubbles.
5. Add your lime juice LAST. The lime juice will cook the eggs and thicken the mixture, so you don't want to do this until it's all mixed. You can use more or less juice to your liking, but I find 3/4 of a cup to be the perfect amount. Half a cup of juice results in a slight taste of lime.
6. Tap the bowl on your counter a few times to help push out all of the bubbles. The bubbles don't make a difference, but I prefer my pie to be nice and smooth without little holes in it.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes. Just make sure there isn't any change in color.
8. Allow to cool slightly before placing in the refrigerator. Keep refrigerated.

Hope you enjoy this! I prefer to use regular lime juice, but you get the same result with actual Key Limes or their juice.

Don't forget that you can still vote for me daily in the Top 25 Military Moms competition.

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Summer Pasta Salad

It's Friday night. Your spouse comes home from work and lets you know that there's a company BBQ the next afternoon. If you're like me, you scramble to find a side dish or dessert to bring. The closer to homemade, the better. After attending several dinners and get togethers, I've finally learned that you can't just show up empty handed.

Last weekend we attended a class BBQ for Hubster's course. Although he told me about it Thursday, I still scrambled to avoid having to go to the grocery store, be. It took me a little while before it hit me that I had pasta salad on menu for Saturday, and that would be perfect to take to a BBQ. My parents always made some variation of this with some grilled chicken thrown on top and a hard boiled egg, but the salad is also prefect as a side dish. It doesn't hurt that this is pretty quick and easy to make as well!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound Tri-Color Rotini
• 1 large Green Bell Pepper diced
• 1 large Red Bell Pepper diced
• 1 small Red Onion diced
• 1 cup Italian Dressing
• 1 pound Cubed Cheese (I prefer Colby or Colby Jack)
• 1/2 cup chopped olives (which ever color you prefer)
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Optional: Pepperoni

Directions:

1. Start by boiling your pasta according to the box directions in salted water. Back when Carlo from Cake Boss had a cooking show, he said the water should be salty like the Jersey Shore.
2. Toss all of your diced vegetables into a large bowl and pour the dressing over it. Mix well to ensure that all of the vegetables are coated. I use the time while the pasta is boiling to dice the vegetables. 
3. After the vegetables have been coated, toss in the cheese and olives and mix well. You can also toss in the pepperoni at this point if you're including it.
4. Add salt & pepper to taste. You shouldn't need a lot.
5. After pasta has cooked and cooled, mix it in with the vegetables. Make sure it's cool so that you don't melt the cheese.
6. Refrigerate until time to serve. This is one of those dishes that is best the next day after the dressing has had time to really soak in.
   
   

Healthy Cookie Fail

Wahhh! After my healthy brownie disaster from last week, I was hoping to have better news when it came to my zucchini cookies. The brownies were made with apple sauce, banana, and zucchini. They were kind of gross. The kids loved them, but us big people knew better. I tried tweaking the chocolate chip zucchini recipe that I normally use to make it healthier. I've made them a bunch of times, and they're actually pretty delicious! This time I used some healthier ingredients to try and lighten them up.

I started by trading out a stick of butter for a banana. Bad one. Then I halved the sugar and added a teaspoon of vanilla in place of the other half. Not too bad. The last time I made the cookies I actually left out a quarter cup of sugar anyway. For the flour I used half all purpose, half wheat. That wasn't so bad either. Next time I might do three quarters all purpose, one quarter wheat. Leaving out a quarter cup of chocolate chips didn't hurt either. I'm not a fan of overwhelmingly chocolate cookies anyway, so it was perfect.

I'm pretty sure I went wrong with using the banana instead of a stick of butter. The cookies turned out kind of chewy, which is also what happened with my brownies. They also didn't flatten out like they normally do when you bake them.In the future, I might keep the healthy modifications minus swapping out the butter. Honestly, they aren't bad though. I've eaten three while typing this us. I'll continue tweaking the recipe until I find something perfect.

Do you have a good healthy dessert recipe?

Chicken Curry with Cous Cous Recipe - Guest Post

OK. So I don't know about you, but easy meals are my favorite to make. Duh, right?  With everything we have going on lately, cous cous with chicken seems like the perfect delicious meal without a huge hassle. I honestly had no idea how easy cous cous was. Jen makes it pretty much fool-proof. Who knew it was so easy?! Jen also posts tons of fun crafts and projects, that one day I swear I'm going to try.

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Hey ya'll! My name is Jen and I blog over at Beebee Belly. As a fellow Milspouse, I understand PCS season and so I told Alejandra while she was in the middle of her move that I would write a guest post for her and I decided to share one of our favorite (and easiest) recipes. It's for Chicken Curry with Cous Cous.

Never made cous cous? It's the easiest thing in the world. Boil the water, add the grain, cover, wait 5 minutes. Done. Seriously. No stirring, no nothing. I'd say no measuring but you have to measure out the water.


The chicken is almost as easy.


You take chicken (any kind, I buy boneless, skinless chicken thighs and keep them on hand) and place however many you want in a pan. I didn't even defrost it. Pour some chicken broth into the pan and the cover the chicken with curry powder. I used a lot because we love curry but you can use as much or as little as you'd like.


Bake it at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Once it's done, place over cous cous and enjoy. Seriously. An easy-peasy meal that is totally delicious. I'm all about easy meals. And since I have a picky 2-year-old, I'm all about family-friendly meals too and since my toddler eats this meal too, I call it a huge success.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this meal and if you like it, come visit me over at Beebee Belly for some more family-friendly and delicious foods.

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Vodka Soak Gummies

Now, this is my first time doing this, and we haven't tasted them yet, but I'm fairly confident that I've discovered a relatively fool-proof way to get some extra alcohol on board our cruise this week. You're not allowed to take actual bottles of liquor, but no one said anything about gummy bears.. If you've ever been on a cruise, and even if you haven't, you may know that the prices of drinks are a tad outrageous!  I'm hoping that by taking vodka soaked gummies with us, we'll be able to get an extra free kick while on the boat.

You'll need:

• A Glass Jar or Bowl (not plastic!)
• Gummy Bears
• Vodka

Directions:

1. Clean and dry out your jar well.
2. Fill the jar about halfway with gummy bears/worms/whatever. They'll expand a bit, so don't fill it up too much.
3. Pour in vodka to completely cover the gummies. Shake it up a bit to make sure the vodka is really in there.
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least three days. You can pour out any extra vodka.
5. Keep refrigerated and enjoy!

It's Taco Tuesday!

Time is quickly winding down on our time in Georgia. The next couple of days will be spent packing and cleaning before the packers and movers get here next week to take all of our major stuff. In the mean time, I'm trying to get rid of as much unnecessary junk as possible. This includes all of the extra food in the refrigerator and pantry.

For dinner tonight, we'll be having taco egg rolls. I've got pounds of ground beef in the freezer that need to go, in addition to tons of cheese and lettuce that I bought for Easter weekend.

This is my first time attempting to make any sort of egg roll by hand, so I haven't the slightest clue at how it's going to go, but I can totally recommend the taco pie that we had for dinner last week. I found a picture of a taco pie on Pinterest last week, and was very intent on trying it, but there was no recipe. Just a picture.

When it came to dinner time, it was a complete improvisation. I'd have to say it turned out spectacularly though. Super easy and super quick.

Ingredients:

• 1 prepared pie crust
• 3/4 pound ground beef
• taco seasoning
• 1 - 15 ounce can refried beans
• 1 cup shredded cheese
• Your choice of toppings: shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, onion, 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Prepare pie crust according to directions. I had to bake mine at 350 for 10 minutes.
3. Brown ground beef, and drain. Add taco seasoning.
4. Layer ground beef, refried beans, and cheese in pie crust.
5. Bake at 350 until cheese is melted throughout. About 15 minutes. 
6. Top with desired toppings and serve!

Hubs couldn't get over how good this was. When he took left overs to work the next day, he had a bunch of guys commenting on how it smelled delicious. Duh! Hopefully our taco egg rolls turn out well tonight. I can't see how they couldn't though. Anything taco inspired is usually a huge hit!

Easter Brunch - Baked French Toast

Good morning folks! I hope everyone is having a nice relaxing weekend so far. I woke up with a headache, due to the fact that I may have had a glass too many of wine last night. It's a good thing that the plan for today was just to clean up and do some food prep for Easter dinner. Tonight I'll also be putting together our brunch for after church.

Last year, while both of our husbands were deployed, one of my best friends and I celebrated Easter together. She brought over this baked French Toast casserole thing, and to this day, it's one of the best breakfasts I've ever had. I'll be making it again this year, and letting it bake while we're at church.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick softened butter
• 5 eggs beaten
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 loaf Challah bread, cut into 2 inch cubes
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, cream and vanilla. Mix well.
2. Grease 9x13 inch pan. Spread bread evenly into pan. Pour egg mixture over the bread and mix until evenly distributed. Allow to rest in refrigerator over night.
3. Preheat oven to 375
4. Set pan with bread into a larger pan. Fill the larger pan with water to half inch below the top of smaller pan. 
5. Sprinkle bread with 2 tbsp of sugar and 2 tsps of cinnamon. 
6. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Uncover and bake for another 15 minutes until the top browns. Mixture should be firm.
7. Serve warm

Not the best pic :/

As you can see from the ingredients, this isn't the healthiest option, but once or twice a year won't kill you.

Hearty Turkey Chili

If you follow Meal Planning Mondays, you'd know that we had turkey chili last night. I attached a link for turkey chili that was closest to the chili that I actually make. The link to this post will be replacing that link, since this is the chili that I actually make. I normally don't follow recipes exactly, but there is little measuring when it comes to this one, so it's quick.

The recipe is so simple, that almost all you have to do is open cans and dump them in. Although it's turkey chili, you really can't tell the difference versus beef chili, and this one has an extra special secret ingredient. Cocoa. Chocolate and chili all in one? Sign me up. It might sound weird, but I promise this will be the best chili you've ever had.

Ingredients

• 1 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tbs minced garlic
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 pound lean ground turkey
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 15-ounce can corn, drained
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 generous shake of oregano
• 1 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

1. In a large pot, heat the vegetable oil on medium-high. Add onion, garlic, and peppers, stirring until soft (about 5 minutes).
2. Add the turkey and crumble/stir until completely browned.
3. Add all remaining ingredients, stir, and allow to simmer on low to medium heat for at least 15 minutes.

After softening the vegetables, I don't see why you couldn't just crumble the meat and toss everything in a crockpot, but why dirty two pots? I don't mind standing in front of the stove for this one since it's less than half an hour from start to finish. Once everything is mixed up, you can even leave it on low heat for a couple of hours

As with most chili recipes, this is better the second day, and even better on the third.

Anyone brave enough to try this completely in a crockpot and let me know how it turns out?

Spaghetti Stuff Calzone - My Take

Alright, so according to my meal plan, we were supposed to have the calzones for dinner last night. Well because of life complications, I had to switch the soup and calzones around. No biggie. Everything had been purchased and was sitting in the fridge/freezer ready to go anyway.

I was completely excited to try these calzones. They are based off of this recipe for garlic bread baked with spaghetti inside that I got from Pinterest. I'm a huge fan of baking my own bread, so I wasn't going to buy a pre-made loaf as the instructions suggest. I decided to also take it up a notch by making everyone their own little pocket of spaghetti goodness.

I used my basic pizza dough recipe (below) to make four calzones which I then stuffed it with a mix of my homemade spaghetti sauce and angel hair pasta. I brushed the outside with a mix of garlic, butter, and basil before sticking it in the oven, and then another coating when there were 10 minutes of baking time left.

As you can see, the spaghetti probably could have used a bit more sauce and definitely more cheese. It was a good concept though. I'll be trying these again with my suggested changes.

There really isn't a wrong way to do a calzone. What ingredients would you include in yours so turn up the flavor?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• Plus, extra flour and olive oil

Directions:

1. Dissolve the sugar into the warm water then stir in yeast and let sit until foamy.
2. Add flour (reserving 1 cup) and salt to large bowl.
3. Mix in yeast mixture, oil, and slowly add remaining flour until the dough has come together (you might need slightly more or less flour). Knead until smooth.
4. Form the dough into a ball and lightly coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and allow to sit until doubled in size (hour-ish).
5. Once the dough has risen, punch it down and form a ball again. Let it rise a second time, covered.
6. When ready, roll dough out on a lightly floured surface. This can be used for pizza, calzones, garlic rolls.