Meat Lover's Chili

Hey there!

I know its been a little while, my apologies. Life seems to get busier and busier as it goes on. I am getting married in October and seem to be overwhelmed with the looming deadlines and decisions that comes with the planning. I am finally now able to sit for a couple minutes before running out of the house to talk about the Super Bowl. (Hi 14 days later...)

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a HUGE Patriots fan. It annoys most people because they're incredibly jealous of the Pats' awesomeness. We had an amazing season and despite the loss in the Super Bowl, I still think we were the best team of the season. For the Super Bowl, Jon wanted chili. He made it very clear he wanted a man's chili, "none of that ground turkey s--t". So, I googled and combined some recipes and came up with what he claims is "the best chili he's ever tasted". Now, I'm not a chili fan at all, so I can't tell you whether or not he's exaggerating. You'll just have to make it yourselves.

8 slices bacon
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 small chili peppers (such as jalapenos or serranos), chopped
1/2 bottle beer (such as Corona)
3 beef bouillon cubes
6 oz tomato paste
2 tbsp steak sauce
1 lb ground beef
1 lb italian sausage
5 10 oz cans of diced tomatoes with green chiles
2 15oz cans of kidney beans, 1 drained, 1 with juices
1/4 cup chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp paprika
2 tsp hot sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar


In a medium skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. After cooked, place on a plate with paper towels. In the bacon grease, cook the garlic, onions, green peppers and chili peppers for 2-3 minutes. Whisk in beer, beef bouillon, tomato paste and steak sauce until well combined. Reduce heat to low.

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef and italian sausage.  Add diced tomatoes and kidney beans. **Reminder, with the kidney beans, one can will be drained so you are only adding the beans, the other you will add the whole can including the juices.** Add in the tomato paste and beer mixture. Add in chili powder, cumin, paprika, hot sauce and brown sugar. Cook on medium heat for 1-2 hours. Continue to cook on low for 3-4 hours in stock pot or crock pot.

Jon got my best friend to rock a Pats shirt. No one tell Mike Tomlin.

Chicken Broccoli Casserole

I am really impressed with this recipe, not gonna lie. I told you all that I was going to keep eating things I love- in this case, chicken, gravy and cheese; and that I would just be incorporating more veggies- insert mushrooms and broccoli. I reeeeally love mushrooms and Jon reeeeally does not. I don't hate broccoli but it is definitely not my first choice.

I had leftover rotisserie chicken I wanted to use up and a Costco sized bag of broccoli. My mom also got me a rice cooker for a housewarming gift last year and I was excited to use the steamer for the broccoli. It is the easiest thing ever. Thank you Black and Decker for taking the excuse that it's too much work to steam veggies out of my life.

I researched chicken broccoli casseroles online and was really disappointed that, as usual, everyone calls for cream of _____ soup. Most of the cream soups have MSG and I don't understand how they can label a recipe "from scratch" when they're using processed foods? I completely understand the added benefit of saved time so when you make this, feel free to substitute my gravy for cream o (insert your preference here) soup. I always have homemade gravy from when I get those rotisserie chickens so it was just as simple for me to use that.

This was relatively simple to throw together, probably took me 20 minutes to prep and the total cook time including steaming the broccoli was no more than 30-35 minutes. It also tasted amaaaazing, which, let's be honest, is the most important part. Jon ate his entire plate and as I mentioned, he finds no ally in mushrooms or broccoli. I know this would be super delish served over rice or egg noodles, but we are keeping our carb intake during the day, so we ate it alone and I honestly didn't miss any starches.

Chicken Broccoli Casserole

1 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups mushroom, chopped
1 1/2 tsp Lawry's season salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup gravy
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup 2% milk
2 cup broccoli, steamed and chopped
3 cup chicken, cooked and chopped
1 cup part skim shredded mozzarella, reserve some for topping
2 tbsp Panko breadcrumbs
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray casserole dish with cooking spray. In a medium skillet, cook sautée garlic and mushrooms in butter. After mushrooms have softened and Browne a little, season with season salt and pepper. Whisk in gravy, chicken stock and milk. Reduce heat and allow to thicken.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine broccoli, chicken and mozzarella. (Remember to reserve some mozzarella to sprinkle on top)

Once gravy mix has thickened, combine with chicken mixture. Pour into casserole dish. Top with extra mozzarella, Panko and Parmesan cheese. Bake for 20 minutes to heat through.

2012!!!

I'm baaaaaack! The craziness of the holiday season is FINALLY over, so I will hopefully start getting back on track with a lot of the things that fell by the wayside in October through December. This post is going to help with a couple of those things. 1) It's a post on my blog for the first time in close to forever. 2) It's going to help me plan out my meals to make sure I don't spend unnecessary money and calories on eating out.

I decided to go majorly cliche with my 2012 resolutions. My friends took me on my very first hike a few weeks ago and I loved it! I decided one of my resolutions this year would be to do one hike per month.



Makapu'u Lighthouse Hike 12/26/11

 I am also NOT going to eat any fast food whatsoever this entire year. I will also be going to the gym 4-5 days per week. That one should be easy enough because I did that the majority of 2011 besides my two weeks of pneumonia and when I got kidney stones. Let's hope no ailments prevent me this year!

Jon and I have also committed to planning out and cooking our meals ahead of time. I am going to continue cooking and eating foods I love, just cut down on portions and increase our veggies intake.

So, I decided I would make my first pot of homemade chicken stock. I know you're probably sick of me declaring my love for Costco's rotisserie chickens, but I can't help it. For $5, you get 3 lbs worth of chicken, which can be turned into so many meals. This time, I picked up 2 of those bad larry's. I used the drippings to make homemade gravy. I have the chicken meat saved for a soup, some chicken soft tacos and chicken salad for sandwiches. Then I took the carcasses (worst word ever by the way) and am doctoring up some chicken stock. That's $10 worth of awesomeness if you ask me.

So here's what I used to make the homemade chicken stock. It's really one of those "a little bit of this, a little bit of that" recipes so don't be scare to increase or decrease with your favorite flavors.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and wish you all a happy and healthy 2012!

Chicken stock

2 3 lb chicken carcasses
7-8 carrots, not peeled, cut into large chunks
5-6 celery, cut into large chunks, including leaves
1 1/2 large onion, cut into large chunks
1 head garlic, chopped
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp whole peppercorns
2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried dill weed

Fill a 16 qt stockpot with 7-8 quarts of water. Add all ingredients, cover and bring to boil. Once boiling, uncover, reduce heat to medium and allow to simmer for 3-4 hours. Strain the stock and chill overnight in refrigerator. Remove surface fat. Use immediately or freeze for up to 3 months.

Absense

Hey everyone! I wanted to take a quick second and say I am still alive. November and December are always hectic for anyone in retail, and I'm no exception. Anytime I have spent in the kitchen has been whipping up my favorite go-to meals. I have some exciting stuff coming up this week and I am going to do my very best to post. They will be more photo/story oriented rather than recipe based but I think you'll like it anyways.

Jon and I picked up our first real Christmas tree this weekend. So, tonight I will be decorating, listening to Nsync's Christmas album, wrapping presents, addressing my Christmas cards AND making some holiday sugar cookies! It's the most wonderful time of the year!

As if today wasn't going to be awesome enough with all the festivity and Christmas spirit, I won something today! I woke up at 3:55am Hawaii time just to go on to try for one of the Victoria's Secret Rewards Cards they were giving out on their facebook. I sat there for close to 30 minutes hitting the refresh button at least 8 trillion times until finally I got the message "get your card". So it gives you this card which could be worth $10, $50, $100 or $500. I was excited for it to be $10 since it was free anyways. After getting it I check the balance on the website. I WON THE $500 ONE! WHAT? Waiiiiit, what?! I NEVER win anything! I was so excited. I had to keep asking Jon if I was dreaming because these things never happen to me. I got some more Christmas shopping done with it, ordered a bunch of work clothes (so practical) and even got me a pair of Jessica Simpson pumps!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far and I will be back soon! <3

Stuffed Green Peppers

Just looking at this picture makes me want to eat, like, seven more of these beasts. They were so delicious and made up of the most simple ingredients. These would be super easy to make ahead and throw in the oven to finish off too for a quick weeknight meal. Hope you all love them as much as we did. And yes, I said we! Jon LOVED them even though he has a tendency to act like all vegetables will cause him to grow an extra toe. I expected him to just eat the stuffing because, hi, it was primarily made of rice, cheese and ground turkey. To my surprise, he actually ate the pepper too. So proud!

4 green peppers

1/2 cup onion chopped

3-4 garlic cloves

2 tbsp butter

1 lb ground turkey breast

1 cup marinara sauce

2 cups rice, fully cooked

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded, and extra to top peppers with

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the tops off the peppers and discard the seeds and membranes. Dice the tops of the peppers. In a medium skillet, cook onion, garlic and green peppers in butter for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add in ground turkey and brown. Mix in marinara sauce and allow to cook for 3-5 minutes. In a large mixing bowl combine turkey mixture, rice, cheeses, salt and pepper. Stuff bell peppers with mixture. Place on baking sheet and tent with foil. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Uncover, add extra shredded mozzarella and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Surprise!!!

So, I was up to some ninja acts that I think you'll all be proud of me for. Just a warning, this is a long post!

October is a big month for Jon and I. My birthday is October 5th, obviously the most important day in the month. We also celebrate our anniversary in October. On top of those two occasions, his mom, his sister, my grandmother and his uncle all have birthdays in October. Jon's mom lives allll the way in Massachusetts and I know it must be hard for her to be apart from Jon all the time. So, last year when he called to wish her a happy birthday I realized that this year (2011) was going to be her 50th and we should do something good. Once I pointed out the milestone to Jon, he said it was also going to be his sister's 21st, another milestone. We talked about it and decided we would save up and fly out to see her, as a surprise. We involved his Nana and asked that she plan some type of a birthday party for his mom so we had somewhere to show up at.

Over the past couple of months, I have been a nervous wreck that somehow the surprise would get out. I had told my friends here in Hawaii that I was leaving and my mom had told my family in Massachusetts I would be there. I am friends with Jon's family on Facebook and I was so nervous that someone would wish me a safe trip to Boston and then Jon's mom would see it and I'd cry. So, about a week before we left, I blocked every single one of his family members on mine and his and changed our privacy settings so you couldn't search for us on Facebook. Then, being even more paranoid, the day we left, I deactivated both our Facebooks to be 100% sure it wouldn't be revealed.

We flew in around 6pm on Friday night, the party wasn't until 5pm the next day. We got to fly in at sunset and I got this epic picture from the airplane over Boston Harbor.

We were so unbelievably anxious to see whether or not we pulled off the surprise. Luckily, my friends picked us up from the airport and kept us entertained Friday night. Then, on Saturday, we drove all the way down to New Bedford from Braintree just to get our favorite hot dogs at Gary's Best. Even after doing that and driving around aimlessly, we ended up with like two hours left and watched reruns of Bones waiting for the time to go by faster. Finally, it was a little before 5 and we could drive over to his Nana's house where the party was happening.

We came around the corner and Jon yelled out "Is someone having a birthday party?". Everyone seemed to just be in a state of shock and I couldn't even see where Jon's mom was. I finally saw that she had her back to us and she was leaning against the table with her hands covering her face, crying. It was perfect! All the fears that we didn't pull off the surprise went away.

We had an awesome trip home and the best part was getting to eat all of the food we've been missing. For me, it was mostly seafood- fried clams, stuffed quahogs, steamers, LOBSTER. For Jon, it was Chinese food from our favorite- Orchid of Hawaii. And we both enjoyed getting hot dogs from Gary's Best in New Bedford and getting to go to Dunkins EVERY morning.

We also go to go up to Salem, MA. It was my first time there and such a cool time of the year to go because it was right before Halloween.

And we spent our last day in Plymouth, MA which is where we had our first date. So that was also tons of fun. We acted all touristy and visited the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock too.

I had an awesome time visiting with family and friends but I was so happy to get back to beautiful Hawaii. I am proud of where I'm from but so happy with the choice we made to move here. I will be posting again soon with some wedding updates and hopefully some recipes! I haven't been cooking much because as I said, October is kind of a crazy month for us. I have the day off today and just stocked the fridge (finally) so I'm hoping for some yummy dishes in my future.

Chocolate Chip Waffles

You all know that for the most part, I conjure up my own recipes. However, this recipe was great as is, I just made two small changes. Make sure you pay close attention to the egg white instructions because it makes a huuuuge difference.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 1/2 cups milk 
1 tablespoon butter, melted 
2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1 large egg yolk 
1 large egg white 
1 cup semisweet chocolate minichips

Preheat waffle iron and spray with cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix milk, butter, vanilla extract and egg yolk. Combine with dry ingredients until smooth. Whip egg white until stiff peaks are formed. Fold into batter gently. Fold in chocolate chips. Cook on waffle iron per instructions in manual. Enjoy!