How she cleaned it up - White Chicken Chili

How She Cleaned It Up

* I have been asked many times if I eat solely Organic, to which I respond: "I like to eat clean". This is something that I am very passionate about, and it is coming up more often in my day to day life. I recently got someone to switch over a few things and start their journey, which inspired me to start this series. I want to share some tips, tricks, & any knowledge I come across with you. Like with any of my posts, all of this is said in love and concern for the greater good. However, that being said, I find more and more ridiculous things the further I dig!

 I am saddened by what is happening to children, sometimes without their parents knowledge. I was not educated on any of this for a long while. When I did learn some of these things, I was outraged, I had been feeding my growing babies things I wish I hadn't! I want to help people make a change, but some people HONESTLY think you are borderline elitist if you tell them you eat organic! What is most important in life? Health? Don't get me wrong, we are not necessarily eating "healthy". We are eating  just how my grandmother use to eat when she was young, and she loved her sugar! 

First thing I changed was milk, eggs, & bread. These are the things that we go through the most in our home, and it wasn't a huge challenge to my budget. As I grew and changed more, I am not going to lie, my grocery bill did go up. It was not the money that I was spending the most on, rather the "time spending" that was most difficult for me personally. The more difficult thing for my family, however, was not wasting food. My humble opinion is that we waste a lot of food in today's culture. If we spent more on what we actually eat, throw less away, our grocery bill doesn't have to sky-rocket. Overall, I believe that we need to get back to simpler times in more ways than one (waste, chemicals & pesticides, waiting to have dinners around the table with family)... Like I said, all said in love & no offense meant. Now back to your regular scheduled post:

White Bean Chili

I started off by finding this recipe, and gathered all my ingredients. Knowing that I wanted to make white bean chili, I had soaked beans the night before and pre-cooked them according to the bag instructions. I then put them into a glass jar I previously had. I try not to use canned anything overall. (key word is try) 

As you can see I then used organic chicken broth, I usually like to use "better than bouillon" paste mixed with water. (yes, they have organic as well) This boxed broth was on sale at Sprouts, so I went with it instead. Yes, you caught me, I am using canned chiles... I am not familiar enough with this product to know my other options.

We, as a family, just don't care about having a ton of meat "in" our stuff. Sometimes we just crave a steak, but overall recipes that call for meat get halved. I have noticed a lot of recipes call for two pounds of ground beef... you just don't need that much! So I halved the chicken breast to two and cut them into chunks instead of pulling it apart.

I loved this chili, my oldest did as well. My youngest, well she just doesn't want anything to have any "spiciness" to it, so she did not want it. Let me know what you think!

Pho sure!

Okay guys, I am from the MidWest so please forgive me that I am a little late to the party. I didn't try sushi right away, and now I am guilty of just trying Pho for the first time. BUT... can you say flippin' DELISH?! 

Oh the love. I call myself a foodie very loosely because I am a little skittish to try things, but the heavens opened up for me on this one. I love beef overall anyway, so I tried the rare steak & well done brisket. Lucky for me I had someone with me that was a pro. They explained the Thai basil & bean sprouts, well the saracha too, but I don't do spicy too well so I skipped that.

Now to the point! I wanted to attempt to make this at home.  We all know that it is costly to go out to eat often, however this wonderful dish begs to be eaten often. I first found a lovely recipe on Pinterest for the pressure cooker, but the yield was astronomical. Just when I was about to pull out the grocery list and add freezer bags to the ingredient list, I came across this:

What?! AND its organic??? Yes please! I will be on the hunt for this asap, just add noodles and tender lovely beef. Now how hard is it to find bean sprouts and Thai basil?

Be still my heart... and stomach.

Thanksgiving Visitors

Now I don't know about you all out there, but when we do Halloween, we just do some trick or treating and call it a day. We load our kids buckets FULL, then the parents sneak the "good candy", and then let the kids go crazy for one night a year. We are not the family that has an elaborate Halloween costume party, although I'd like to do that once. 

We ARE however the family that does more traditional Thanksgiving family gatherings. That all being said, I stumbled across this on Pinterest. I'm in love with how fricken adorable these are. 

I traced it back to tadkapasta and it seems they are calling these to be for Halloween...

I, as you've guessed, would do them for my Thanksgiving gathering. Now all I need to do is get a gathering of people to visit Colorado for Thanksgiving. ;)

Ding Ding Ding

Here is some information that I want to do my part of getting out to every.single.mother! Every single parent, grandparent, heck every single person that eats in fact. I am so thankful that she puts all of this knowledge in honest terms. For the most part I have a "live your life" mentality and everyone should make their own choices, BUT this is one thing I can get upon my soapbox about. She really hits me in the heart at "A fundamental shift happen in the way we produced food. It was introduced by a chemical company, it definitely helped them sell more chemicals, but it was introduced without ever informing the American public that it had happened."

Does this only disgust me?! I was eating chemicals hand over fist for years, even while pregnant, without knowing. I know a lot of mothers out there that have said, and I quote: "Do what ever you want to me, hurt me, curse me, but don't ever harm my children". This. This! Is why I am angry about this.... my kids are helpless, and apparently the American public is too.

Having girls

Can I just take a minute to express how much I love having two little girls?! I love the fact that they get excited to watch “Cupcake Wars” with me… I love that my little one asks when “Sweet Genius” is going to be on. I just love the fact that I have prissy little girls that love to get excited about the same things that excite me!

Shrimp Tacos!

A couple days back, I was tootilin’ about my garden, & picked just a few pieces of lettuce. As I was walking back into the house, I spotted my cilantro, and picked a bit of that as well.

Thinking, thinking, thinking… what’s for super? hmmm Opened the freezer, and the shrimp smacked me in the face. This got me thinking about a post the other day from a friend, Cheesecake Factory: Shrimp Tacos!

Absolutely. I found what sounded close enough for me over here. I had all the ingredients listed, besides limes, but I did have lime juice, so I dove in.

They tasted wonderful, especially knowing that my shrimp were from Whole Foods, and not farm raised. It was also satisfying that the greens were from my garden.

I believe that the only thing that would have made them taste any better? A margarita would have finished it off, of course!

Getting my hands dirty

Bet you’d never guess what I been doing all weekend?!

I know I mentioned that I might not be doing a garden this year because of Europe… but I’m crazy like that I guess.

My thinking is that if I promise someone my harvest for that three weeks, they will come water for that time. What do you think? Even enough trade?

Cinnamons

I got my Food Network magazine last Wednesday, and when my oldest caught a glimpse of the cover it was on!

“Mommy, please can you make those cinnamon rolls for breakfast?”

Without a thought in my my head I made the biggest mistake a mother can make while having a convo with her children…

“Maybe this weekend honey”

oops! I will blame it on my 1200 calorie diet I’ve been trying to keep up for 2 months now. My brain hasn’t had enough nutrition lately!

Fast forward to Friday evening, when I came home from work. I mixed and mixed, and turned and buttered and wrapped. In the fridge till morning!

This is the point where it was starting to pay off for me. The house smelled delish, and my family was super happy as I pulled it out of the oven.

I snapped one last picture for you, and threw my “not-gonna-be-fat-in-Europe-diet” out the window. I was super pumped at this point: iced coffee & cinnamon rolls.

First bite was eh… yes all that work and eh. If I was going to put all that time in, I really should have stuck with the Cinnabon knockoff that is splashed all over the internet.

It does make for pretty pictures though, right?!

And so I made cupcakes…

Since I couldn’t have sampita for my birthday treat, I scoured Pinterest for ideas.

I found these Tres Leches cupcakes. I did not, however use the recipe for the icing that goes on them. I found a different one that used a box o’ cream cheese & whipping cream. I know it doesn’t look as pretty, but tasted light & airy, so as not to take away from the amazing cupcakes themselves.

My brother also has a birthday close to mine, two days before actually. He came up to visit, and chocolate is his fav, so chocolate cupcakes of course. I had my best friend on the phone at the time, and I also know that chocolate cake is one of her favs as well. She too likes to use her Kitchen Aid, so I ask what was the best recipe to use. She suggested the one on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa container, pretty good I’ll say. I also have to let you in on the fact that I do not like chocolate cake. *gasp* Love chocolate, but not so much chocolate flavored things.

I have been munching on these Tres Leches cupcakes since Saturday, & still can’t get enough of them. I had one minor hang up: once I got to the ‘use a meat injector for the milk’ I was lost for a moment, then, rummaged through my utensil drawer…. SCORE! I surprise myself some times. I used a children’s medicine dispenser, worked like a charm ;)

My Birthday gift!

Easter Sunday just also happens to be my birthday this year, yeap! I feel kinda special. There is something else that I am feeling the most special about though. Wanna take a guess? Well, Finally got an extra special gift I’ve been eye-bawling for a few years now.

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*drum roll please*

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She’s like the retro Cadillac of Amazingnesses! Can you tell I am super excited? First moment we will be having together will be Sampita. Here is your mission: comment below your first moment together with your KitchenAid/your favorite recipes that involve the KitchenAid mixer. I need some wonderful things to try!

<3

Oh no! I thought I had that!

The other night I started boiling my pasta, the plan was to make baked rigatoni. I grab my pasta sauce jar out of the fridge only to see it half empty. My first thought was “great this is suppose to be my quick fix go-to meal”, so now what? Off to the store? In my baby-fit manner, I spin my lazy susan quickly around, and something caught my eye! Hmmm I can make pasta sauce homemade, I’ve done it before, but it takes all day of simmering. I grab the tomato sauce can that caught my eye, and rummage through my spice cabinet. There we go!

I pour into my sauce jar the tomato sauce that will fit, and start “doctoring it up”. I throw in about 2 Tbsp. of Parm, and a few, three shakes of Italian seasoning, a dash of garlic salt (I didn’t have garlic powder on hand). I put the cap back on, and give it a good shake, shake, shake. Then I poured it all over my rigatoni as usual. It worked out so good, I had to share it with all of you, my favoritestes peeps. 

Organic Deli Tray

First of all, do you or someone you know attend family functions where some or all of the people attending do not care about their food being organic? In fact, some of you out there might even be saying the people attending this family functions do not even seem to care about healthy options at all.

Well, here is a go-to for you, without bringing something too crazy. Something like ‘hummus & whole wheat crackers’?! I just have to smirk at myself, because that would have been me just five or so years ago.

As you can tell from this picture (sorry for the poor quality), it is not all organics on this tray, but you could put your own stamp of approval on it. The trays here are organic veggies & Boar’s Head deli meats. I have not taken the organic cheese plunge, it is just not economically feasible for me. Everything in time though I am sure.

So what healthy options would you add to your tray, that would still be options for your ‘conventional’ crowd?

Frozen Herbs

I love to make, what I like to call, Faux-Chipotle every so often, but I feel like I waste so much cilantro, so I was on a mission. As usual, I turned to my best friend ever Pinterest, and found what I needed. You can freeze herbs!

The thing is, apparently you must layer it in a jar with sea salt. Why sea salt? Ummm I don’t know either, but if something works, why question it? :)

My thinking is it keeps too much moisture at bay, so that they herbs don’t get mushy. That sounds good, right?! Yeap that is the answer I am sticking with.

Also, I haven’t tested this on other herbs, yet, but I want to this summer. My plan is to have an herb garden this year, but we will see how many other things I get to planting. I get carried away every year.

Healthy Fast Food

As I was eating my Panera Bread tonight, I was thinking about the little amount of food options we have here in South Bend/Mishawaka area. We are getting a Whole Foods soon, but could we get a Trader Joe’s or Good Earth store? We are all trying to eat more healthy, and shouldn’t that include organic?

So, more importantly than all the above, when this mama wants a “night off”, I have basically two options. I could go to Panera, which is not organic. My kiddos do love salad from here though, so I feel good about this choice. The other option is Chipotle, there are organic aspects here, but there is a ton of sodium in these meals.

What I am getting at here, with my rant, is why do moms in this area not have more options? Is it lack of funds around the area to start up new places? Or is it the fact that people just don’t care enough about organics? I am starting to feel like the odd man out when trying to get my family to eat healthy.

It really brought everything full circle in my mind when people all around me are raving about how my daughters love salads. I want to scream at them, because my kids were not exposed to fast food non-stop. Yes my kids have had a happy meal, and yes they have played at the Burger King playland, so don’t think I am one of those moms. Everything in moderation though. We always went toward the healthier options. My daughters love salad so much, because this was going out to eat for them. What are we doing to our kids? What are we doing to ourselves? I eat less and less vegetables every year. This was my true wake up call, and the number one reason I started my garden.

Okay, rant over…

Porto’s Bakery

I was first introduced to this wonderful-in-everyway-place by my lovely sister in law. This introduction, unfortunately was over instagram. You see my SIL lives in LA. Once she finished USC (yes, extremely proud over here), she officially took the plunge of living the high life of a studio apartment *sarcasm indeed*. What is not sarcastic however, is that I am living vicariously through her. Who wouldn’t want to be young, with tons of fun friends, on your own, in Los Angeles? So when we went to visit this past summer my only wish was to go to this place. It’s obviously the closest I was going to get to being young and fun in LA, with children behind me. haha So off we went:

The architecture inside and out was so pretty. I wanted to take tons of pictures, then redecorate my house accordingly.

Tell me one thing in this case that me, my husband, and my two girls wouldn’t want to take home?! Every. single. thing. I wanted to buy and smuggle on the plane.

This is what my husband and I settled on: Tiramisu on the left and mochachino on the right. Mine is the right, good thing, cause it was the most delicious one! I could use one right now, this 1200 calorie diet I’ve been on needs to be blown up!

Nutella & Love

Yesterday was my husbands birthday, and many of you know (or are about to know) that he moved to the US when he was 19. I met him about 6 months later, and before he knew it, I claimed him for my own. I didn’t even give him a chance to learn the culture, or fully the language before I locked him down. *sheepish grin*

Also, as many of you know, I have a slight obsession with Pinterest… AND Pinterest has a slight obsession with Nutella <3

So behold the fairytale I am about to tell you that mushes all the above mentioned facts.

As most young kids that are in love, we had to compare notes on all things we loved previous to each other, right? Food is one thing we had in common! I was not one of those skinny, salad eating girls ever in my life… I LOVE desserts, in fact I LOVE sugar. My husband, as sweet as he already is, loves sugar more than me, that’s no easy feat. Afterall, I use to eat candy bars for breakfast in high school. Anyhow, we started to compare notes on desserts one day. I explained to him that I would have to bring him to grandma’s so that he could try my favorite cake “that tastes like heaven”. He said “oh no, my dessert IS heaven, and I will bring you to my grandma’s tomorrow”

We did, in fact go the next day,  and this is what was placed in front of me:

“palacinke” (paul-e-chen-kuh) Sanel added.

Well, I guess here is where my fairytale has an unexpected twist. I did not like them, at all… in fact, it is actually Nutella I do not like. *gasp*

Here is how my fairytale ends: I make my husband the palacinke, that he adores, for his birthday, I’m a good wife like that. I then make mine what I like to call the “Katrina way”. Americans & Bosnians in perfect harmony <3

A Chocolatey Idea

I need to start off this post by saying, I am no chocolatier. I am, however, a chocoholic. Not the kind that I crave it one week a month, and not the kind that I LOVE, love. Love! Chocolate (although I do). I do mean it in ever sense of “aholic” you can imagine. Hide it? yes. Horde it? yes. Not willing to share? yes. But the one that made me stop and evaluate my situation is the day I stopped to get lunch and bought three salted dark chocolate caramels, individually wrapped. I put one in my mouth, and the other two in my pocket. Within the ten minutes I needed to get back to work, I had another one gone… I sat at my desk, seething for the last one. LOL desperate? I think so! I really wanted to keep it for that 2 pm crash/hang up, but no! It was gone 10 minutes later.

Now that you know my love/hate relationship with this most wonderful/most loathed object in my life, I have a nicer story to end with…

As I was drifting off to dreamland the other night I had a vision of creating chocolates for Valentine’s Day. They were going to combine two of my favorite flavors, Chocolate (of course) & raspberry. I had some jam in the fridge…

I also had a very lovely silicone heart mold I wanted to use for the occasion. You guessed it, the idea nagged at me, just as that last salted caramel. I decided to try my hand at being that non-chocolatier. I have to say, for my first time with “filled” chocolates, I feel like I did a fabulous job! The professionals seem to get more “stuff” in the middle, but I was fearful it would ooze out the back or the sides. They tasted just like my vision as I drifted off to sleep.

<3

Cabbage Rolls in the Crockpot

 * If you are here from Pinterest, Welcome! I have been asked for the recipe,

it is at the bottom in the comment section.

There are a ton of crockpot recipes flying around the internet these days & if you’re partial to Pinterest, I’m sure you’ve noticed. I also have noticed that a bunch of them are full of package mixes and lots of canned soup bases. I’m not sure about you, but I am trying to slowly get away from all of these processed things.

Cabbage rolls are like my chicken pot pie I make… it’s a big comfort food for me.

Cabbage rolls drum up a whole lot of nostalgia in my mind and heart. Every year for Thanksgiving, my cousin would come from Alaska for a mini-reunion, this was her chance to get grandma’s cabbage rolls.

As you can imagine we liked to go and do tons of stuff while she was visiting, which brings me to my point. Did you know that you can slow-cook cabbage rolls? I didn’t realize thing till my grandma told me a couple years back. I’m so happy to have learnt so much from her!

I’m sure you’ve already guessed that there is some prep-work before hand, but it is so worth it. Just pile those yummy little packages of stuffed cabbage in the crock with some kraut and tomato juice, turn on, and go. Go do some “running” as my grandma would call it. For you young pups out there, that’s code for “shopping, errands, etc.”

The best thing about this idea? When you come home, it’s all done. It’s a meal in itself, no post-prep on this meal. We like to eat them with crescent rolls and cottage cheese. Cabbage rolls are just one of those meals that warms your belly and your soul in the middle of winter.