bell pepper

Slow Cooker Turkey Sweet Potato Chili

August 27, 2016 by Dana

*This Slow Cooker Turkey Sweet Potato Chili is a fall favorite that is packed with nutrition and so delicious! With fall right around the corner you need this in your life! Throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker, and have a fantastic dinner waiting for you at the end of the day. P.S. It’s also a great way to hide extra nutrition in chili for kids who are skeptical of sweet potatoes!

I’m just going to come right out and say this….. I put sweet potatoes in chili way before it was cool on Pinterest. Like, years ago! I didn’t do it on purpose the first time, it went down like this:

I bought the expensive pre-cubed butternut squash at the grocery store and I never used it. My husband nagged me about it until one day I was like FINE I’LL PUT IT IN THE CHILI now shut up about me buying random stuff at the grocery store and let’s move on (the man has a point here though I must admit). So I threw the squash in my regular chili recipe and it was fantastic! How exciting it was when he arrived home after work and I had a new creation to share that made me look like a culinary genius. 🙂 Sweet and spicy for the win!

After the squash I gave sweet potatoes a go because we always have them on hand for making the kids sweet potato fries. I actually loved sweet potatoes even more, and the rest was history! That is until the Pinterest Pinnies were all like:

“Sweet potatoes in everything, all day everyday!”

“Sweet potatoes on fleek!” (still have no idea what that one means)

“Sweet potatoes all up in my chili!”

“Put sweet potatoes in your chili because it is cool now!”

You get the point. Everyone else figured out it was a rockin’ combo and then all of a sudden I was just a regular person again. *sigh*

Back before my culinary genius bubble burst I was actually using a stovetop chili recipe, however for my birthday last year my I received a brand new slow cooker from my mom! If you have followed other slow cooker recipes here, you might remember I had an ancient slow cooker that my mom was gifted for her bridal shower in the 80’s. No clue who bought that for her or why they thought she would ever use it (girl doesn’t cook) but it got me through a few babies and my first apartment. Shout out to the random relative who made that purchase and RIP awful baby poop colored slow cooker! With my shiny new slow cooker I realized how much tastier chili was in the slow cooker vs. on the stove top and I don’t think I will be looking back anytime soon! Shiny new slow cooker for another win!

Recipe Tips

I cut my sweet potatoes in small cubes (pictured below), however when the chili was done they were pretty well cooked. So much so that they disappeared into the chili a bit. I found this really awesome, however if you are looking for a chunkier finish I would cut them a tad bigger then what is pictured below.
I added 2 jalapeños and it was bit spicy for us. The spiciness was muted in the leftovers though and that is when it was just right! If you are not into spiciness at all, of course just omit the jalapeño all together.
As mentioned above, this chili gets better and better everyday in leftovers! It is a great meal to make at the beginning of the week to have a healthy lunch for the next few days.
I tend to keep chili simple because a speech professor once told me the acronym K.I.S.S. or keep it simple stupid! This sticks to me with chili because when folks are looking for good chili recipes they don’t want to have to go to the grocery store and buy ingredients that they will use 1 tablespoon of and never see again because it is so far back in the pantry.
I have found (thanks to the back of a Goya bean can) that 2 Tablespoons of cumin, 2 Tablespoons of chili powder, and 2 teaspoons of adobo seasoning are the PERFECT spice combo for chili. This is my go-to amount of spices and it has never failed me. You can certainly play around with it but that combo will give you just enough flavor without being overpowering.

Then we have this close up shot that is so detailed you can literally see that I cut the avocado with a butter knife. Sheesh that expensive macro lens was worth it!

And then there was this cutie…. 🙂 Hi Sammy!

Beef and Veggie Macaroni

August 27, 2015 by Dana

The school year is officially in full swing! I have to say, getting my son ready on the first day was a tad stressful…thanks to a meltdown in the morning by my usually happy 2 year old. Boy, did he ever decide to throw a wrench in all picture plans by flipping out, throwing himself down into some rocks, and refusing to let me strap him into his car seat! Sound familiar to anyone? Good, I’m not alone!! I thought for sure my neighbors were going to call the cops on me for child abuse because he was screaming at the top of his lungs. They surely think I’m insane by now because it seems that someone is always screaming. I promise, we are “normal,” whatever that means. 🙂

Now that I’ve vented about the terrible twos, let’s talk about this delicious and lunchbox-friendly meal! This one is perfect for sending a hot lunch to school that your kids will actually eat, or just getting dinner on the table relatively quickly after school. There is not much for your kids not to love about this one…. and if they are on the fence about the carrots/peppers I would suggest dicing them super small and pretending they aren’t even there. I’m not a fan of “hiding” veggies in food, however I do have a slightly picky 3rd grader who changes his mind on a weekly basis about what is acceptable to put in his lunchbox. I feel you, I do!

Just because I have a blog about food does not mean all of my boys will eat everything I make without complaining. Every week last school year my son would complain about certain foods that I sent in his lunchbox that he previously loved to take. Eventually I just ran out of ideas and started making meals like this one so I could send the leftovers in his LunchBots thermos and be done with it! Most of his hot lunches would come home eaten, so I had to settle for putting veggies in creations like this one instead of sending them raw. You win some, you loose some!

Recipe Tips

I used a colander to drain the grease from the meat/veggies. I tried draining the way I normally do and realized it was going to be an epic disaster if I proceeded, so I placed a colander in the sink (or over a bowl if you do it that way) and it was so much easier!
You can absolutely switch up the veggies here, and get creative! I can see peas and green beans working really well!
I didn’t know whether to call this a soup or a stew because it is kind of in between. At first it was thinner but the pasta will continue to soak up the broth and it becomes thicker. I really enjoyed the consistency because it was right in the middle.
Yes, this recipe contains cheese because cheese is my friend, and has really never failed me. You can certainly omit the cheese if you would like, however I really loved it with just a slight hint of cheddar. It isn’t overpowering at all, just bumps up the taste a bit.
I always use no salt added Bionaturae strained tomatoes when cooking a dish like this. If you substitute a product that contains salt, you will have to adjust how much additional salt you add. I prefer this product over canned because I feel it is safer and has a better taste.

Black Bean and Corn Fritters

June 19, 2015 by Dana

Can I just go right ahead and admit today was just one of those days. If you have kids then I know you know what I’m talking about! Having my 8 year old son home for summer vacation and being super preggo is a lot more then I bargained for. Hello… when you can’t see your feet how are you supposed to bend over and pick random things up?? Or bend over and give the babes a bath?? Or put your own shoes on?? The big belly struggle is real! #pregnancyproblems

However…. somehow I managed to throw these super fun and delicious Black Bean and Corn Fritters together and the kids gobbled them up for lunch. I wish I could say that I served them with a green veggie or fruit salad but no, the kids are on a hard boiled egg kick so protein + protein it was. Hey, nothing wrong with that…. until tomorrow morning when I have to smell the aftermath of this bean + hard boiled egg meal. Thankfully my husband wasn’t here!

In other news my husband wants me to stop purchasing kitchen stuff. How do I put this…nevergonnahappenhubby.

In other, other news Donald Trump is running for president. Am I missing something here? Is he a politician now? Is he just going to pay someone off to make important decisions? Am I the only one super confused about this? And by the way, if you haven’t seen his Toupee memes I suggest you Google that immediately and have a good laugh!

AAAANNNNDDD…. Back to the fritters because they are super easy to make and come together in about 30 minutes from start to finish. 30 minutes!! They are so easy I would say this would be a great recipe to let the kids help out with. I served mine with a nice dollop of sour cream and a little extra cheese on top and they were just perfect. Hope you all enjoy as much I we did!

Creamy White Cheddar Baked Corn

December 4, 2014 by Dana

Corn. The glue that holds all Holiday meals together. Don’t think so? Try omitting it sometime, and everyone will just keep wondering “What’s missing here???”

I have to admit, I’ve been a corn lover my whole life. As a child I absolutely despised veggies, but corn…we got along just fine. So obviously, as an adult and a chef, I look for ways to make corn even better then it already is. I’ve found a winner here….ding, ding, ding! 🙂 Corn + cheese = yes! It doesn’t really take a genius to figure that one out though, so let’s just say I took an obvious combination and upped the ante a bit by adding a touch of white wine and a layer of crispy Fontina cheese on top!

And now… I bring to you…more processed food confessions from my childhood. Boy, I hope my parents decided my blog was too much of a snooze-fest to even read anymore because I’ve been calling them out for all the crap they fed me as a child a lot lately! I’m just going to assume they aren’t reading and proceed to call them out yet again! The cheese whiz, the frozen pretzels, and now the Kid Cuisines (among lots of other crap). I mean, seriously…why? And who? Who goes to the grocery store and thinks processed junk food in plastic containers that you cook in a microwave seem like a good idea? Apparently my parents thought it was quite nifty because let’s just say I ate Kid Cuisines a few times a week for a few years. I’m still alive! But no wonder I was fat and awkward!

In their defense, I really loved those things. I came home from school, watched Nickelodeon, ate my TV-dinner. The life of a 90’s kid! My favorite Kid Cuisine was the tacos (ok, is talking about this crap getting creepy yet?!?!?). I refused to believe the tacos had beans in them (THEY DID) because I thought I hated beans. I also was quite the little chef because I always mixed the corn and cheese sauce and it was the best combo ever. Hence…. this recipe!

One really important step in this recipe is making sure your frozen corn is defrosted! If it isn’t defrosted it will make the sauce runny when it defrosts in the oven. I made the same mistake one time but quickly fixed it by adding a few tablespoons of flour and baking it for a few more minutes. Flour fixes everything!

*I recommend looking for frozen corn that is organic/non-GMO verified! I used sweet corn that I froze this summer, but store bought is perfectly fine as well!