The Most Delicious Rainy Day Chili

Even though Summer is upon us and Spring is (supposed to be) here already, there are going to be a few more chilly nights and rainy days.  This recipe is the perfect cure for a slight brrr in the air.  Your house smells fantastic and it's healthy and delicious.  You're welcome. Oh-and it comes together in a snap!

I've always been a big fan of making chili, and this one has gotten rave reviews.  I figured it was time for me to share! Some people like beans, some do not.  I am a bean lover! I make tons of stuff with beans and I'm slowly convincing my husband to eat them.  After years of blending the kidney beans before adding them to this recipe, now he even likes this chili!  With all sorts of intact beans.  I even have a stash of black bean brownies I made for the kids...they have no idea....mwahaha...I digress.

Here in Petawawa, I am lucky enough to buy an organic vegetable basket weekly throughout the summer months and leading into the fall.  The farm (Rainbow Heritage Garden) is wonderful and their produce is AMAZING.  Last year, the first couple of weeks were a little sparse so they plumped up our baskets with some of their dried bean mix.  So incredibly awesome. Yummy inspiration!

In the past I have always cooked with canned beans (I know, I know) but it was SUPER easy to use these delicious dried beans.  I let them soak overnight and then I was able to cook them up in no time to use in this recipe.  There was my previous problem...leaving them overnight.  I always had good intentions but would instantly forget and wake up the next day saying: "Oh yahhhhh...the BEANS." And then I would use canned.

If you're like the former me, go ahead-use canned. Try to buy organic and BPA free (but don't stress about it) and rinse well.

 Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil
1 sweet onion (vidalia), chopped
1 cup grated carrot (approx. 3)
2 tsp minced garlic
1 packed ground turkey (or chicken, or tofu)
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp EACH cumin and oregano

1 tsp ground coriander (optional)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)
6 roma tomatoes, diced (or a CAN! of diced tomatoes, no added salt)
2 cups mixed beans (dried, cooked or canned-gasp)
4 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups broth (chicken, vegetable, whatever)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Saute onions in olive oil over medium heat.  Add carrots until soft.
Add meat, garlic and spices. Cook for one more minute.
Add tomatoes, paste, beans, stock and syrup. Bring to a simmer and leave for 20 minutes.
You can leave it longer...and it will only get better.
Add the salt and pepper and if you have some lying around, fresh parsley or cilantro.

Voila!  Delicious chili for the family.

The chili will turn from this...

  Into a a very hazy this...

And eventually it goes into your bowl only to be topped with even more deliciousness. What do we put on ours? 0% Greek yogurt, shredded old cheddar, hot sauce, avocado, corn, spinach...the list is endless. Or you can leave it naked, up to you! Make a chili bar! Let your kids put on their own toppings! What could be more fun? I mean really. Ok, maybe a sundae bar.

This recipe also freezes really well.  But if you forget to soak beans overnight, you'll probably forget this is in the freezer too...so you should probably just portion it out and put it in the fridge.  It won't last long anyway!

If you're unfamiliar with how to soak and cook dried beans, this is an excellent and simple guide.

Enjoy-let me know what you think!

Birthdays: Then and Now

This past weekend, I celebrated my 33rd birthday.  My birthday typically falls around Easter, which I never minded as a kid because this meant a big family party with lots of food, chocolate and games. I always shared my birthday/Easter party with my Grandmother, cousin, Uncle and Aunt as all of our birthdays were very close. The cake always had to be huge to include all of our names!

As I got older, birthdays started to change.  Celebrating meant going out for dinner, drinks and getting together with friends. Less presents, more late nights.  I also never minded this as an adult, because time spent with friends and family was more important in my life than presents (whereas presents are clearly more important as a child).

This year, I realized how different birthdays have become yet again, since having children.  My husband's birthday is close to mine and we decided to go out and celebrate his as well (why not make it a birthday extravaganza?)

Living in a small military town means slightly (ok, considerably) less options to go out than when we used to live in Toronto.  The bonus is we can walk to any place we wanted.  My husband LOVES fish and chips so we decided to head to the Legion.  They serve fish and chips every Friday and we heard they were awesome! Why not?

First difference of birthdays from then and now:
Then: Fancy restaurants and bar hopping
Now: We went to a LEGION.

Now, I don't know how many of you have been to a Royal Canadian Legion, but it sort of feels like you've been invited to a house party but not introduced to anyone.  You're in a basement, everyone stares at you, but no one says hello. Don't get me wrong-they are AWESOME. It's still super fun and being our age, we also felt like the youngest people there which is never a bad thing.  No-scratch that, we WERE the youngest people there.

Another great thing about being our age and having three young children is we couldn't have cared LESS! We were OUT. By OURSELVES. We could talk about anything we wanted, even swear if we wanted. And I didn't have to spell a single word the entire night.  Pretty exciting...no L-I-E.

The vibe of the night changed slightly when my husband told the middle aged bartender I was "turning 25 again" and she turned to me and said: "You 5-0?"

I was in such shock I couldn't speak.

She said again: "You 50?"

I think I stammered out something along the lines of "WHAT?  You think I'm 50?" @#^$**%#$^#&@*
Oh wait no.  That was happening INSIDE my head..loudly inside my head, but inside.
What I really said was: "Nooooo, I'm turning 33."

That's when she said: "Oh, because I'm 50!"  I'm sorry?  Either you think you look amazing for 50 or I look pretty darn haggard for 33. I'm seriously considering a new face cream.

And to rub it in, she told me I was robbing the cradle...and my husband is 2 years OLDER. Terrific.

So after that reality check (I am not fishing for compliments, I know I don't look 50, thank you very much), a new bartender came in and watched "Days of our Lives" at the bar while we waited for our fish and chips. They came downstairs to let us know it was ready-now that is small town service right there!

After a few rounds of pool, we decided to head out and maybe get a drink at another bar...well-the ONE bar we passed on the way home was closed, but the steakhouse at the end of our street (that hasn't changed their sign since the 70's) was open!  Woohoo! We were one of 3 tables and happily enjoyed our private drink.

There's the 2nd difference:
THEN: Heading home, probably pretty hazy, late at night...
NOW: Walking home from the restaurant at the end of our street while it's still light out. Very light. Like, 7:00PM light. And happy about it.

So we got home, one child had gone to bed, two were awake.  We played with them for a while. We played a fun game hugging and squeezing each other, maybe a little too much...I felt we should stop when my oldest son barfed. A lot.
So, my night finished up with me on my knees cleaning up barf.

And the best difference:
Then: Feeling like I might barf
Now: Being sober enough to clean up copious amounts of my child's barf

After putting the kids to bed and grabbing a glass of wine, I got the coffee maker ready for the morning and made pancake mix so when my husband got up on MY birthday the next day, he would have everything ready to make breakfast for the kids.

Life is different now.  I'm 33.  I'm a wife.  I'm a Mom.

I am not ashamed of being 33, in fact I'm quite proud of where I am and what I have accomplished.  I'm happy to be where I am.  I think back every once in a while and wish I was back in my twenties, but then I look around and smile.  Life is so wonderful. My children are happy and healthy. I've been married almost six years and I'm still crazy in love. We have fantastic friends. We have worked hard to get where we are and have what we have, but we're also lucky.  I really feel lucky.

Birthdays may just be numbers but they deserve recognition.  They will always change-but mostly for the better. The older we get, the wiser we are. There is no better reason for celebration than a birthday!  So no matter what your next birthday brings-enjoy, celebrate and savor the moments because next year you'll be a year older and have distinctively different reasons to let loose.

I wish I knew then what I know now. But if I did, I certainly wouldn't have the memories (or no memories) of birthdays past. Horray for birthdays, both then and now, I hope there is a difference every year.

A Better Easter Creme Egg

I don't know about you, but to me and my family growing up, Easter has always been about bunnies, little yellow chicks and chocolate.  We would all get together, have a big Easter egg hunt for the kids in the family and then cram about 40 people around a table that stuck out into the hallway and eat, elbow to elbow, laughing and talking over each other all night long.  And then we'd eat chocolate.  A lot of chocolate. Like a gross amount. No joke. Ahhh...Easter.  I love this holiday.

One thing I was never crazy about was those creme eggs.  You know the ones-wrapped in purple and EVERYWHERE at this time of year.  I love sweet stuff, chocolate is one of my downfalls, but these made my teeth hurt.  I never "got" them. Now, my husband on the other hand...these are his Easter treat.

So, as I do with most of our special treats, I try to make a healthy version and (as my husband says) "ruin" them.

So here we go.  A "ruined" version of the famous Easter creme egg.  Let me be clear: This tastes NOTHING like a creme egg, but it's pretty damn good.  My husband even raved about it.  And my kids SCARFED them down.

My original plan of the day was to make these with my kids as a fun Easter craft but first I made these "Chicks" with them and...well, BIG FAT FAIL, so I decided to go about the creme eggs on my own.  Don't stare too hard at the coconut chick...your eyes will hurt...not what I had planned!

So first thing I had to figure out was how to make the chocolate egg.  I wanted to make a whole chocolate egg and fill it but when I realized how difficult that was going to be, I figured hey-an open egg is cool too!

I couldn't find any molds ANYWHERE so I wrapped up my plastic eggs in cling wrap and dipped them in chocolate.  Easy peasy!

Melt 6 oz. dark chocolate over a simmering pot of water. I have no idea how to "temper" chocolate...so when it was melted, I dipped the eggs and put them aside. There is probably a proper way to do this...

While I waited for those to set, I made the "whites" of the egg..  Cheesecake is delicious and I figured a cheesecake filling would be SOOOOO good in these.  So I blended up these ingredients:

1/2 cup room temperature cream cheese
1/2 cup 0% plain greek yogurt
2-3 tbsp real maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla

That's IT. It's so good it almost didn't make it to the eggs.  Put that aside and here is the "hard" part.

Lemon curd.

Now, lemon curd is usually made with a lot of egg yolks and sounds harder to make than it is.  The key is to NEVER LEAVE IT ALONE.  You have to stand there, kind of like a jerk, and whisk this stuff until it thickens.  I mean it-no answering the phone, door or changing a diaper.  Your kids are on their own. They HAVE to wait if you want curd and not scrambled eggs. But the good part is it only takes about 5-10 minutes MAX.

Lemon Curd Ingredients:
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/8 cup raw honey
zest and juice from one lemon
2 tbsp coconut oil

Whisk together the egg, yolk, honey and lemon zest.

I used the same simmering pot of water from the chocolate and whisked this for a while over a gentle heat.

I added the coconut oil and whisked again until it was all melted.

Add the lemon juice.

Whisk.  More.  Don't answer the phone I said.
Keep whisking.

And.....not yet.

Ok now, looks good!  It's thick and delicious.  Put it in the fridge!

Bring those eggs back out!   By now they should have hardened.  I peeled the plastic eggs out of the chocolate.  Some broke.  Did I mention make more than you need?  You get to eat the broken ones. BONUS!

I filled up the eggs with the cheesecake filling and then made a little scoop and filled that in with the lemon curd. You could just top it with the lemon curd too. Eat right away or stick in the fridge until after dinner. Yah right, you can't wait. I certainly couldn't.  Not going to lie-I was scraping the cheesecake filling out of the bowl with the broken chocolate...over the sink...so the kids wouldn't see.  You'll do it too, don't pretend.

Come ON!  These look like a perfect Easter treat, do they not?  YUM!

They're decadent, PORTIONED and so so good. 

You can't tell me that doesn't look like a smushed creme egg.  It totally does.

Enjoy! I hope you all have an awesome Easter weekend!  It doesn't have to be all about gross cheap chocolate, it can be something sweet yet better for you.  You deserve it. 

Healthy Instant Chocolate pudding

So last night I was craving something sweet.  Like REALLY craving something.

And unless I make it or bake it, we don't have ANY go-to sweet craving worthy items in my house.  It's at moments like these, I'm so MAD that I don't have a stash somewhere of something bad...but if it was there, I would eat it!  Which is why I was in the terrible predicament I was in last night...

I looked around...I always have the baking staples on hand...I could MAKE brownies! Yes...brownies are a great idea!  Nope. Takes too long...and I'd probably end up eating more batter than brownie and get all sick and then I'd have all these brownies left over...and then eat them too...no, no brownies.

But I decided I did want something chocolatey.
And I'd been seeing friends post about this "Avocado chocolate pudding" all over the place.

PUDDING!  Pudding?  Yup. Pudding.  I'm going to do it!

Something fast and delicious?  YES PLEASE.  So here's what I did-no recipe, just winged it and MAN...did it turn out GREAT.  Exactly what I wanted.

I'm not going to lie. Probably could've served two.  Ate it all.

Ingredients:

1/2 ripe avocado
1 ripe banana
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup milk of choice (You could use cow milk or almond, soy, rice...etc)
2 tbsp real maple syrup
2 tbsp almond butter
pinch salt
2 tsp vanilla

BLEND.

I put this all in my magic bullet (SO AWESOME) and let it whirl.  You could use a blender or food processor. And then took it out, tried it, a single tear fell down my cheek from how delicious it was, but slightly chunky.  Pulsed again and VOILA!

INSTANT pudding.  And WAY better for you than the packaged stuff.  I couldn't taste the avocado, but I could taste the banana slightly.  I'm sure you could play with the ratio of banana and avocado but if you LIKE banana, it's no big deal. I only have one question now about pudding: "Why didn't I know about this SOONER!?"

I would be happy to serve this to my kids as a special treat. They love anything chocolate and it was so easy! Now I'm wondering how it would taste frozen...keep an eye out for updates!

*Forgive the terrible photos, but it was late and I don't have proper lighting or a really good camera.  But I'm sure you get the idea.