White Chicken Chili ~ Crock pot

A friend asked me for the chili recipe I use yesterday and it made me want to make it tonight. That and hubby asking me to make it haha. I made enough for all four of us to have some. It must have been good because not much was left! At the end of this post I'll list the recipe and then what I changed about it. This is my third time making it and each time I've played around with it a little to decide what we really like in it. This was a great dinner for tonight since it's 2 degrees out! Oh, and the red cutting board wasn't a great idea for pics lol

Yellow and red bell peppers. One each.

Three medium sized tomatoes, chopped. This I added to the recipe.

lol, just a pretty picture of the peppers in the pot.

We used one jalapeno pepper and one little habanero pepper. Dustin and I like it hot but his parents don't. This make it just right for all of us. You have to take ALL the seeds out of both peppers. I chopped the habanero (orange) VERY small. Warning : it is a VERY good idea to use gloves while working with both of these peppers. Some day I'll use that advice. I cut these at 1:30 today...it's 9:28 and my fingers still have the oil on them.

 

 My wonderful husband helping me with the chicken cutting!

 Chop the chicken however thick you want. This time we used bigger pieces and it was perfect!!

 The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups chopped chicken. This ended up being only 2 cups. We used 4 frozen chicken breasts. Should have used another one.

 Just some pics of it all coming together. As you might be able to see I also added tomato paste. 12 oz. 

We used two cans of pinto beans and one can of red kidney beans. We used white kidney beans once and they were so soft they broke apart in the chili and it was too mushy for me.

 Gently mix it all together. You don't want to ruin the beans. The last thing you should add is the Chicken Broth. Then mix gently again. This is little hard to do because the pot is SOOOO full!

  Pre-cooked

 The finished product! We like to add cheese and sour cream! 

•  3, 15 5o 15.5-ounce cans Great Northern pinto or Cannellini (white kidney) beans, rinsed and drained. Any beans you want to use are fine. As I said above the White Kidney beans don't do so well in this. They tend to get really mushy and mess up the chili. Red kidney beans are great however.
  
• 2 1/2 cups chopped chicken
  
• 1 cup chopped onion We don't like onion so we skip this part, but it still tastes great
  
• 1 1/2 cups chopped red, green and/or yellow sweet pepper (about two medium)
• 2 frech jalapeno chile peppers, seeded and chopped Depending on how hot you like it play with different peppers. Make sure to read the warning above, working with hot peppers! lol
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced We just use the pre-minced bottle. SO much easier!!! 2 Teaspoons = one clove garlic
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth Since we add 12 oz of tomato paste and 3 chopped tomatoes we only use 2 1/2 cups of the chicken broth. Doing this makes the chili thicker.

Combine all of your ingredients leaving the chicken broth for last. Before adding the Chicken Broth gently mix every thing together. Be careful not to smash your beans up in there. Add the chicken broth and then stir again. Your crock pot is going to be REALLY full. Put the lid on and cook on low-heat for 8-10 hours, or high-heat 4-6 hours.

You can add sour cream, cheese, broken up tortilla chips, crackers or get really creative and carve out bread bowls to serve the chili in. Enjoy!

Skookie Cookies!

My mom bought Dustin and I a Skookie for our wedding shower. We finally used it last night and I love it! The set came with a cookie mix so that's what we made. I can't wait to try the other recipes it came with.

  The cast iron skillets (I don't know why this is coming out underlined....)

BIG cookies!!!

Tilapia Corn Chowder

Tonight seemed like a great night to eat some chowder! It's cold and snowing out, ugh. So I tried a recipe I found on the food network http://www.foodnetwork.com/ This was my first time making chowder but it was really pretty easy! I do think if I make it again I'll try a different seasoning than Thyme, also Dustin suggested adding scallops! Yum!

Ingredients

• 2 ounces bacon (about 2 slices)
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 leek, white part only, halved lengthwise, rinsed and thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 8 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, diced
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears)
• 1 1/2 pounds tilapia fillets, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (optional)

Directions

Chop bacon and cook in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until crispy, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Add oil to the pan. Add celery, leek, salt and pepper and cook until the vegetables just begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add broth, potatoes and corn. Bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until the potatoes are just tender and the corn is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Stir in tilapia and thyme; return to a gentle simmer. Cook until the tilapia is cooked through, about 4 minutes more. Remove from the heat.

Stir in half-and-half, lemon juice and the reserved bacon. Garnish with chives, if using.

Working out and Uncle Lou!

Well, two days ago I finally started my work outs again. I hadn't worked out since a week before the wedding! Yikes! My body officially hates me right now, but I know that it'll get better. Right?

I'm doing a Jullian Michaels 30 Day Shred, which I did for the wedding, and I also just got a Warrior Yoga DVD. Both are kicking my butt! However, I'm happy that I'm finally past that "Oh I'm going to do it tomorrow" hump. All I needed was one day of exercise to remember how great it feels afterward.

I also signed up for the Pound for Pound Challenge http://www.pfpchallenge.com/. I pledged for 17 pounds! For every pound you pledge to lose they donate .14 to Feeding America. I think it's a great cause and your losing weight at the same time! Check out the link above to pledge for your state!

This isn't a New Years Resolution. I've been meaning to start working out for months now and I'm just now finally doing it. :-)

We just found out today that Dustin's uncle Lou no longer has cancer!!!! Shortly after our wedding he found out that he had Stage Four non hodgkin's lymphoma. The cancer had spread to all of his lymph nodes and it was looking pretty bad. He has had chemo treatments since then, one of which he was scheduled for today. Before they started the treatment the doctor did some blood work and a scan and found NO cancer!! This is just wonderful news and we're so happy for him! What a great way to start off the new year.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you all had a safe and fun new years eve.

Dustin and I had a great time last night. We met at our friend's house and rode up to On The Border in Loveland together. Jenny and Steve got us a gift certificate there and we used that baby up! It had been so long since we'd been there and it's one of our favorite restaurants. Dustin and I both got our traditional meal, fajitas! Yuuummmy. We used to live on those things, luckily for our health the one closest to us closed. haha.

After a wonderful meal we drove back down to the Bogucki's house and started a friendly game of Scene It; Seinfeld edition. We played guys against girls and well, they kicked our butts! We all had a blast though, and even with how much we have seen that show, we still were stumped quite a bit. We played a second round with the three couples against eachother, yeah, lost that one too lol.

We finished just in time to watch the ball drop. Dustin and I had our "First Married New Years Kiss", drank some champagne then headed off to bed. Steve's brother Chris and his wife Colleen were there to celebrate with us and we all had a really good time. I'll post some pics at the end of this post.

I'm really excited to see what 2010 has in store for us. Looking back over 2009 a lot has happend. The biggest thing for Dustin and I of course was getting married. That for me was the best thing about 2009. The only other big event for us was moving to Florida. Since we had to come back I'm not counting that as a huge achievement, instead I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, or as Dusitn likes to call it "Our Month Long Vacation" haha.  I just remembed we took some pretty amazing trips this year. We did make it to Taiwan which was awesome. As well as London and Rome! geeze, how could I forget about those??

My brother did get married this year, not to long after I did. Lynn is really sweet and we're very happy to have her as a part of our family. We're really sad that Ryan is being deployed this February. He is scheduled to be gone a year, which is far too long for him to be away, especially in Afghanistan. We'll be anxiously awaiting his safe return to us.

I'm going to try and keep up with this blog. I think it's a great way to keep in touch with everyone as well as have a record of how the year progresses. Had I had started this last year I'd remember a lot more of what has happened in 2009. Then again my life was pretty wrapped up in planning a wedding, so maybe this is a better time to start blogging.  We hope you all have a wonderful start to your new year and we'll be back soon!

 First Married Kiss!

lol, Izzy LOVED this beer

And Butkus really didn't like this

bff Jenny

All of us ringing in 2010!