Who knew I liked chili?
I was at a new friend’s house for a playdate a few months ago and she offered me some turkey chili for lunch. Well I don’t like chili, but I was polite, accepted and ate. Maybe it’s the pregnancy that has changed my tastes or perhaps I’d never given chili a fair shake. In any case, I loved it. I asked her for the recipe and she pointed to a can on the counter. Hmm… if I like that, imagine how much more I would like it if I cooked it from scratch. Little did I know how easy it was and what a hero I would be to my husband.
I found this recipe thanks to my favorite food/cooking/recipe website Allrecipes. I love that it’s cooperative and there are people from all walks submitting and commenting. I read the comments to see how people have changed a particular recipe to suit their needs.
I just bought some ground turkey on sale and needed help. I tweeted that I needed a turkey chili recipe. Allrecipes chimed right in and pointed me to a page that had searched their site for recipes. Nice!!
We have this meal at least once a week since I found it. I make it during naptime and let it sit. I buy some hard crust bread and also serve it with tortilla chips. What’s not to love about a one pot dinner too?!
Simple Turkey Chili (my changes in parenthesis)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
* 1 pound ground turkey
* 1 onion, chopped
* 2 cups water (2 1/2 cups water)
* 1 (28 ounce) can canned crushed tomatoes I used (Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted)
* 1 (16 ounce) can canned kidney beans – drained, rinsed, and mashed
* 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
* 2 tablespoons chili powder (1 tbsp taco seasoning)
* 1/2 teaspoon paprika
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Place turkey in the pot, and cook until evenly brown. Stir in onion, and cook until tender.
2. Pour water into the pot. Mix in tomatoes, kidney beans, and garlic. Season chili powder, paprika, oregano, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes.
Enjoy!
Edited to add: for #4HB people, obviously, skip the cheese & bread. For non bean people make sure you get the LIGHT red kidney beans. They are less starchy which is the reason you don’t like beans ;-)
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Hot Chocolate
My new love is hot chocolate.
I’ve always liked it, but suddenly I LOVE it.
I was looking for a replacement for my afternoon latte since becoming preggers. I did not give up my morning latte. Now before you purist preggos get all honked up. I drink lattes and not drip coffee which has less caffeine and I drink half as much as I normally do. I gave it up for a bit with my first pregnancy and got terrible headaches. A sign of addiction – perhaps. But in order to relieve myself from a misery that I could solve, the headache; as opposed to the one I couldn’t, nausea. The coffee came back. My son is fine. Baby #2 comes along the coffee never goes away, but it does decrease drastically. My daughter is fine. So here we are baby #3. I drink lattes and not drip coffee which has less caffeine and I drink half as much as I normally do.
But I completely digress because we were talking about CHOCOLATE!
When I have had hot chocolate in the past it has been the powdered kind. As I was wandering through Trader Joe’s I came across chocolate sauce . Now this is used by people all the time for hot chocolate, but I had not partaken. It seemed like a stroke of genius. I was a genius. A chocolate GENIUS. Hot chocolate using chocolate sauce instead of powder, brilliant. AND it’s organic and all natural. Squeeze away, sister. I brought it home and fell in love.
It’s a …
It’s a …well all you can tell from that pic is that it’s a baby. It’s a BOY!!!!
And the best news of all…he is ok! He even gave us the thumbs up :-)
From the very beginning Nate and I thought this baby was a girl. Nate would tell me all the time that he wanted another Sienna (how sweet is that). Well needless to say he was unimpressed with the news of an impending brother arriving. He rallied pretty quickly but the initial reaction deserves some air time…
16 weeks!
16 weeks pregnant and I’m still feeling sometimes queasy, mostly at night. I hate to even complain about it because so many women have it so much worse. They actually puke, even get hospitalized. Me, I just feel like I wanna puke. ALL THE TIME. But I never get that sweet release. Yep, that’s what it would feel like – sweet.
Some things that helped me through:
PSI Bands – They cost more than the kind you can buy at the drugstore, but in my opinion worth it. Not only are they much cuter, which lets face it helps A LOT. They actually worked much better for me than those ugly ones I used last time.
Morning Sickness Magic – These pills taste like crap. Sometimes I think I took them just to see if I would puke from it. So maybe the ladies with more severe MS should stay away. I could feel when I skipped some pills however so for me – worth it. My OB even had some sample size. Ask yours!
Preggie Pops I kept these in my purse for emergencies and they did make me feel better when I didn’t think I could take another step in the grocery store without throwing myself to the floor into the fetal position.
Turns out though, the midwife at my OB’s office says that ANY hard candy would do the trick. So there you go.
Ginger Tea- I think I just really dislike ginger except in the Schweppes Ale form. The taste in the MSM that made me gag was ginger. I had to make a iced ginger tea concoction in order to drink this stuff. Steep 4 bags Ginger tea I bag Lemon Zinger. 2 tsp honey or sugar to taste ICE! They do make a lemon ginger which would have been easier, but they don’t sell it at my grocery.
Eating lots of small meals
Resting when I needed to
Disney Channel & Noggin :-)
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Hot wife, Mom of 3, Human to #jojothedoodle.
They said WHAT?