This dish is SO simple and delicious! You literally throw everything in the crockpot and serve it over rice.
Ingredients:
-8 oz block of cream cheese
-4 to 5 chicken breasts (or substitute tenders)
-1 can drained and rinsed black beans
-1 can of corn drained
-1 can of fire roasted tomatoes
-1 4oz can of green chilies
-10 oz packet Trader Joes frozen brown rice, cooked (or cook whatever rice you would like, that amount is good for two people for dinner, there is lots of leftovers so additional rice would need to be made)
-Add whatever seasonings you liked, I literally just sprinkled cayenne, taco seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper. You know me, I dont measure. ;)
Throw all ingredients EXCEPT the rice into the crockpot, and cook on low for about 6.5 hours. I stirred this a couple times while cooking because you wont be able to combine the cream cheese in the beginning very well. Once done, break up or shred the chicken.
It will be somewhat soupy. Its supposed to be. The rice will soak it up. However, letting it set for 30-45 minutes after the 6.5 hours will let it set up more if you prefer it thicker.
So first, I apologize for the cell phone pictures. AND that these are from the next day when I warmed some over for lunch. I totally forgot to take a picture after I made the dinner, but you get the idea of how it looks. But how it TASTES is what matters right? My husband kept sneaking into the kitchen to eat more, does that tell you it was a hit? lol!
Ingredients:
1 Onion Chopped
1 Bell Pepper
Few cloves of garlic, however many you liked. I did about 4
Handful of pickled Jalapenos, chopped
1 can of corn
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 can drained and rinsed black beans
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
10oz of Brown Rice, I used a packet of Trader Joes frozen Brown Rice (SO good! My go to rice) cooked
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
Salt and Pepper to Taste
1/4-1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, optional, but its oh so good! :)
Directions:
If your cooking your rice from scratch, start that first.
In a large pot, heat olive oil. Dice your veggies. Add the onion, bell pepper and jalapenos. Cook until they soften. I never add the garlic right away, Ina Garten from Food Network taught me to only add it the last few minutes of sauteing to not burn the garlic. But if you prefer to add it while the other veggies cook, you can.
Once softened, add the garlic and the corn. Cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the spices, beans, crushed tomatoes, and stock. Stir well, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for around 20-25 minutes.
Add rice to the pot, you can add pretty much as much of this as you would like. I added the whole pack of the Trader Joes brown rice (found in the freezer section) and it was the perfect amount for us. But you can add more or less for the thickness your going for.
Top with your desired toppings. We did a little sour cream and shredded cheese.
YUM. Seriously...YUM. Definitely going to be a new favorite in our house! I plan on making a huge batch of this and freezing some for when Baby R arrives (in about 60 days SAY WHAT!?, I know time is flying) so I can defrost and cook real fast.
This was the first time making this recipe, and it was SO good I had to make a blog post about it even though I forgot to take pictures of each step. However, its basically just throwing it in the crockpot so its pretty easy!!
Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
2-3 carrots, diced
2-3 celery stalks, chopped
1 T olive oil
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp fresh thyme (or dried if that's all you have)
1/2-1 tsp cayenne (this is definitely to taste, add a little and add more in the end if you want more kick)
4 links precooked chicken sausage, I used garlic herb chicken sausage from Trader Joes
1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid
7 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup lentils
1 package of Trader Joes 10 oz brown rice, found in the freezer section, cooked in the microwave (or make your own brown rice)
2-4 (per taste) cups fresh spinach
2.5 T Balsamic vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste. Its a large batch so it will definitely take a little bit. You can add more at the end if need be.
Dice your carrots, celery, and onion. Heat olive oil in a pan and saute until softened. Around 5 minutes. Add minced garlic, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Cook an additional few minutes. Add to crockpot.
Slice your sausage, add to crockpot.
Add the stock, canned tomatoes, lentils, a little more salt and pepper and cook in the crockpot on high for 3 hours.
Add the rice and spinach, cook for 1 more hour.
Stir in balsamic vinegar and cook an additional 15 minutes.
Serve!
This soup is SO good, AND healthy! Perfect for a cold evening. Enjoy!
Guess who is in their third trimester! =D Ah! I haven't updated this blog since September, and lots has happened!
I am going to try to make it a New Years Resolution to post more in this blog. I miss doing my recipe posts, and obviously now with the baby I will have lots to post about, we'll see if I can stick to it.
Currently, I am 29 weeks pregnant. I can't believe it! It still seems like such a wonderful dream. After six years, it just doesn't feel like it will ever happen, and when it does, you can't believe it!
We found out the gender, and we are having a little boy! We were shocked! Louie and I were both convinced it was a little girl from pretty much day one. Of course we are very excited. Honestly I'm most excited for Louie in a way. He never had a Dad growing up and missed out on a lot of those father son memories, so the fact he gets to do ALL of those things he never had, with his own son, is going to be amazing I think.
We had a small gender reveal party at my moms, which was a lot of fun. We did a type of scavenger hunt with clues. Louie and I had fun making all the little clues for everyone. The morning of the party, on accident I let it slip we were having a boy. I was SO mad at myself! But it ended up being fun because we both tried to make the cake together we would cut into at the end of the night (blue cake of course) and it was a DISASTER. It was just a simple box cake! I dont know how we messed it up, but it looked like a 2 year old tried to bake and frost it. It ended up being pretty hilarious though.
Here is a video of the party:
The holidays definitely helped with making this pregnancy fly by. I cant believe within about 9ish weeks, our baby will be here. I love the holidays so on one hand it was a little sad they passed by so fast, I felt like I couldn't really enjoy them (I guess I am a bit distracted though lol!) and on the other hand Im grateful because Im so ready to meet our little boy!
The nursery hasnt even been started on lol! We were waiting until after the holidays, and now that they are over, and the decorations are put away we can finally begin. He will be having a vintage themed nursery (with a few vintage disney things thrown in) and I can't wait to see it brought to life. I hope it turns out as adorable as it is in my head!
Our shower is in a little over 2 weeks. I CANT BELIEVE IT. I have dreamed for six years about having a baby shower and Im SO excited. Its also got a slight vintage theme to it. I can't wait to celebrate with everyone.
Finally my sickness has passed. Only took about 6 months though. I was so sure I was just going to be one of those people who are sick the entire way through. I finally had stopped loosing weight and was maintaining so that was good, but I still had food aversions to EVERYTHING pretty much, and nothing helped. Nothing. So I am HAPPY I can finally cook again, and hold down my meals.
Louie had gallbladder removal surgery the day before Thanksgiving. Took multiple doctors, and months to figure out what it was. I have never seen someone in so much pain in my life. It was horrible. Thankfully though, we found an amazing surgeon and Louie is pain free now.
Well, in short, thats catching you up to speed I think. Next up is the nursery, and baby shower! Can't wait!
I know. This blog is late. And pretty much everyone we know already knows. But I wanted to document how it happened. :)
So we stopped trying. Completely. We were 100% focused on loosing weight and doing so well with that! It was so nice to not having the stress of trying to conceive in my mind for a change also.
Four or five months pass and July rolls around. I realize my cycle was due that day and I had no signs whatsoever. Which was not normal. A year or so ago, my cycles were ALWAYS irregular so normally I wouldn't have thought much of it. But lately they have been pretty much on the day. I had some cheapie amazon pregnancy tests leftover and around lunch time that day I figured "what the heck" and took one. I fully expected it to be negative. Especially with it being mid day. I finish eating my lunch and realize I forgot all about the test. I go into the bathroom and see this...
I FREAKED out. Was it real? Was it an evap line? Faulty test? So I RAN out to Rite Aid and picked up some first response tests, and took it as soon as I got home (along with a few more cheapies)...
Positive. Totally positive. And I wasn't even late yet! I couldn't believe it. I immediately called my Reproductive Endocrinologist's office because I KNEW a regular OB office would not see me right away. They immediately sent me down to get my blood drawn to check my HCG and Progesterone.
I had to wait a couple days for the results which were torture but they came back and my HCG was 18. So then I had to go back and get more bloodwork to make sure it doubled. In order for it to just barely double I needed a level of 72. AND we got back a level of 180! I was SOOO relieved! So far everything was looking good! My progesterone levels were lower than they want to see though, so I needed to go on medication for that, and continue it until 12 weeks. 2 weeks later I had an appointment scheduled for an ultrasound.
2 or 3 times before my appointment though I saw some very light very small amount of pink spotting. It scared me to death. Especially after a miscarriage, the last thing you want to see is blood. However, the progesterone is known to cause that sometimes so I was hoping that's all it was.
So then at 5 weeks 6 days I went into the RE's office for my first ultrasound. We knew it would be very early and wouldn't probably see much of anything. BUT, we wanted to make sure we could see the sack at least and to confirm it was not an ectopic.
Louie wasn't able to come with me to the appointment because of work so my mom came with me. I was scared to death. We started the ultrasound and almost immediately the Dr found the baby. And all looked good. A HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders because we never made it to this point with the last pregnancy because no one would see us this early.
Our next appointment was when I was 7 weeks 1 day and luckily my husband was able to come with me to this appointment. I was SO nervous, and it was so comforting to have him with me there. We were hoping we could at least see if not hear the heartbeat. She started the ultrasound and she measured the baby and we could see the heart flickering away. We barely were able to hear it, but we did get to a little. It was so surreal!
Here is video of the ultrasound.
Since we were able to confirm things were progressing nicely so far, we decided it was time to move from the RE office to an OB. My appointment with them was when I was 8weeks2days. It was a normal first prenatal appointment, and she did do a very quick ultrasound.
Our next appointment was with a specialist to do the NT Scan to check for abnormalities. I was 12 weeks. I was so nervous for this appointment because it had been a month since we saw the baby, AND I was just nervous for the ultrasound results. I also had to go get bloodwork done for this prenatal screening as well, which I had done the day prior. Our result for the NT was 1.14 which is a great number and I was SO thankful. We still don't have the bloodwork results back though because the lab didn't test me for everything they were supposed to, so I probably won't find out those results until my next appointment in October. But it was so exciting to see how much Baby had grown in the last month!
My next OB appointment was a week later at 13 weeks. She did a quick ultrasound (unfortunately no picture) and it was SO exciting because this was my first time seeing baby MOVE, totally swimming and dancing around. I was so bummed my husband wasn't able to see it. But it was amazing.
As for me, I have been SO sick. Almost from day 1. Morning sickness has kicked my butt. Finally at 12.5 weeks I had to bite the bullet and get a script for zofran to try to help. Other than throwing up, the worst has been food aversion. To everything. Since mid july I have hardly been able to eat. That has honestly been the hardest. Now with the medication its a little easier to eat thank goodness, and I'm hoping that in a couple weeks that should fade away on its own.
I can't believe that I have made it into the second trimester. (tomorrow I will be 14 weeks) It still doesn't seem real. When you wait for years for something you have wanted and prayed for so much I don't think it will fully seem real until we hold the baby in our arms. Because we were so anxious the entire first trimester, to celebrate entering the 2nd, last weekend we went to Babies R Us and did our registry. I had no idea we would be in there for HOURS! We have pretty much gotten it all finished, and once we find out the gender we might make some changes, but I don't mind gender neutral items, because I know we will get lots of gender specific clothes/items once the baby is here. We are so blessed as well to be probably getting 3 baby showers as well. One family/friends, One at Louie's work, and then my awesome Twilight Mom friends have said a little about a Twilight Baby shower, which is SO sweet of them. I just can't wait to hit that milestone in the third trimester!
Our next appointment is October 8, I will be 16 weeks. It would be fantastic if we could find out the gender but we might not have an ultrasound at the appointment. They said they usually do the gender ultrasounds at 18-20 weeks. I was told our local mall has a ultrasound place that will check the gender for you for $40. SO if I simply cannot wait until November we might do that :). We will be having a gender reveal party to find out the gender with some of our family all at the same time. I cannot WAIT!
So, that gets you all up to speed. A girl who tried for almost 6 years for a baby, who suffered a miscarriage, gets a surprise pregnancy. Who would have thought? We are SO thankful, and I pray every day thanking God for this miracle. I also forgot to mention I have a strong feeling baby is a girl. Can't wait to find out if I'm right!
(ps. you can definitely add meat to this if you'd like)
Cook your rice. You can use the spanish or mexican rice packets from the grocery store as well.
Fill your foil bowls with the tortillas. I used the flour snack size tortillas because I despise corn. Seriously, they are dry and gross. Just sayin' ;)
Cook your bell pepper and onion with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with whatever seasonings you want, I used just garlic powder, chili powder, salt and pepper. While you are doing this, pull out however many jalapenos you want, and chop those up a little.
In a bowl, literally mix everything together. Keep a small amount of cheese remaining to top the bowls with.
Fill the bowls with about 3/4 cup of filling. Top with cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.
Top with whatever toppings you'd like, we squeezed a lime over each one and added a little sour cream and avocado.
So I have been neglecting this blog for quite some time now.
Trying to get pregnant has been put on hold. We stopped "trying" about 5 months ago or so. Now we are just going back to how it was before we started trying. Is there a chance I could get pregnant still? Sure, but it would be a MIRACLE if that happened!
Right now we are focusing more on loosing weight. I will post a couple pictures showing how far we have come. We are just about half way to where we want to be. Well for me a little more than half way, and for my husband a little less than half way.
In March I sprained my ankle SO SO SO bad. And I was laid up for quite a few weeks. Its still not 100% but I would say its maybe 75-85%. lol. I wonder if it will ever go back to normal. We have been focusing on eating healthier and working out. We have enjoyed walking/jogging our track in the backyard (4.5 times around is a mile, so we do anywhere from 2-3 miles a day) and I have been enjoying including some workout DVDs as well. We were doing great, thennnn in June we went on a little trip, I got out of my routine and have struggled getting back into it. But I will. This journey is a bunch of peaks and valleys. It wont be a straight shot. And thats fine. It took me a long time to gain the weight, its not going to go away in just a couple months. I actually don't know how much weight I have lost because we don't have a scale. But thats ok, its less pressure I think. Eventually we will buy one, but for now I just want to focus on making this a LIFESTYLE change, regardless of what the scale says.
We are still vegetarian (for all those doubted we could stick to it lol) and loving it more and more. I've never FELT better. I've found lots of new recipes, and am enjoying cooking even more. I will have to start doing recipe blogs again. Hopefully. lol.
In about a month it will have been a year since we moved to the ranch. I enjoy it, but its tiresome, and a lot of work. Especially now that its getting bloody hot again, by the time I do my chores outside and I come in, I'm SO done lol. My horse has been having lameness issues though so I haven't been able to ride her as much. Now she can only walk, which is ok, I just enjoying getting on her and walking around. My mom had back surgery a few months ago and cannot ride for at least a year. So Im in charge of riding/working her horse now. He is a pain in my side for sure. But he's getting better and listening to me more. He likes to push my buttons because Im NOT my mom. I started trail riding around town again. My horse is horrible on trail but my moms is doing pretty good! I havent gone out on the trail since I was probably 11-12. So its kind of nice to do it again!
My dad has been making horse shoe signs/animals the past few months and we originally had him list his stuff on my Etsy store.( www.etsy.com/shop/caseyleecrafts ). BUT, he stuff did SO well, we decided to make him his own store on Etsy ( www.etsy.com/shop/willcapps ) and its been going great! He has me in charge of taking pictures/listing/running the store because he said he just wants to make the stuff lol. :) Its been fun, and he gets a kick out of doing it. We have even gone to a few craft shows as well!
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