Vegetarian Chili (Daniel Fast Friendly)

Hello my friends! I know, it’s been a month but here I am with a Daniel Fast Friendly recipe! It’s only the second one I have put down in writing because I usually just throw things together last minute. This time though, I wrote it down and had my husband test the recipe. AAANNNNDDDDD, it works!

So, for those of you that are doing the Daniel Fast this Lenten season, here’s a little something that will fill you up and leave you feeling healthier.

This recipe makes enough to serve about 8 people and then some.

VEGETARIAN CHILI

Daniel Fast Friendly

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced (depends on how much garlic you like)

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 Tbsp. Cumin

2 Tbsp. Chili powder

2 Tbsp. Garlic powder

2 cans of Mexican style diced tomatoes

2 cans of Bush’s Pinto Beans

2 cans of Bush’s Black Beans

2 cans of Goya Kidney Beans (drained)

4 cups of vegetable broth (Central Market 32oz)

1 8oz box of Del Fuerte tomato sauce(or any other tomato sauce with no added sugar)

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup of dried Santa Fe black bean flakes (to thicken)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

 

Cooking Instructions

 

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot on medium high heat and sauté onion, garlic, celery, carrots until onions are transparent. Stir occasionally so that the the onions and garlic don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.  Mix in the cumin, chili powder, garlic powder.

2. Pour in canned tomatoes, kidney beans, pinto beans and canned black beans.

3. Stir all ingredients together and then add vegetable broth and tomato sauce, dried black bean flakes and water.

4. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Salt and Pepper to taste.

5. Serve with avocado on top and Baked Tostito chips.

~Mrs Galvan~

I made a T-Shirt Quilt!

My aunt came to me late last year (2011) and asked me if I would consider making a t-shirt quilt for my cousin who is getting married this June (2012). I had made “sort of a quilt” a few years back but it was very simple! It actually only had a front and back panel with the batting inside. It’s a very cool blanket actually, LOL!

Well, I told my aunt that I would make the quilt and then set out to figure out what making a t-shirt quilt would entail.

It turned out I was gonna need a rotary cutter, quilting rulers and a cutting mat. I had never used any of those things so not only did I have to go and look for these items but I had to learn to use them as well. That was interesting.

A lady from the crochet small group I attend also suggested a website.  I looked through that website and that is really what got me through this entire experience. The website had  tutorial videos! I stayed up one night into the next morning watching those videos and the next day I began my t-shirt quilt adventure!

If you are interested in making your own t-shirt quilt here is a link to that website. The woman doing the tutorial is pretty detailed and really explains things so I totally recommend it:

Quilt Addicts Anonymous

Here are some pictures of the process:

It was a lot of work to make this baby but it was so much fun too! I’m so glad I was given the opportunity to learn something new. I guess I need to get started on one of my own. We have so many t-shirts in our house that I can’t throw away because they hold a memory.

Have a great week!!

Potato, Onion and Artichoke Pizza (Daniel Fast Friendly)

The past 19 days have been INTERESTING! My husband and I decided that we would do the “Daniel Fast” this year and so we committed to 3 weeks of veggie, fruits and whole grains ONLY!

The purpose of this fast is to be able to focus on and draw closer to God and spend time praying for some specific things

“The concept of a modern day Daniel Fast comes from Daniel 1:8-14 (NIV),

‘But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, ‘I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.’ Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, ‘Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.’ So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.’”

Anyone who knows me knows how much I absolutely LOVE pizza! I got the idea for this pizza from Nadia G’s Bitchin’ Kitchen and adapted it to fit the fast.

Since we couldn’t eat anything with yeast /leavening agent or flour or sugar. I basically made a whole wheat tortilla dough that I rolled out to pizza size.

Daniel Fast Whole Wheat Tortilla

Ingredients:

2      cups whole wheat flour

½     teaspoon salt

2      tablespoons olive oil

½     cup warm water

1/8   cup  reserved cup of water in case your dough is not wet enough

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees
Preparation:

1. Mix flour and salt in bowl.
2. Add olive oil and stir until well combined.
3. Add warm water 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. At this time if your dough is still really dry, add the extra 1/8 cup of water to the mix.
4. Knead dough on floured board for about 3 minutes.
5. Allow dough to rest for 15 minutes (this is called resting)
6. Place the dough on a piece of wax paper and then place a piece of saran wrap on top and roll to desired thinness and size.

Technically you could make several personal pan pizzas or just one large pizza.

Then I sprayed a pizza pan with olive oil from my Misto and layed the rolled out pizza dough on it.

Toppings:

1 Russet potato sliced really thin (I used my mandolin slicer at 1/16)

1/2 cup of thinly sliced onion (your choice of onion)

1/2 jar of artichoke hearts (in water) chopped

1 Tbsp of Italian seasoning

Sea Salt

Freshly cracked pepper

To add your toppings just lay the potato slices all around the pizza. I covered almost every inch of dough with potatoes and even those little crack that don’t get quite covered in the middle. Then sprinkle your onion and artichokes over the potatoes evenly. Season with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes and then slice it up and eat away! The crust will be crispy depending on how thin you rolled out your dough.

I so enjoyed this pizza and it really helped with the craving for pizza. It’s not pepperoni with extra cheese or stuffed crust but it definitely got the job done and in the end, I benefited from it anyway because it’s a way healthier option!

Just 2 more days and our fasting time is over. My husband and I decided that we were definitely going to adapt the eating lifestyle of the Daniel Fast to our own every day eating. That is something I am excited about!

God has really spoken to us both during this time, answered some prayers and showed us some things that we were not expecting. We know there is still more to come, in God’s time.

Hope you enjoy this recipe!

~Mrs Galvan~

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011

 

This year I participated in a nationwide cookie swap (The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011) that was hosted by Lindsay at Love and Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen and I have to say that it was a wonderful experience for me!

I’ve been blogging about food/recipes for a couple of years now. Not very consistently but nonetheless blogging.  This opportunity this got me really excited about connecting with other food bloggers and and the food blogging community and maybe even blogging more consistently!

I live in South Texas and all my cookie swap matches got sent to the East Coast: New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. I really can’t wait to participate in this again next year.

I received Cranberry Almond White Chocolate Chip cookies from  Tara at ChipChipHooray, I received Chunky Chocolate Gobs from Beth at Eat.Drink.Smile and Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino Cookies from Lauren at Keep It Sweet. All three cookies were DELICIOUS! I am excited to be able to get the recipes for all three!

The cookies that I sent were called Dark Chocolate Cafenela Cookies. They are a recipe adapted from your basic chocolate chip cookie. I changed things up a bit and used dark chocolate chips, cinnamon and instant coffee granules.

Here is the recipe:

Dark Chocolate Cafenéla Cookies

Non-stick vegetable oil or Canola oil spray

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon Kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste

2 cups of Dark Chocolate Chips

1 cup of pecans, toasted

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules

Preheat the oven to 375. Spray 2 large baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray or prepare 2 silicone baking mats for your cookies and set them aside. Whisk flour, baking soda, and Kosher salt in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in a large bowl until it is smooth. Add both the brown and granulated sugar and beat to blend.  Add the eggs and vanilla bean paste, cinnamon, coffee granules and beat to blend as well. Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed until it is blended in. Stir in the dark chocolate chips and nuts.

 

 

 

Drop the cookie dough by 2 level tablespoonfuls onto your prepared baking sheets, mounding one on top of the other. Space your cookies like 2 inches apart. Bake until the edges are browned and the tops are golden brown, 11-12 minutes. Transfer the cookies to cool. This recipe made 3 dozen cookies.

I was just gonna send these cookies in a ziploc with some tissue paper but then I thought, “how fun would it be to doll up the presentation?” So, I headed to Target to get me some cute packaging.

This is what I found and how I packaged my sweet goodies!

 

 

As I said earlier, I really can’t wait to do this again next year!

The cookies I received are from the following lovely ladies:

Tara at ChipchipHooray

Beth at Eat.Drink.Smile

Lauren from Keep it Sweet

Tara, Beth and Lauren, thank you so much for your wonderful cookies!!

Dream come true!

Shortly after I got married and realized my love for cooking, my love for baking caught up to me rather quickly. At first I wasn’t very good at baking but as I learned that baking is kind of a science, I got better and better. There is still so much to learn and I love learning!

Three days ago, my hubby told me that for Christmas he and my little sister, Amanda, wanted to get me a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and I almost cried. This of course was after many months of telling him that I REALLY wanted one:) He gets props for deciding that I needed to have this gift BEFORE Christmas! YAY!

I have been wanting a Kitchen Aid Mixer for three years now and as expensive as they are I honestly didn’t think that I would ever get a “BRAND NEW” one, much less one at all. So, my dream come true news is that I got to order my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer of choice yesterday (Cyber Monday- because of all the great deals on-line) and am patiently waiting for it to arrive!

Here is a picture of the one I ordered, in Boysenberry. It should be here in the next few days. Hopefully before Friday:)

I just had to share this news with you! YAY!

~Mrs Galvan~

Leopard Pie (aka Leftover Pie)

After our Thanksgiving Eve shindig we had garlic mash potatoes and cranberry pear stuffing left over. I made lots of both of those because I knew they were the one things that I would not be able to get enough leftovers of. Our 14 pound AMAZING turkey was ALL gone after everyone left. It was amazingly juicy and flavorful. My husband did an amazing JOB!

SO, you’re probably asking, what in the world is Leopard Pie…Well, it is a leftover sort of “Shepherd’s Pie.”  It’s so simple to make and it’s filling and wonderful!

Basically all you do is heat your oven to 400 degrees. Take a casserole dish and layer your leftovers. I sprayed my casserole dish with some canola oil and then layered leftover cranberry pear stuffing, some rotisserie chicken (because we didn’t have any leftover turkey), poured some brown gravy over that and then spread a nice layer of garlic mashed potatoes over all that. I then sprinkled just a little bit of cheddar cheese on top. I only used a little because I wasn’t sure that I was gonna like cheese mixed in with the stuffing and gravy but I would recommend putting as much cheese on the top of the mash potatoes as possible because it tasted soooooo good! Then I put it in the oven for 20 minutes. You only really need to heat everything through so it doesn’t take very long. Then I turned the broiler on for the last 5 minutes.

It was DELICIOSO!

Thanksgiving Eve

In my home we celebrate Thanksgiving Eve. We do this so that we can make a Thanksgiving dinner of our own. Thanksgiving Day is spent split between my family and the hubby’s family.
The first year of our marriage we did Thanksgiving Eve alone, just my husband and I. It was fun! We made our first turkey together and spent our first holiday together as a married couple. The second year of our marriage we added my mom to the mix. We did that because that year she moved in with us after she had her stroke. This year, we are adding some very close friends to the mix and I’m excited about this!
I’m excited about having people over for this holiday because I’ve never been more grateful for the people that God has placed in our lives.

Our menu tonight will consist of:

Roasted Turkey
Cranberry Pear Stuffing
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans with Bacon and Fire Roasted Tomatoes

My cousin Patti is bringing dessert and I’m excited about that too!

So, right now, I am waiting to start the turkey. My hubby brined the turkey overnight and got it ready to put in the oven. I just have to insert all the aromatics into the cavity and start our “Gobble, Gobble” roasting.

The house already smells like roasted garlic and onions, pears and cranberries.
I’ll post some pictures later this evening hopefully. If not, later this weekend. Thanksgiving Eve, HERE WE COME!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. 

His faithful love endures forever. (Psalm 107:1 NLT)

My kitchen is OPEN!

Hello Blog World!

I have decided to move over to WordPress from Blogger. This site seems a little more complicated but I’m a pretty smart cookie so I am sure that I will figure it out!

I’ll be trying to import my other blog posts from Blogger over to this blog, we will see how that goes.

I am going to be honest UP FRONT! I’m not great with keeping up with my blogs, usually. I have however in the past almost two years acquired an IPad which helps some. Life is usually pretty busy here at my house, in my kitchen, in my life.

My husband and I are in full-time ministry at our church and that is where a lot of our time goes, to the Lord but I LOVE to bake, cook and craft. SO, I work hard to make time for those things as well. Those three things really keep me sane on my days off. (Which is not very often, lol) If I don’t have something to do when life dies down, I can get pretty buggy.

I hope that as I begin posting here, that people will actually read this blog.

IN RECENT NEWS:

I am joining hundreds of other food bloggers in the Great American Food Blogger Cookie Swap that is being hosted by Lindsay at Love & Olive Oil and Julie at The Little Kitchen. I got my list of bloggers to send my cookies to and have been working on a recipe since last week. I am excited to say that my cookies turned out well and that my “guinea pigs” all loved them. So, needless to say, I have chosen my recipe for the swap. I promise to keep you updated with pictures and such as I start with this little project.

Last night, the husband and I took out all the Christmas decorations. YAY! We decided that we would be changing the colors of the tree this year. We had been using the ornaments I had before we got married (which were peacock feather colors) and decided that we had gotten our monies worth already. So this year we are going with red, gold and bronze (brown) It is also the year that we put up our angel tree topper. We rotate between a star and an angel to keep us both happy from year to year. We had been looking for an angel since last year and found the one my husband wanted THIS year and she is definitely a keeper. I’ll post a picture when I can get into the other room to take one.

My kitchen is OPEN and this week we are hosting “Thanksgiving Eve” at our home with some close friends. I am very excited about it and so is my husband. He is making the turkey again this year. We decided last year, that brining the turkey is the way to go. My husband decided that after watching Alton Brown’s “Romancing the Bird: A Good Eats Thanksgiving”. If you haven’t seen this episode, it is awesome! Gotta love Alton Brown.

~Mrs Galvan~