Tortellini Soup

Well this is by far one of the easiest recipes I have put together in a LONG time! I couldn't find the original source link, but whoever it is out there, we loved it! Here are the ingredients...

Ingredients

One bag of frozen tortellini (we used 5 cheese)

1 small bag of spinach

2 can of Italian style diced tomatoes

1 box (4 c) Vegetable Broth

1 block of cream cheese

Are you ready for the crazy part! There is no dicing, chopping or mincing in this recipe! All you do is put all the ingredients in your crock pot. Set the temperature to low, and cook 5-6 hours! I did pull apart the cream cheese block as I tossed it in there, so that it would be easier to cook down, but that is truly all I did! Five hours later we were chowing down on some delicious soup! 

This is the recipe from Pinterest that says "BEST CROCK POT MEAL EVER"...now I don't know about "ever" but I love how easy it is, which makes it top notch in my book! 

DJ added last night, that next time he wants me to try to add cottage cheese instead of all the cream cheese (to try and lower the calories (370/serving)) and maybe a little more spinach! I'll have to experiment around and see what I come up with! I can't believe today is the last day of February, which means GREAT fishing weather very soon (we're talking 2-3 weeks TOPS)! Tomorrow, I will finish up the photo challenge for this month, and another recipe will be coming very soon!

Until then...

Pineapple-Banana Smoothie

Smoothie Time!! 

This was a great pick me up yesterday when I was starting to run out of energy!

If you are wondering what all the health benefits are that you might get from a pineapple, then check out this information on Livestrong! You will be very happy to know that this whole smoothie is very low in calories (147 for one serving), and packed with benefits for your health and well being! 

Ingredients

1 1/2 c fresh diced pineapple

1 Banana

1/2 c yogurt

1/2 c of blueberry pomegranate juice

10 ice cubes

(I picked this up in the refrigerator section at the store in a single serving container because it sounded to good to pass up. I decided later that night I would rather put in a smoothie to add extra flavor. Great decision!!)

Throw all of these ingredients in your blender, and pulse until you have the texture you like. I couldn't drink it fast enough! 

Positively Refreshing!

Stay tuned tomorrow, for another round of tortellini crock-pot soup! My best friend was looking for the recipe I put on the blog awhile back, and made a different one by mistake! So we're going to give it a go to let you know the difference! (The pin on Pinterest said that it is the BEST CROCK POT recipe they have made in awhile. I'm game for anything that people think is THE BEST lol.) 

Until then...

Coffee-Cocoa Crusted Venison On A Bed Of Spinach

We are absolutely loving finding recipes from the Game and Garden lady, and trying them out in our kitchen! For Valentine's Day, they enjoyed this recipe which we made last night! When you put all of this together and finally sit down to eat, the smell in the house alone is a give-away to the delightful dish you're getting ready to enjoy! The entire house smells like chocolate coffee, with a fabulous sweet berry topping! Not to mention there are no onions or garlic to chop, so the delicious smell lasts on your hands as well (it's like having a chocolate lotion-YUM)!  Now, we did ours a tiny bit different than her's because we had slightly different ingredients in our pantry. So let's get started!

Ingredients

1/3 c coffee grounds

(I didn't realize until it was too late that I make vanilla coffee...didn't matter! Still tasted wonderful)

1/4 c cocoa

(We used dark chocolate cocoa powder)

1 TB brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 loin

(I didn't have a venison loin. I did however have butterflied back straps. Which worked great!)

If you don't have venison, don't fret...I would use a pork loin!

Olive oil for browning

Mix together all the ingredients to make your dry rub. I sprinkled the rub over the meat, and pushed down to make sure it was thoroughly coated! Make sure all sides of the meat are covered in the dry rub mix. 

Once you have each piece (or loin) covered in the dry rub, get a skillet out and add some olive oil to the pan for browning the meat. You are going to want to get your pan "smoking hot"! Once our skillet was smoking, we placed the meat in one piece at a time to brown on both sides! (I think since we used dark chocolate and coffee-It looked completely seared or charred! It wasn't. Just make sure you keep an eye on it!) Once you have your meat browned, you're going to want to put it in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes! 

Meanwhile let's talk about the berry sauce! Here are the ingredients...

Ingredients

1 1/2 c blackberries

1/2 c blueberries

1/2 c red wine

1/4 c sugar

1 lemon-juiced

salt to taste

Place all your ingredients in a small sauce pot on the stove, and bring to a boil! Reduce the heat and reduce the sauce by half! 

At some point during the sauce making, your venison will be done in the oven. Carefully remove the pan, and let it cool for a couple of minutes. I sliced mine into small strips, if you have a loin like the recipe link above (or right here) you can cut it into small rounds. Make a bed of spinach (or arugula) to add everything to on a plate! 

Once your sauce is finished and removed from the heat, here are my step-by-step instructions as to how I put this all together:

1) Add bed of spinach to my plate

2) Take the strips of meat and dip each one in a Raspberry Chipotle sauce.

3) Add meat to top of spinach

4) Spoon berry sauce over the top like a delicious salad dressing

5) ENJOY!

I think this is one of my new favorite dishes! If you've been unsure about trying venison, I would recommend starting with something like this! There was no "game" flavor whatsoever, and the meat was so tender it practically falls apart in the first bite! The chocolate and coffee flavors are wonderful together! Then when you pair it with the tiny bit of a spicy kick you get from the dipping sauce, and then pair that with the sweet berry sauce, it's a completely unbelievable, melt-in your mouth kind of taste! This is why we love cooking from the Game and Garden site, because she has so many recipes to choose from, and they are ALL so tasty! 

Until Next Time...

Photo Challenge Update 2/24/2013

It's time for the Photo Challenge Update:

Something Sweet

Self-Portrait

A gift

Handwriting

My favorite part of today

Holding Hands

What You're Reading

My something sweet photo is a picture of a fake flower somehow left behind on a hiking trail we went on! If you're in Oklahoma, and want a fun place to go fishing, hiking, climbing, or camping ya'll should check out Osage State Park, which is located just west of Bartlesville! We had a blast hiking through the park for about 5 miles (which didn't begin to cover all the trails they have)! We can't wait to go back when the weather is nicer and go camping and see everything this park has to offer! If you want some good ideas, stop by the ranger station! They are very friendly and will point you in your whatever direction your heart desires!

My self portrait picture! Dee Jay came home from work, and saw my hair and told me I looked like a flapper girl from back in the day! I was trying a Pinterest hair-do which is supposed to make you wake up with curly hair! Well, I woke up with curly hair, on the downside it was big enough to send me back 30 years to the 80's! So...I won't be doing that one again, but at least I tried!

This pineapple was a gift to myself! :) It's been so long since I've bought a fresh pineapple and I couldn't resist them at the store! So I bought it, and will be devouring it today! Can't wait!

My handwriting on Wednesday! We had a snow storm blow through Okla and it was absolutely beautiful! We have another one on the forecast, and of course it's going to be almost 60 today and then by Tuesday morning, we may have more snow on the ground! Gotta love OK weather!

This was my favorite part of the day on Thursday! My sister had a pampered chef party at her house, and my sweet nephew was missing DJ! So we snapped this picture (sorry it's so blurry, he was holding the phone and trying to wave at DJ at the same time) and sent it to D at work to say hello! Love anytime I get with my family :)

I looked at the days wrong, but it's okay! Saturday was supposed to be holding hands and Friday was supposed to be, what you're reading. I switched since I don't know my days of the week! LOL 

I know that we are completely behind on reading this book! We've seen the movie, and I'm trying to finish the book now! My nieces LOVE "The Hunger Games", so I decided if I want to know what they are talking about at all, I needed to read the book myself! I'm enjoying the book!

Okay, before we finish out the day, I want to share with you a FANTASTIC place we went and ate with some friends yesterday! S&J Oyster Company, in downtown Tulsa (around 1st and Elgin) is WONDERFUL! The service, the food, the atmosphere, the location...ALL OF IT was outstanding! If you're looking for a great place to try out downtown I highly recommend this place! 

Oyster's on the half shell! I really can't explain the absolute wonderfulness of this appetizer! They made our cocktail sauce right there in front of us, and it was the perfect amount of spicy and tart! I like to put my oyster's on a cracker, however you can just take them right from the shell! (It's a texture thing for me! The cracker gives the crunchy texture that I need.) 

This was my main dish! 

Crawfish Etouffee! 

Gorgeous presentation, and a taste to match! The pickled jalapeno, the buttered bread, the rice, the crawfish, & the sauce, all came together for the most wonderful fusion of flavors! I can't wait to go back and try something else sometime soon! Baseball season is right around the corner, and this is isn't far from the ball park! 

In my opinion, this place has earned my repeat business, and if you haven't tried...you should! 

Stay tuned for more great food and the final photo challenge update for February!

Until then...

Go Green

I'm so proud of myself! I made a green smoothie and I LOVED it! I see these floating around on Pinterest all the time, but the color has always made me second guess the flavor of these drinks. It's kind of like eating green eggs and ham! I just don't think a drink should be quite so "green" especially when I know the green comes from a leafy substance I usually put in salad or something else! So, I decided to give it a try and was very surprised that I couldn't taste the "green" at all. Instead this almost tastes like a banana & cinnamon drink! So let's get started on this delicious and nutritious drink...

Ingredients

2 c Kale

1 c ice

1/2 c almond milk

1/2 c plain yogurt

2 TB peanut butter

1 banana

6 strawberries

1 tsp cinnamon

1 TB Chia seeds

Put all this together in your blender and blend away! 

This smoothie is packed with potassium (660 mg), vitamin A (210% of your daily value), vitamin C (178% of your daily value), among others! It has 276 calories, which made for a great snack because it's about the same as eating 2 small bags of Doritos and much better for you! I wasn't tempted to snack on anything else because it is very satisfying! I came across this recipe at Tone It Up! 

If you want to know more about Chia seeds and their nutritional value you can check out this list on Livestrong. I throw some in to my water bottles and juices sometimes! The "texture" is something I had to get used to, however I barely notice it anymore!    

Stay tuned for the photo challenge update and many more recipes! 

Until then...

Chicken, Cheddar, Bacon & Rice Bake

I came upon yet another fun food blog titled, What's cooking in the burbs! She has some serious great looking recipes that I can't wait to try! I'm no where near going through them but I did however find this little gem on Pinterest which is what got me to her blog in the first place. She adapted this recipe from AllRecipes and we LOVED it! I really struggled with putting the bacon in or leaving it out (healthy eating...remember?)! However, I still had a ways to go before I reached my goal for the day, so in went the bacon! Just FYI in case you're interested, this recipe, as is, runs about 445 calories per serving. If you leave out the bacon you can subtract 135 calories and come up with 310 calories per serving! If bacon is involved, I will typically favor the bacon IN instead of the bacon OUT! So let's get started, because once you make it, you're not going to want to stop eating it! This recipe serves about 6 people, so for 2 of us we had plenty of leftovers!

Ingredients

4 TB butter

1 medium onion, chopped (about one cup)

4 garlic cloves-minced (I used 3 because they were pretty big)

1 tsp seasoning salt

1 tsp Kosher salt (I forgot this when I made it-tasted just fine)

1/2 tsp black pepper

4 TB flour

3 1/2 c chicken stock

3 1/2 c milk

1 1/2 c long grain rice

3 c cooked chicken

1 1/2 c cheddar cheese-shredded

1/2 c cooked-crumbled bacon

To start it out you're going to melt the butter in a pan and add the onions. Cook the onions until they are tender, then add the garlic, seasoning salt and pepper. Stir this all together and add in the flour. Mix well! It's going to start to "clump" together so make sure you don't leave it alone for too long! Stir in the milk and chicken stock and turn the heat on the stove up to medium-high. Add in ONE CUP of cheese! (NOTE: This is not all the cheese for the recipe! I ALWAYS mess up and see "stir in cheese and add the whole cup and half and then realize later I was only supposed to put in a portion of the ingredient.) 

Continue to whisk until everything comes to a simmer. Add in the rice and lower the heat to medium-low and cook about 20 minutes or until the rice has absorbed most of the liquid! 

While this mixture was cooking, Dee Jay was working on getting the bacon cooked and crumbled!

Once your rice mixture is finished on the stove, add in the chicken and bacon to the rice/sauce mix! Pour all this into a 9x13 pan and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 c of cheese on top! Place it in the oven for 20-25 (we did 22 minutes) and bake until the cheese is bubbly! 

This is everything in the pan EXCEPT for the cheese topping!

I cannot express to you how much we enjoyed this recipe! It's not to heavy or loaded down, it's just...dare I say...perfectly delicious! Stay tuned for some more yummy recipes! 

Until then...

Banana-Oat Smoothie

BANANA-OAT SMOOTHIE

One of my new favorite things to whip up in the kitchen since I re-placed my blender are smoothies! There are soooo many options, and I like to try all of them and keep notes in my recipe book about whether or not I liked them and if they worked! How does a smoothie "work" you ask? Well, there are so many combinations the possibilities are almost endless. Feeling sick? Make an anti-oxidant smoothie! Need some energy? Make an energizing smoothie! DJ and I have been trying to do better with tracking what we eat, so we can see what we're missing out on during the day! Now that I'm trying to get more in shape, it's especially important that I'm getting enough protein and calories to make up for what I burn off exercising! It's not always easy, and I'm NOT a calorie counter and HATE doing so, but it's important to stay healthy-so here we go down that road! 

So here are a few reasons why this smoothie is packed with a nourishing punch!  

According to LiveStrong, bananas come with the following:

Vitamins A,B,C,D,E, & K

Potassium

Healthy source of carbs

Fiber

Low Sodium

So with that being said, here are the ingredients...

1 Banana

1/2 c plain yogurt 

1/2 c milk (we use Almond)

1/4 c oats

1 TB honey

1 c ice

All you have to do is put all these ingredients into your blender and mix away! 

This particular recipe serves 2, and each serving is 165 calories! I would much rather down one of these for a snack than grab a bag of potato chips! 

You can find a list of smoothies at Whole Living, which I'm sure you'll hear back from me about more of these! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always the healthiest eater, but I'm working on it!!

In goes the yogurt!

Yes, I have an OU gnome in my kitchen! We love him!!

Everything is in except for the ice!

Delicious!!

Until next time...

Photo Challenge Update 1/17/2013

What you wore

The Sky

Something Blue

Something Red

The one you love

Something you see every morning

What's in my bag

This is a picture of what I wore last Sunday! (And of me holding DJ's cello) ;)

This is a picture of the sky right before nighttime! 

My something blue picture was easy, because I had to take a trip to Wal-Mart! I saw this lone basket while waiting in the garden center to check out, so I snapped a picture of it! The lady in front of me heard the shutter, and turned around to see me "posing the basket", I'm sure she was thinking I don't get out much lol

My something red is a picture of DJ's card and gift I got him for Valentine's Day! 

This is a picture of my love on Valentine's Day! He was headed to work...So handsome ;)

Something I see every morning is my coffee! YUM!

The first thing I pulled out of my bag was my headphone set! It was the last thing I threw in there, so I guess it makes since that it was on top! 

Only 12 more days left in February for pictures then we're on to March! Stay tuned for some great recipes this week! Until then...