My friend Leigh Ann had a baby a couple of months ago and a group of us signed up to bring her meals. I was racking my brain on what to cook when I noticed the bag of Trader Joe’s 17 Bean Soup Mix in the pantry. I have to smuggle this stuff back from South Carolina in my suitcase since we don’t have a TJ’s here. Most people would probably be like, “What in the hell?” if you brought over a giant pot of bean soup. But I knew that Leigh Ann would be down. She and I bond over our love of beans. To me they’re the perfect food: Filling, healthy, full of protein and fiber (about that… my theory is that the more frequently you eat them, the less of an “effect” they have on you), cheap, easy to make. What’s not to like?

Luckily I was right. I got a text from her the next day:

I’m at the doctor with Sam and it’s taking forever. I just want to get home to my musical fruit.

Hahahahaha.

(Leigh Ann, please don’t be mad at me for sharing that story.)

Anyway, my TJ’s bean soup stockpile doesn’t last very long. Luckily Leigh Ann tipped me off to Central Market’s bulk bin of mixed-bean soup mix. It’s only like 13 beans- not hard core like Trader Joe’s SEVENTEEN- but we work with what we have. I’ve yet to try it, but the other day after a playdate Leigh Ann sent me home with a big tub of mixed dried beans. CM was out of the bulk mix, so she just bought nine bags of various beans and combined them in a make-your-own bean soup mix. GENIUS!

Aren’t they pretty?

So that’s what we had for dinner tonight… I use the recipe on the back of the TJ’s bag as a general guide but then throw in some extras. You could make this soup using 2 cups of any mixed, dried beans you like- garbanzos, black beans, limas, split peas, pintos, black eyed peas, kidney beans, lentils. The possibilities are endless. Oh, and you do have to soak the beans overnight.

This soup is pretty much the best meal ever. I could eat it, with crusty bread, every single day and be a happy gal. I throw in some diced ham steak to give it a smoky flavor and some heft, but you could leave that out. It gets better in the fridge and makes an awesome, easy weekday lunch if you cook up a big batch on Sundays. Which is what I did today.

Smoky Mixed Bean & Ham Soup

• 2 cups dried, mixed beans
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 28 oz can fire-roasted diced tomatoes (undrained)
• 2 x 32 oz cartons reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 small ham steak, diced
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tsp Liquid Smoke
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• Chipotle Tabasco, to taste (optional)
• splash of red wine vinegar
• salt & pepper

1. Place beans in a large bowl. Cover completely with cool water and allow to soak overnight. Rinse & drain.

2. Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add onion, pepper, carrots, celery and garlic. Saute until soft.

3. Add tomatoes, broth, beans, ham, Italian seasoning and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about an hour.

4. After an hour, test beans to see if they’re soft enough. Add Liquid Smoke, Worcestershire, Tabasco, vinegar, salt & pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

We had ours with Alexia whole wheat rolls. For Jack, I just used a slotted spoon to remove & drain some cooked beans and ham from the pot (BEFORE adding the Tabasco) and he gobbled those right up.

Thanks for letting me wax on about my love of the bean. We’ve had a busy weekend and I’m super sleepy, so I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.

PS: If you want to laugh really, really hard, read this. Now. (Potty mouth warning.)

It’s ironic that I’m most exhausted on the days that Jack has Mother’s Day Out. I think I just defer all of my errands/chores to Thursday because it’s easier to get stuff done when the little man is in school, plus he “naps” there so we end up with a loooooong afternoon once I pick him up. Luckily today was crazy gorgeous outside- we left our house to walk to the park at 3:15 and walked back in the door at 6:15. That’s got to be some kind of record. We met up with a big group of Jack’s buddies and he had a blast climbing, sliding, and (primarily) begging for snacks from the other mommies.

We ended up grabbing dinner at my old garlic-crazy workplace, Alfonso’s, so no dinner pics. However, I have my first MOPS meeting tomorrow and was racking my brain as to what to pack Jack for his lunch. My Mother’s Day Out lunches have been a massive fail lately. He’ll eat the grapes and chips and that’s it.

So tonight I took advantage of the Central Market salad bar fixin’s to throw together a pasta salad:

Barilla has this great Piccolini line of pasta that features tiny versions of their pasta shapes (penne, shells, rotini and wagon wheels, I think). It’s perfect for toddlers, because cutting up everything gets to be a whip sometimes. I just boiled some of the penne and then mixed it with chopped grilled chicken, broccoli florets, edamame and tomatoes (all from the CM salad bar). I drizzled a little Italian dressing on top and sprinkled on some parmesan. Easy.

Now we’ll just have to see if he eats it.

So here’s the rest of his lunch, if you’re interested:

Squeezable applesauce (he’s obsessed with these at the moment), grapes and Wheat Thins. Is it weird to give a toddler Wheat Thins? It’s kind of a geriatric snack. Oh well.

I’ve been feeling some crazy movement from Baby #2 lately. Like not just the little bubbles- actual kicks and rolls. We find out the sex on Tuesday and I can’t WAIT.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I’m going to go pass out now.

I bet you’ll never guess where I got tonight’s dinner recipe? Yep, Pinterest. How did I blog before it? The cookbooks gathering dust on my shelves probably have an answer to that. The recipe was for Bubble Up Enchiladas: ground turkey mixed with enchilada sauce and tomato sauce, stirred together with quartered biscuit dough, baked and then topped with cheese. Not particularly enchilada-like, but it sounded good (and quick!) regardless.

I altered the recipe just a little by adding black beans and corn, otherwise it’s pretty much the same as the link.

Ingredients:

Pre-baking.

Post-baking. See how the biscuits puff up?

Plated, with sour cream and green onions…

Enchilada Casserole

• 1 lb lean ground turkey
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 10oz can red enchilada sauce
• 1 8oz can tomato sauce
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can yellow corn, drained
• 16 oz can flaky biscuit dough
• 2 cups reduced-fat Mexican blend shredded cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350. In a large skillet, brown turkey and garlic.

2. When turkey is cooked through, remove from heat and add enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, black beans and corn. Stir until well mixed. Taste and add seasonings as needed (I added seasoned salt).

3. Cut biscuits into quarters and add to skillet. Stir to combine.

4. Spray a large casserole dish with nonstick spray. Pour in turkey mixture.

5. Place casserole dish in oven and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle cheese evenly over the top. Return to oven for about 5 more minutes.

6. Remove from oven and allow to set for another 5 minutes (mixture will thicken). Serve with sour cream, green onions, jalapenos, hot sauce, etc.

I was hoping Jack would be able to eat this, but even with the mild enchilada sauce it seemed a little too spicy. Luckily I set aside a little of the turkey-corn-bean mixture before adding the sauce, so I just melted some cheese on top of that for him.

On a completely unrelated note: If any of you are Greek yogurt fans, my Super Target had Chobani on sale for $0.50 today! I think it’s usually $1.30. Not sure what the deal is- they weren’t close to expiration or anything. I eat Chobani for breakfast every morning with blueberries, granola and chia seeds, so we stocked up:

The new blood orange flavor is REALLY good.

The kid’s Chobani was also on sale… that vanilla with chocolate chunk flavor was actually on clearance for $2 (it’s usually $3.50ish, and I had a $1 coupon so I got it for $1- win!). Tonight after dinner we gave Jack a cup of that topped with a few chocolate sprinkles and told him it was ice cream. He LOVED it.

We’re always worried that he’s not getting enough protein (or calories, for that matter), so I’m pretty psyched that he took to this. Hey, whatever works.

Hope everyone is having a good week! I’m off to pop one of my giant horse-pill antibiotics and enjoy a glass of margarita-flavored Crystal Light. Hey heyyyy.

(Update: Margarita-flavored Crystal Light tastes nothing like margaritas. Sad.)

Today was much less eventful, thank the lord. Jack and I headed over to my friend Allison’s today, and I wish I’d snapped a few pics of him playing with sweet baby Harper. Harper is adorable and happy, and in that super fun age- 7 months- that makes me even more excited for baby #2 (I choose to forget that the whole sleepless, breastfeeding 24/7, never-leaving-the-house newborn phase comes first). Jack was pretty enamored with Harper, though if you ask him if he wants a baby brother or a baby sister, he still changes the subject. We’re working on it.

Still feeling slightly crappy due to the tooth. The antibiotics seem to be helping a little but I’m ready for them to kick in full force. The rest of the day was thankfully pretty lazy- Jack and I both took a nap and then read books, played trucks and possibly watched an episode or two of Toddlers & Tiaras. We’re starting on his glitz outfit tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kira gave me a foil-wrapped loaf and a mysterious looking freezer bag of white liquid- Amish friendship bread and a bag of “starter.” I’d never had Amish friendship bread before but now I’m HOOKED.

It’s delicious. Sweet and cake-y like a quickbread, but because it contains yeast you still get that amazing smell and light taste. I think I inhaled the first loaf in 2 days.

The whole process is interesting. You just mush the bag of starter for a few days, then add flour, milk and sugar. Mush for a few more days. On the 10th day you add more flour, milk and sugar and oil, then divide the starter into 4 bags (to give away- that’s the “friendship” part). Add a few more ingredients to what’s left of your starter, divide into two loaf pans and then bake for an hour.

Here’s my collection of starter on the counter… anybody want one? Seriously. I just want to keep one for myself but would love to give the rest away!

If you’re as intrigued by this process as I am, click here for a great blog with all of the detailed instructions. It makes an amazing breakfast… or snack… or dessert.

Alright, I’m itching to climb into my soft, warm bed (it’s COLD here in Dallas!) and dig into Cutting for Stone. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Is it great how once you’re like, “Okay, I got this!” everything hits the fan. Or maybe that’s just me. Yesterday the house was clean, laundry was folded, Jack was in a great mood, sunshine and rainbows and puppies all around. Hooray!

And then today. I finally made it into the dentist, just to get that sore tooth checked out. “I’m sure it’s just sinuses! No biggie! I just want a quick x-ray to make sure!”

Um, not so much. It’s an abscess, requiring a full round of antibiotics and a root canal. Except that my OB doesn’t feel that it’s safe to do that before Baby #2 is here, so we’re hoping and praying that the antibiotics calm down the inflammation (& pain) for a few months. Lawdy.

Then someone rang the doorbell twice and beat on the door this afternoon, waking Jack up from his nap. And the icing on the cake was when Brian was getting Jack ready for bed tonight and Jack suddenly (and with impressive projection) threw his dinner up ALL OVER the place. He has no fever and 2 minutes later was running around and playing, so hopefully it was just a fluke.

Soooo… short post tonight. I had a mushy dinner: Baked potato and soup.

The soup was a Pinterest recipe for Slow Cooker Cream Cheese Chicken Chili. The ingredients were some of my faves- black beans, chicken, cream cheese, ranch dressing mix, Rotel- so I had high hopes for this one. It actually was pretty good, but SPICY. And salty. This was definitely not a toddler-friendly dish (Jack had some pretty tasty Annie’s mac & cheese). Next time I might just use a can of diced tomatoes instead of the Rotel to tone it down a little.

Okay, I’m raising the white flag and heading to bed before the dryer bursts into flames or a tornado touches down in our yard. Night!

(On a happier and slightly less whiny note, Cutting for Stone is SO good. I was up until 1am plowing through it. Highly recommend!)

(Oh, and you know what’s always awesome? Babies in glasses. Or toddlers in glasses. Enjoy!)

Hehe. Night! For reals this time.

I feel like all I’ve done this weekend is eat, eat, EAT. On Friday we stuffed ourselves with hummus and pita at Ali Baba (Jack LOVED it), then Saturday night I attended a Girls’ Night In with friends- complete with popcorn, candy and tons of snacks & desserts, and this morning we met my parents at Blue Mesa for brunch.

For the girls’ night, I was debating between bringing buffalo chicken dip and cookie dough truffles. Guess what won?

I made these a couple years ago and for some reason (pregnancy?) had been craving them lately. They’re kind of perfect because it’s like eating spoonfuls of cookie dough without having to worry about annoying little things like salmonella.

The original recipe can be found here. I altered it just a little by adding salt, using reduced fat sweetened condensed milk (or Eagle Brand, as it’s called here in TX), semi-sweet mini chocolate chips instead of regular milk chocolate, and chocolate-flavored almond bark for the coating.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour
• 14 oz can reduced-fat sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
• 20 oz package of chocolate almond bark (to coat)

1. Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until creamy. Let the mixer run longer than you normally would- this helps “melt” the sugar so your filling isn’t gritty.

2. Add vanilla, salt, and flour to the butter/sugar mixture, and mix until combined. Pour in sweetened condensed milk. Once milk is incorporated, add chocolate chips and mix until evenly combined.

3. Place cookie dough mixture in fridge to chill for 30 minutes.

4. Scoop out dough (I used a cookie dough scoop) and roll into 1 inch balls. Place onto wax paper-lined baking sheet. Once all dough has been rolled, place cookie dough balls in fridge for at least an hour to chill.

5. Melt chocolate almond bark in a bowl according to package directions. Remove dough balls from fridge. Dip each ball into chocolate and roll to coat evenly (I used a fork for this). Place on wax-paper lined baking sheet and decorate with sprinkles if desired. Once all the cookie dough balls have been coated in chocolate, put baking sheet back in fridge and chill to set.

See? EASY. The key to maintaining the shape and not making a gigantic mess was chilling the dough before rolling and again before dipping in chocolate.

I was trying to get a good shot of the interior, but you can totally see my hungry little teeth marks here. So shameful.

That’s all I’ve got. My sore tooth has been KILLING me all weekend so I’m hoping to get into the dentist tomorrow. Tylenol and Anbesol are my BFF’s right now.

We had quite the chilly day here in Dallas! I bundled Jack up in his super cute cable-knit red sweater with leather elbow patches (that he NEVER gets to wear) and took him to Mother’s Day Out. He looked like a little classics professor.

The goal was to take a long nap while he was at school, but- as always seems to happen- I start these “quick” little projects, and the next thing I know it’s 1:45 and I need to go pick Jack up. Like, “Oh, I’ll just vacuum real quick and then nap.”

And then I notice a blueberry dried onto the floor, so I pull out the steam mop.

But then there’s the dust all over the dresser, and the painting I’ve been meaning to hang, the giant stack of magazines over there that needs to be recycled… it’s like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. And those of you without toddlers have no idea what I’m talking about.

But at least my house is clean. And dinner was no-stress because I just tossed one of my freezer meals in the crock pot: Healthy Mama Barbecue Chicken. Click here for the recipe.

Here’s what I like about this recipe: Simple, healthy ingredients and TONS of veggies (sweet potatoes, red peppers, green peppers, onions, garlic, zucchini).

Here’s what I didn’t like: The mixture seemed dry and the sauce was too bland.

After pulling the bag out of the freezer and letting it thaw on the counter for about 45 minutes, I just dumped the whole mixture into the slow cooker. I was worried that it looked dry so I added some Stubb’s BBQ sauce (LOVE) on top. Set the slow cooker on low for 8 hours.

The chicken was really tender- you can just shred it in the crock pot with a fork. All of the veggies soften and kind of meld together, so you definitely could serve this on a bun like a traditional BBQ sandwich. I ended up serving ours on top of brown rice. Jack seemed to like it.

As I said before, when I tasted the final product it seemed pretty bland, so I added a ton of seasoned salt and even more Stubb’s.

Despite the fact that I didn’t adore these 2 recipes (this and the goulash from Tuesday), I still think freezer crock pot meals are an amazing idea. It doesn’t seem like you lose any quality from freezing the ingredients, and it just makes life SO easy. I just need to find more recipes to try…

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I just walked in the door from book club, which, as always, was so much fun. Half of our book club is pregnant, and I made the observation tonight there’s a direct correlation between the dessert selection and number of preggos. I guess we’ve replaced wine with sugar. Tonight we had brownies, macarons/macaroons, these awesome peanut butter-pretzel- Heath bar cookies that Allison made:

And I got the chance to test out a cupcake recipe I pinned a while back: Neapolitan Cupcakes.

It’s brownie batter topped with strawberry cake batter, baked and then iced with vanilla (or I used cream cheese) frosting. The original recipe is here, but you substitute strawberry cake mix for the white mix.

Cross-section of deliciousness:

The recipe says that it makes 48 cupcakes, but I was scraping the bowl to eek out 16. Not sure what’s up with that. But they only take about 15 minutes to assemble. Along with the cream cheese frosting, I topped mine with these AMAZING Dutch chocolate sprinkles that my friend Kira gave me:

Brian and I were cracking up at the box, like, “Haha! Who the hell puts sprinkles on bread?”

Okay, I get it now. They are insane. I was eating sprinkles straight out of the box. It’s going to really suck when they’re gone because I think she said that they were brought here from Curacao… I don’t think Brian would let me plan a trip around a sprinkles craving.

Anyway, the cupcakes were delicious. I was sad when they came out of the oven because the tops were kind of marbleized rather than having the defined chocolate-strawberry layers, but as soon as you ice them you can’t tell the difference. This would make a great Valentine’s-themed dessert.

Hope everyone is having a great night! Thanks for the book suggestions. We decided tonight that our next selection is Cutting for Stone, which apparently is a long one so I better get started on that ASAP.

Oh, Jack… every day he comes out with these words and phrases that crack me up. His latest favorite is, “Mommy, that’s gross.”

But he uses it- completely inappropriately- to describe anything he doesn’t want.

Me: “Hey Jack, let’s go get you dressed.”

Jack: “No, Mommy. That’s gross.”

Pick up your toys? Nope, gross. Time to go to the grocery store? GROSS. Everything is gross.

Speaking of gross, look what I get to deal with every morning:

Don’t worry: It’s Nutella. Nutella on whole wheat is our breakfast standby. Hey, whatever is going to put some meat on those bones- I can’t even get 18-24 month jeans to stay up on that tiny hiney.

A while back I pinned a post on Pinterest featuring a few freezer meals for the crock pot. The idea is that you chop up a bunch of veggies, layer them with meat and spices/sauce in a gallon Ziploc, then freeze until you need an easy meal. Then you just dump the whole mess in the slow cooker and let it go. It’s such a great idea- the crock pot is a huge time saver in itself, but sometimes the chopping and assembly are a pain.

Here’s the original pin:

I’ve been wanting to give these a test run because how great would they be once baby #2 gets here? So today I spent a couple hours prepping, chopping and assembling the ingredients for two of the recipes: Stephanie’s Goulash and Healthy Mama Barbecue Chicken. Click here for both recipes. They appealed to me because they both include TONS of veggies and only whole, unprocessed foods.

Each recipe fills two 1 gallon freezer bags, and each bag should serve about 4 people. Here are three of the bags, ready to go in the freezer:

We had the 4th- the goulash- for dinner.

So I tweaked the recipe a bit on the front end by adding 1/2 cup of ketchup, 2 Tbs of brown sugar, 2 Tbs of Worcestershire and salt. It just seemed like it would be really dry without more of a “sauce.” I put the veggies in the bag first, then added the chopped stew meat, then whisked all of the sauce ingredients (tomato paste, paprika, pepper, ketchup, sugar and Worcestershire) in a bowl and poured it into the bag.

Even with the additions, it was pretty bland at the end. I tried to revive it by adding even MORE ketchup (tomato sauce would work, too), Worcestershire and seasoned salt at the end. It helped quite a bit, but fair warning- if you don’t like beets, you will HATE this recipe. It’s very beet-ful, and I have the fuchsia hands to prove it.

Served over wide whole wheat noodles and topped with sour cream.

Not a bad recipe, but not one I’m super excited to eat again. I’m going to have to think of more ways to spice up the sauce since we have another bag of this in the freezer now. Hopefully we’ll have better luck with the chicken.

We just finished Sarah’s Key for book club… so now I need another book to read. Suggestions??

Jack and I just got home from a hot dinner date with Lauren (aka, La La) at Angelo’s. Poor Lauren got a good taste of what life will be like in a couple of years, once Miss Caroline is here. Jack must have made her play “I’ll hide the car under the napkin and then you pretend like you don’t know where it is!” about 500 times. That game is HILARIOUS… if you’re two.

Anyway, we had a great time at dinner! Little man was actually fairly well-behaved and it was awesome catching up with Lauren. I skipped the meal photos (because, really, how interesting is angel hair with mushrooms?) but I do have a pretty awesome lunch to share with you. I tore this recipe out of a Self magazine from a year or two ago but stumbled across it this weekend while cleaning out: Quick Pickled Kale Salad

Kale is one of those vegetables that you’re always hearing is SO GOOD for you. Lots of fiber, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium. I stumbled upon a container of baby kale at Whole Foods the other day and it was perfect for this salad. Much more tender and less bitter than traditional kale, plus you don’t have to deal with those big, tough stalks. I’m tempted to try the baby kale in a smoothie (though my previous attempt at a kale smoothie was a massive, nasty fail).

For the salad, you marinate paper-thin cucumber and red onion slices in a mixture of apple cider vinegar and sugar. You toss a little of the “brine” with kale and chickpeas, drizzle on some olive oil, then top the salad with the marinated cucumbers and onions. Bulk it up with a couple of sliced hard-boiled eggs and season with salt & pepper.

You’ve got your veggies, your legumes, your protein, your daily required dose of vinegar (or is that just me?)… so then you can feel okay about the bread pudding with mound of cinnamon whipped cream that you inhaled at dinner. Win-win.

Hope everyone had a happy Monday!