Thursday, January 24, 2013

Clean Eating

I'm on a 'clean eating' kick and thought I would pass along any recipes I find success with.  By success, I mean recipes I find tasty and somewhat easy to make.  

I found the Easy Red Bean and Quinoa Chili recipe on the barre3 website and decided to try it this week. The word "easy" is in the recipe, so you know it can't be too difficult!  This recipe was SUPER easy and quite tasty.  The chili took less than 40 minutes from beginning to end.  You have to love that! You can have a fresh, healthy dinner in under an hour.

RECIPE 

EASY RED BEAN AND QUINOA CHILI
2-3 Servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 can organic red beans (we prefer Eden’s Organics)
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 cups organic sugar-free tomato sauce
1 cup water
PREPARATION:
1. Drain your canned beans and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat (Tip: choose one that is large enough to hold the beans, too).
3. Add onion, salt, garlic, pepper, and spices.
4. Sauté for several minutes, allowing the onion to soften.
5. Add quinoa and stir to combine.
6. Add rinsed beans to the onion and quinoa mixture and pour in the tomato sauce and water.  Simmer together for 30 minutes.

 
I'm not the best food photographer, but here's an idea of what mine looked like.  I added a little plain greek yogurt and sliced avocado to mine and loved it!  




 

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Happy Birthday, Joey P

I wanted to take a quick minute and say, "Happy Birthday" to my mom, the one and only, JoAnn Patterson.  Happy Birthday, Joey P!  Here's a little trip down memory lane in honor of your big day...



Girls trip to San Diego

Dressed as the Chilean miners for Halloween

Girls trip to New York

Girls trip to see Coldplay in Dallas
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Thursday, January 3, 2013

A New Year

One of my new year resolutions is to start blogging on regular basis.  As we all know, most resolutions only last a few weeks, so we shall see how long my thirst for writing will last. 

I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  It went by too fast, but it always does.  I kicked off my holidays by spending Thanksgiving in New York.  My mom and I ditched the guys and took a girls trip to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, shop, see a couple shows, eat some great food, and of course, drink lots of good wine. We saw 'A Christmas Story'  and the Rockettes 'A Christmas Spectacular.'  Both shows were amazing and I even sat next to the dad of the kid playing Ralphie in A Christmas Story.  If anyone wants any behind the scenes gossip of a bunch of ten year olds staring on Broadway, just holler at me.  This was my second trip with my mom to NYC and we're already planning to go a third time together in March.
Our first night

At the parade

A Christmas Story

The start of the parade

On Christmas Eve, I went to church with my parents then made our usual trip to my Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house. Can you imagine 60 people crammed into one room opening presents?  Welcome to my family.  It's chaos, but I love it.
About 1/3 of the room opening presents at my grandparents
My brothers and I stayed at my parents house Christmas Eve and Christmas night.  We played a few intense games of UNO, drank wine, and watched our favorite Christmas movies.  Now that I'm writing this, I'm realizing we drink a lot of wine, but in the famous words of Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, "We're Italian!"  Christmas Day was filled with eating an amazing Italian brunch my mom prepared, followed by a full day of opening presents.  Christmas is so fun with a toddler in the house.

Lily riding her new bike on Christmas morning
New Years Eve was perfect; dinner and cocktails with friends followed by ringing in the new year in our pj's.  Great ending to a great year. 
NYE