Long Time...No Posts

     Hi everybody! Let me just start off by apologizing for my absence. It's been a long couple of weeks with little to no creativity and cooking in the kitchen and a lot of me becoming mold on the couch. Since my last post, we went out of town and had a nice weekend together.

     When we came back though, we had LOTS of appointments and tests for the baby. We found out the baby is good and healthy, thank goodness, but also found out we have some "bumps in the road" in the form of complications with me, resulting in more tests and more doctors appointments than normal AND injections everyday that are literally a pain in the booty. Yay me... (Do you detect the sarcasm there?)

     Anyways, who doesn't have complications with pregnancy anymore right? I'm figuring out it's a lot more common than I thought. So when my morning sickness started getting better and I finally thought I was getting back to normal, I go and blow out my back, leading to the becoming mold on the couch. The important part is I'm back on the road to semi-normalcy, hopefully, which means giving some attention back to you.

     Okey dokey artichokie, so here are my "plans" for the next week if I can help it. I have seriously been craving some homemade muffins here lately so I'll be sharing with you my recipe for my Morning Glory Muffins. They are so great because you get a yummy treat, plus you don't feel like you're overindulging because you get the healthy aspect of lots of fruits and veggies in them so you can have your cake and eat it too.

     Then we're actually going to start on our crafts. I'm going to try and do some type of decoration for the baby room from some of the ideas I've found on Pinterest. We are getting our crib tomorrow and are starting to get some of the bigger things for the baby so I'm getting really psyched about starting the baby room. :) So now we'll start seeing more crafts.

     Then we are going to try a new recipe for Chicken and Dumplings. I have also been seriously craving this and have yet to find ANY that are in comparison to my moms. We'll see if this will be a flop or not. What's your favorite Chicken and Dumpling recipe?

Till later...

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

Fiesta Stuffed Peppers

So for my first recipe that we tried, I had scanned Pinterest for a while looking for food that's new that sounded good and that didn't look like it would take very long to make either. This normally isn't hard at all on Pinterest considering all of the yummy stuff that pops up, but right now with going back and forth between feeling like a normal human being and feeling like all I do all day is throw up, it was a little more challenging than what I thought. Then I saw a pin where a woman had made stuffed peppers. It wasn't because they sounded good that I stopped, oddly enough, but it was how pretty the peppers are. I mean, who doesn't want their food to look appetizing? So after a little more hunting on various stuffed pepper recipes, I combined about 3 different ones and added a little twist of my own.

First things first, you want to choose your pretty peppers. I thought about going with making stoplight peppers (green, yellow and red) but oddly enough, I'm not a huge fan of the green ones, so I settled on red and yellow and they looked beautiful in the store. For this recipe, you want to choose 4 medium to large peppers. If you do a small medium, you could probably get away with 5.

Next you want to get a large pot of water boiling to soften you peppers and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While the water is boiling, you want to cut the caps off of you peppers. Cut down from the stem area about 1/2 inch leaving the top intact.

Then you want to remove the middle section with all of the seeds. Do this with your hands by just grabbing the total clump. Most of the time it's easy because it's still intact.



After all of the caps are cut off your peppers and they are clean, slowly drop the peppers into boiling water, I would suggest using tongs since they do tend to splash and after all the water is BOILING. Boil for 8 to 12 minutes or until softened to your liking. Be careful when you remove them so they don't fall apart. Place in an oven proof baking dish big enough for all of your peppers.

Next you want to start on your filling. Take 1lb. of lean ground beef, 1 tsp. ground chipotle powder, 2 Tablespoons garlic powder, 1 tsp. cumin and 2 Tablespoons onion powder and brown in large skillet.

After meat is browned turn heat down to medium-low and add 1 cup of frozen corn and 4 oz. of cream cheese. Stir into beef mixture until cheese is completely melted and well combined

into mixture. Then add 1/4 cup diced fresh cilantro and 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice and stir into mixture.

I used a package of Mahatma saffron rice. I LOVE this stuff. It's easy and has great flavor and one made package is just the right amount for this recipe.

Next stir in 1 cup of salsa of your choice. I used Hot Pace because my husband likes things a little spicier and this way you can control what your spice level is. If you didn't use a seasoned rice mix like I did, you might want to add 1 1/2 cups of salsa.

After this is stirred together, you want to stuff you peppers. As you stuff them, try to compact the mixture down into the bottom as you go that way they are good and full.

I put my caps back on my peppers because I notice it keeps the inside mixture nice and moist but it is completely up to you. You want to bake them for 15 to 20 minutes or until completely heated through and your peppers are completely soft. Then enjoy with you sides of choice. I put sour cream on mine and some guacamole on the side for some chips. I've also served it with black beans too. What side sounds good to you to serve with your Fiesta peppers?

I think I'm going to enjoy my fiesta pepper and then maybe take a little evening siesta. ; )

TTFA (Ta Ta For Now)