Easy Quinoa Bites

I don’t know about you guys, but I LOVE quinoa!! It’s delicious and nutritious! Does it get better than that?  I think not!  I love using it as a rice substitute; however my husband is not fond of me doing that.  So I have been trying to find some recipes that are husband approved!  Here is the first one, Quinoa Bites.  They are perfect as an easy breakfast; you can even make a giant batch and freeze so you grab a bite whenever, or as a snack!  Briggs loves them and calls them cookies.  I will take him asking for healthy snacks as opposed to real cookies any day!

Quinoa Bites:

1 C. uncooked quinoa

2 C. water

2 eggs

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

½  C. grated cheese

2 diced garlic cloves

1-2 handfuls of Spinach

Instructions:

1.       Pre-heat oven to 350

2.       Add quinoa and water to a pot and bring to a boil.  Place a lid on, lower the heat to low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.

3.       Add cheese to warm quinoa and give it a good stir to help it melt.

4.       Add the rest of the ingredients, besides the egg, and taste so you can let your taste buds tell you what else to add.

5.       When all tastes delicious add the eggs

6.       Use a tablespoon to scoop mixture into muffin tins (mini is great, if not just fill a regular one half way) and put into the oven for 20 minutes. 

*Here are some of my confessions from my kitchen.  I purchase a Costco jar of pre-chopped garlic so that I always have it on hand (did I mention my hands don’t smell like garlic when I do this?) I will also buy bags of spinach from Costco and put it in my freezer, it makes it easier to just toss some of it into whatever I am cooking!

CopyCat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana

Olive Garden and I have many memories!  In high school for basically any reason my friends and I would go out to eat there.  The only thing I get though is the soup, salad and breadsticks, because let's be honest that is the BEST thing on their menu!  The other night I was craving their Zuppa Toscana so I decided to make it; with the help of my mothers recipe and a bit of what my taste buds love.

COPYCAT ZUPPA TOSCANA
Ingredients:
8 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup Heavy Cream (I like to use Half and Half sometimes)
2 Russet Potatoes
2 Cups chopped Kale
1 Pound Spicy Italian Sausage
1/4 cup chopped Onion (optional)*
a splash of Lemon Juice
1/2 Tablespoon Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

Directions:
1. Cook the sausage, add onions if you would like.  When sausage is cooked cut into bite sized pieces.
2. Peel and cut your potatoes into bite size pieces.
3.  In a big sauce pan add everything except kale to pan.  This is the time that you can get creative with what you put in.  Taste and add more of anything you would like to suit your taste buds!
4. When the potatoes are tender add kale to the soup and cook until they just wilt.

Serve hot and with a side of Roman Bread!

*if you cook your onions with your sausage the flavor is great, but do not be alarmed when your soup base is a little brown when they are added.

Kitchen Redo

Sean and I are so lucky to have our own home! However, the home that we purchased was built in 1984... and it still has pretty much everything it originally came with.  We knew we had the serious task of taking this grandma house and making it our own! 
Let me tell you about what we recently did to our kitchen. 

First off the cabinets.  We stained them black!

Most importantly we redid our counter tops, as much as I loved that faux wood laminate (which is not at all!).  Just before we did them we found out that this hideous faded patch was where the old man who lived here before us would roll out his pizza dough, which is the exact spot where I like to roll out my dough!

 We DON'T want to invest too much as we know that there is only so much value we can add to our house, so we decided to redo our counters cabinets our self and as cheap as possible!  Luckily Rust-Oleum makes this bad boy.  It's an easy DIY way to make your countertop look like stone without
replacing it.  I am not going to lie, it was a process.  First you have to sand the countertop, then you paint with this adhesive paint pretty quickly as you do not want it to dry (luckily they have a wetting agent to make it dry slower.)  Then you spray the chips all over your counter top and let it dry for 12 hours.  Then you scrape and sand the chips, fix any areas that did not get covered, let it dry.  Then you put the top coat on.  We could not put anything heavy on our countertops for a week.

 The end result was more then I expected beginning this, I was actually pretty scared.  Our counters are a thousand times better then when we began!! We got practically a brand new kitchen for $260!

 If you are in need of an update for your outdated laminate counters definitely check out the Counter Top Transformation kit!

 

Hooded Towel

I am a sucker for hooded towels, so I thought why not make some for Briggs as he grew out of the cute ones we were given at his baby shower.  They also make a quick and easy gift!
 What you'll need:
- 1 bath towel
- 1 hand towel

Take your hand towel lay it horizontally in front of you.

Cut towel in half.  You only need half so you can save half for another towel if you would like.

Find the center of your bath towel and pin the half of your hand towel in the center and sew the two towels together.  I like to have the already hemmed edges together.  I also like to have the tag of the towel on the inside when the towel is finished so I keep that in mind when sewing the towel together.

Fold the towel in the wrong direction (if you care about where the towel is) and sew the top of your hand towel together to create the hood.

Turn your hood out.  I like the look of the towel on its own, but I really wanted to make Briggs a Mike Wazowski towel after I made a Toy Machine monster one for my nephew.  To do the eye, I grabbed a white, light blue and navy blue wash cloth.  Cut out the circle to the size I wanted it to be and sewed those all together!

Sorry my model did not want to stay still!  Enjoy this super simple craft!!

Glitter Ornaments

So I have begun putting up Christmas decorations, I just couldn't wait until next week!  Anyways, a theme-ish thing we are doing with are tree is Harry Potter.  While making my snitch ornaments I was trying to find the best way to do it.  I knew that I wanted the glitter inside the ornament but all over.  I couldn't get it to stay just by it self, I tried modge podge, which only dried white on me and was a pain to try and get all over so I probably used more then I should have.

Today I had an Ah-ha moment.  For dance performances when I used glitter I would hairspray it to my face to make it stay, so why not inside the ornament.

All you do is take your ornament you want to sparkle (with the top of for the inside)  and point the hairspray nozzle inside and do a few short sprays.  Then sprinkle the glitter inside and give it a good shake with your finger over the opening! Let it dry and pour any glitter that did not stick in a cup or back in the container.

 Happy Holidays everyone and look out for more Christmas decorations this year!

Chicken Molé Enchiladas with Mango Black Beans and Quinoa

On Sunday I asked Sean what he wanted for dinner, he said my Enchiladas, but sadly we did not have all of the ingredients.  But that gave me an idea... MOLÈ Enchiladas!! These bad boys are my favorite thing, I know that they sound weird but trust me.  We also had some mango black beans when we went out to dinner recently and were hooked! So I recreated them... they were supposed to go on rice, but, we didn't have that either so quinoa was the next choice and worked out nicely!  Here is the recipe.

MOLÈ Enchiladas
Ingredients:

Sauce
1 jar of Dona Maria Mole Sauce
1 can chicken broth
1-2 cups water (you can also just use more chicken broth)
3 Tablespoons peanut butter (Optional, but delicious)
2 cloves garlic
dash of salt

Chicken
Flour tortillas (corn is ok too)
3 cups shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Combine ingredients for the sauce and simmer until the jar of mole is melted.  Start with just one cup of water though, add more until it is a pancake consistency (that's at least my preference.) Save 1/3 of the sauce and set aside. Cook your chicken any way you would like.  Combine chicken with sauce (not the 1/3) and a cup of cheese.  Now you can either layer the enchiladas lasagna style or roll.  I am impatient so I tend to layer.  Cover with remaining sauce and cheese.  Bake at 350° until the cheese bubbles. 

Quinoa (or rice) and Beans
2 cans Black Beans
1/2 jar Mango Salsa (we had a habanero one)
Quinoa or rice

Combine beans and salsa, you can add salt to if you wish.  Let it heat and set aside.  Cook your quinoa or rice.  Serve the black beans over your quinoa or rice. 

Enjoy!  I am seriously addicted to the flavor of this meal!

That Endometriosis Life

I can vividly remember the day that my Endometriosis began.
I was 16, a soon to be junior in high school, and went to bed on a summer night after hanging out with my girls!  Suddenly, I found out that I was pregnant and I was not sure how that happened.  I accepted it though and went through all nine months of pregnancy.  Then it was time for me to have my baby and I felt every bit of pain that was involved in my labor and delivery.  I had a beautiful surprise that I had not one baby but two, oddly, one was black and the other white.  When I left the hospital and returned home I awoke in my bedroom at my parents.  Now no longer dreaming my body was still in as much pain as I had dreamt I was in.  So my logic told me it wasn't a dream and I walked around my parents house looking for my babies, don't judge me it was like 4 A.M. so I was not in a right state of mind.  When I realized that everything had been a dream I was so confused why my body hurt so badly, hunched over barely able to move pain.  From that day on I continued to get that pain.
What is Endometriosis?  Simply put its scar tissue that forms because of endometrial cells being where they should not.  Its such a weird disease (fitting since my body is known to be so weird)  they do not really know much about it, like exactly how it gets there or how to really treat it.  They do know a couple of things though which is helpful.  It can be extremely painful, though not for everyone, and it can cause infertility. 
When I got that news that I may never have a child I was heartbroken it was all I ever wanted, I mean come on I had that vivid dream and then at least one a month after that.  Luckily, I found a loving man who still thought I was worth something after hearing that news since not everyone would want to deal with that.  I am so blessed however that even with having Stage 4 Endo (after my diagnostic surgery, my doctor drew a picture of uterus and just started to dot all over it, even outside of it to show me how much scar tissue was there) that Sean and I were able to have our beautiful son Briggs so quickly into our marriage.  There are times though when I get sad seeing how easily friends and family are on to baby number two because I am not sure if we will get that opportunity.  But I know that The Lord has a plan for us and will accept any blessing or trial he sends my way.
I have dealt with this pain for so long that I can ignore the mild days!  But those days seem to be growing few and far between.  There are days when my body is particularly rude to me and I am physically and mentally exhausted, even nauseous from the pain that I am in.  I am still figuring out how to manage it on the really bad days, but here are some things that I have found helpful to take the edge off.

• Treat yo'self to an amazing bath with a Bath Bomb he seems to be magic with any pain.
• Get massaged from someone who love you!  (Sorry for the lush plugs) I love this Massage Bar
• Eat some chocolate, or your favorite caffeinated beverage (Dr. Pepper for me!)
• Watch your favorite movie with your handy heating pad on HIGH
• Most importantly relax your mind as well

Relaxing is very important.  When I am in pain and do not feel up to being out of bed, I tend to get down on myself about being a bad mother and wife.  Unfortunately Endo does affect my life, even though I wish it didn't,  sometimes I need help to watch my baby boy because I physically need that time to myself.  As a wife its hard knowing that I cannot be intimate with my husband when the pain is bad.  But I have to remind myself that there are still more good days then bad (even if those good days have pain) and that I am doing the most can with my situation.  I am so blessed in my life that I even hate to complain (I do though) when something is not ideal for me.  But again, my Heavenly Father has a plan for me and has a purpose for my life, this is something that I will always treasure!