Stuffed Pepper Soup

I love bell peppers! One of my favorite things that I learned to make from my Dad is his amazing stuffed peppers. They take quite a while to make, but when they're done - they're amazing! When I came across a recipe for stuffed pepper soup, I had to try it - and I'm so glad I did! I put my own little touches and additions to it, and love making it when it's cold outside. Hope you guys enjoy this recipe as much as we do!

Ingredients

3 cups brown rice, cooked

1.5 lbs ground beef

1.5 cups of bell peppers, chopped

1 cup onion, diced

3 cloves pressed garlic

2 cans (14.5 oz each) of petite diced tomatoes 

(Note: I love to use Rotel for extra flavor)

1 3/4 cups tomato sauce 

(I like to use 1 jar of my favorite spaghetti sauce)

2 cups chicken broth

Favorite spices

Brown the ground beef on high heat until fully cooked. Drain fat, if any, and add desired spices to the ground beef. Remove from the original pan, and place into a large pot on low heat. Add peppers, onions and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and additional seasoning. 

Stir and let simmer for 5 minutes.

Add chicken broth and rice.

Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

That's it! Quick and easy. Here's the final result - let me know how you like it, if you try it! :)

DIY Project: Framed Sheet Music

One of my favorite (and extremely affordable) projects from earlier this summer was FINALLY framing the sheet music that I had bought of our first dance at our wedding. I had purchased the sheet music online (for only about $5) and was able to print it from my own printer.

There are obvious ways to download and print sheet music for free, but I wanted to pay for the sheet music for numerous reasons. First, obvious copyright reasons. We loved the song - as it meant so much to us, why not give the writer the credit for their amazing work? Additionally, the sheet music and website that I found, had the sheet music sized properly to fit regular computer paper, and looked exactly the way I wanted, with the proper symbols and music notations. The website also had the option to condense the sheet music to fit 4 pages instead of 7, which I knew I wanted because I needed to keep in mind the amount of space that I wanted to use on the wall in my living room. Once I paid for the sheet music, downloaded and printed it instantly - I was very happy with how clean it looked and couldn't wait to frame it.

I had purchased the sheet music the summer we got married (2013), so I have literally had this sheet music for over a year by the time I was able to carry my project out - so what was the hold up? I didn't yet have my "forever shelf" that I had been wanting for this area, and I wanted to wait until I found the shelf I had been envisioning before making any holes in our freshly painted walls to hang the sheet music. Why take the time to hang them, then have to move them, patch the holes, repaint and remeasure, in order for it to fit and look correctly spaced with the new furniture once I finally found what I was looking for? I was bummed to have the vision and the plan for my project while not being able to actually do it, but I'm so happy that I waited because it's one of my favorite things in our house.

I'm extremely picky with furniture - so over a year after I had printed the music (and about 2.5 years after we bought our house), I found the perfect shelf for the space that I had been envisioning. Keep in mind, we had planned to purchase a shelf eventually when we moved in, but I just hadn't found one that I really wanted - so the shelf purchase wasn't because of the sheet music - I just wanted to wait until I had the shelf before hanging the music :)

While we're on the topic of my shelf - HUGE shout out to my sweet friend Olga for her help with this! We had spent one Friday night HomeGoods hopping (I think we visited 3-4 HomeGoods in the area that night while our men were at work) looking for furniture for her new house, when we came across the shelf at one of the stores. She was the one that first spotted it and helped me carry it all the way to the front of the store to check out (and even asked the cashier for a discount because it had a few knicks in it - even though we both knew that they were supposed to be there because the shelf was made to be rustic looking). When I brought it home and once Eric finally got home from work and carried it up the stairs, I was so excited - it looked perfect in that area!

Okay - back to the sheet music! Now that my shelf was in place, I was ready to buy frames. For frames on my walls, I love solid dark colors because I'm all about simplicity. I found frames that I really liked at Michaels that were on sale and even better - I had a coupon to use! Overall, I think this entire project probably cost around $30.00.

Another shout out is in order! To our friend Eddie - he was hanging out with us one night for dinner and a game (right after I had bought my frames), and lucky him - I asked him to help with the measurements so that the frames would be evenly and perfectly spaced on the wall. (I'd trust myself with one or two frames that need to be centered/leveled - but with 4, I didn't trust myself and put him to work!) He did the perfect job measuring and mapping it out on paper (even showed us that the iPhone has an awesome level app as part of the compass that's already on the iPhone) - and that night after Eric took Eddie's measurements and marked the nail holes on the wall - my sheet music was FINALLY hung perfectly, the way I had been envisioning it for the past 1.5 years! :)

Below is the final project. The picture absolutely does not do it justice - it looks so great in person. As said above, it's one of my favorite things in the house - every time I look at it, it puts a huge smile on my face, as it brings back amazing memories from our wedding :)

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. We just got home from Ocho Rios, Jamaica! It was a beautiful, amazing trip (and we had quite a weather shock when we got home to 40 degree weather from our 90 degree paradise!) It was an amazing trip that we shared with great friends. Wanted to share a few pictures as we are slowly uploading them from our camera to our computer and while I'm tackling laundry and getting things prepared for a busy week that's ahead of us. A huge thank you to my Dad, Mom and sister for taking such good care of our baby while we were gone - he had a blast at Meme and Pop camp this past week! :) Hope you guys enjoy these few pictures that we have downloaded so far! :)

Jamaica Bound

 

Sandals Grande Riviera

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Reunited with our baby!

Lettuce Wraps with Ground Chicken

One of my favorite meals to make are lettuce wraps. They are quick and easy - two things that I love even more while cooking! I came across a recipe for lettuce wraps last summer, made with ground beef and other toppings, but I put my own twist on it to make it more healthy - and we've been enjoying them in our home ever since. Hope you guys enjoy!

Ingredients:

- Ground chicken 

- Seasonings for your ground meat

- A head of iceberg lettuce 

- Brown rice

- Shredded cheese

- Fresh salsa

- Hot sauce

- Plain greek yogurt

You'll want to start by cooking your ground meat. For this meal, I used ground chicken. Once it's done browning, you should drain the meat and add any desired spices to your pan. We've also used ground turkey in the past and it was great as well.

Next, you'll want to start making your rice. We typically make brown rice, but Eric was recently given a 25 lb. bag of jasmine rice at work, so we used that instead. 

While your ground meat is browning and your rice is cooking, you'll want to wash your lettuce and separate the leaves into different pieces. For the "wrap" you can also use romaine lettuce - whichever you prefer.

For our toppings, we like to use pepper jack cheese, fresh salsa (if we don't have fresh salsa, i like to dice a tomato and dice an onion), and hot sauce. We also had bell peppers previously cut up for other meals this week - so we had those with our lettuce wraps too. When we have greek yogurt, we like to substitute that for sour cream, as a healthier option. 

When all of your ingredients are ready, you can build your wrap! Here is what our wraps looked like tonight: 

Here is a picture from when we used romaine lettuce, instead of iceberg lettuce a few months ago - it was just as amazing!

Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

One of my goals for this fall was to try more soup recipes in the crock pot. 

I came across this one and it sounded so good. I'm glad we tried it - it turned out amazing! :)

Ingredients:

- 1 lb chicken breast (cooked and shredded or cubed)

- 1 15 oz can of corn

- 1 1/2 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained 

(I used Rotel for more flavor and spice)

- 6 cups chicken stock

- 1/2 tsp. cumin

- 1/2 cup chopped onion

- 1 small can of diced green chills

- 2 tsp. minced garlic

- 1/4 tsp. chili powder

- 1 1/2 tsp. salt

- 3/4 tsp. pepper

- Monterey jack cheese, shredded

- Corn tortillas for topping

(I crushed tortilla chips that we already had for this topping)

- Avocados (cubed)

You can also add  a can of drained black beans to this recipe; however, I'm not a huge bean fan, so I decided to leave it out.

Not pictured - cheese, avocados and tortilla chips.

First, you'll want to cook and shred or cube the chicken. I wanted the soup to be heavy on the chicken and less "brothy" so I baked 3 big chicken breasts in the oven for 40 minutes on 350 degrees. To add more spice to the soup, I used cajun and Italian seasoning on my chicken. When the chicken was cooked, I shred the chicken with two forks. 

Note: I knew that I wanted to start the crock pot early on Sunday morning so that it could cook all day, so I baked and shredded my chicken Saturday night to save time for prep in the morning.

Add all ingredients except for the cheese, corn tortilla strips and avocados to your crockpot.

Cook on Low for 8 hours (or high for 3-4 hours).

When you're ready to serve, add the cheese, avocado cubes and tortilla strips!
We also served ours with corn bread and sprinkled this amazing hot spice "Slap Ya Mama" from Louisiana that I received from a sweet LEOW that lives there!

Enjoy! :)

EXTRA: Here is Tucker helping with blogging this evening :)