Gluten Free Quick Chili!

I used to hate cooking. I really did. Since getting married, for some reason I love it! It would be a lot easier if my dear sweet husband wasn't such a picky eater. He complains about everything. Drives me batty! He's sleeping right now (he works overnights, but tonight he is off), and dinner is cooking and should be ready by the time he wakes up! I love chili. And spicy foods. So I figured I would share my chili making with you!

This is an adapted recipe from the Celiac Sprue Association website. I however, did not make this batch gluten free, as I didn't have gluten free tomato sauce in the house! Gluten Free tomato sauce is super easy to find if you need to use it :)

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/3 cup milk

1 medium onion (I used a white one), chopped

1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce

1 16 oz. can of kidney beans

1 T. chili powder

That above ^ is the recipe directly from the website linked above. The following are what I add to my chili.

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 orange bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

I like my food to be colorful, I'm sure just using one kind of pepper would be delish too!

1 can diced green chiles

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 T. crushed red pepper

1 or 2 green zucchini

This time, I added some frozen corn into the mix. And I always double or triple the amount of chili powder used.

 (See how colorful? Fun!!)

Directions:

-Saute onion and ground beef in a large skillet until browned.

-Drain the excess oil

-Add the remaining ingredients (I usually put the remaining ingredients in a large pot and then move the meat and onions into it. With all the added ingredients, it's a bit much for any skillet!)

-Simmer 45 minutes to 1 hour

-Enjoy!!

Twee Poppets Tuesday Tag-Along, May 11, 2010

I've decided to participate in Tuesday Tag Along again! I found so many great blogs last time I couldn't resist!

We took Riley to the vet for his 1 year appointment today! He was such a good boy. He sat, let them do the blood draw, and do all of his vaccines and boosters without a fuss! Even the vet was impressed. So mommy and daddy went and bought him a new toy. He's very excited and not paying attention to either of us now!

I'm actually cooking a meal tonight. I'm making my Gluten free chili again! Perhaps I will take some picts and throw the recipe up here once it is done!

Big exciting blog changes are coming soon! Thanks to Strosgirl Designs!

I look forward to finding new blogs to follow!

hitsthespot.etsy.com

A couple weeks ago I won a blog giveaway on:

Sharing Savings With You  for some delicious looking Truffles courtesy of Hits The Spot.

(Thank you again both of you ladies!!)

After discovering I won, I was given my choice of what kind of truffles I wanted. 

My options were:

Truffle Flavor (inside): vanilla or chocolate
Truffle Coating (outside): milk, white, mint, peanut butter, or colored white chocolate
Drizzle: milk, white, or colored white chocolate.

I wound up choosing chocolate truffles, dark mint with milk chocolate drizzle. I'm hardcore about my chocolate as you can see!

They arrived the other day and I was blown away by everything down to the product packaging! And I loved the touch that the personalized sticker added.

I couldn't wait to dig in, so I opened one up and it was heaven. The truffle melted in my mouth, and had just the right amount of mint! Not to mention they looked great!

I'm trying to take my time on them, but I have a huge feeling I will be ordering from Hits The Spot whenever I am in need of some seriously delicious sweets! Go there and check out her shop. Guaranteed to make your mouth water!

In A Yellow House - Photo Challenge

I am seriously excited by the number of photo challenges I can find on blogs! I decided to play along with another one:

In A Yellow House

The challenge this week was for food photos, so I decided to just pull a photo from a few months back to share for this week, since it's late, and I'm lazy...;)

Plus I love how the lighting turned out in this picture! And it reminds me that I want to make my 3-Bean Ravioli Minestrone soup again soon....

Mega Swagbucks Friday!

Are you using Swagbucks yet??

 

I just recently got into it after reading a lot about it over the blog-averse! It's free to join. I've already gotten $10 in amazon gift cards just for entering swagcodes and doing internet searches! It's pretty fantastic. Fridays are the Mega-Swagbucks days where over the course of the day they give out approximately 40,000 swagbucks! To get yourself a $5 Amazon.com gift card it's 450 Swagbucks, which does not take long at all to stack up to! They have a lot of other prizes to choose from and sweepstakes you can enter with your Swagbucks as well.

Just figured I would share. You can click the image above to go to the site if you wish to sign up!

Shoes are a girls best friend!

Finally it's happened! I have an ENTIRE WEEKEND Off of work. This hasn't happened in a really long time! After work I went out bowling with my friends (averaged a 136 over 3 games, 157 highest game) It was nice, I haven't been bowling in over a year, and usually when I go out with friends I'm worried about how I'm going to feel waking up for work the next morning.

Today was also payday. I love payday. Remember those dresses from one of my old posts for the wedding I'm going to in June? Well I've decided on wearing this one..however it being a long dress and me having short little legs, I needed a pair of heels that were more than my normal 2 inches high!

Then I found them...

Hopefully the color is accurate. I found these on AMI Clubwear's website for $16.99. With a 30% off coupon code. So $23 including shipping (which was HORRIBLY priced at $12) Not a bad deal. And I don't really have any colored dressy shoes. They are all black or red. Literally. Except the ones I wore to my wedding. Those are white.  Plus... the open toed-ness of these shoes gives me a good argument to go get a pedicure!

Hellooo Blogger Friends!

I'm entered into a travel photo contest to win a new camera bag (it's badly needed!)

I could use some votes, if anyone is willing to help! Only one of the 3 photos has votes so far, and it's not mine! haha

I'm photo #3 - Almost Paradise

Travel Photo Contest

All you have to do to Vote is leave a comment stating the number and name of the photo you are voting for, and be sure to include an e-mail address so they can make sure nobody is voting more than once!

Thanks!

Simplicity Photo Challenge : Flowers - Blog Hop!

I found a great site called Simplicity on the Tuesday Tag-Along, and found a photo contest! I love photos, so I really enjoyed looking through the pictures that have already been submitted. So I figured I would throw my hat into the ring!

Here's my submission!

Taken May 2009 at Chicago Botanic Gardens

"Music is What Feelings Sound Like"

For as long as I can remember music has played a huge part in my life. I remember being a youngin, no more than 10 I would guess, and being on the playground with two of my friends that lived in the same condo my father is now, and we would sing sing sing. Then when I hit 4th grade, I decided to join band. I tried out all the different instruments. My parents were rooting for the flute or the clarinet. I was torn between the trumpet and the trombone. I wound up choosing the trumpet. I remember thinking they were a little disappointed in my decision. As it turns out, they were just gunning for the quieter instrument. 

I loved my trumpet. I played it all day every day. And I was GOOD. I mean GOOD. Once I hit middle school, I was placed in all the bands. The sixth grade band, concert band (7th and 8th graders), and the jazz band (extracurricular, practiced before school in the mornings). I got solo after solo in the songs we were playing atthe school concerts. I won solo contests, and had medals and trophies galore. I had never seen my parents more proud of me. I picked up playing the french horn, and the keyboard bass as well. Just couldn't get enough music!

Then it happened. In 8th grade, I got the dreaded braces. The trumpet players kiss of death. Playing hurt so bad that I wound up finishing out 8th grade, and leaving band behind to enter high school. Once I got to high school, I opted for choir, since it didn't hurt to sing.

This all being said, I found a connection with music, and to this day still love finding new music!

Some of my favorite bands?

Damien Rice (#1 - love to pieces!)

Iron & Wine

Terra Naomi

Tsunami Bomb

Bright Eyes

Postal Service

Death Cab For Cutie

Stray Cats

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

I just got my iphone a month ago, and have yet to load a full aresenal of music on it! 

Anybody have any suggestions or recommendations on bands or artists they love and can't get enough of?

I'm all ears. I'm craving something new!

Tuesday Tag-Along 5/3/10- Hosted by Twee Poppets

I've decided to take part in Twee Poppets Tuesday Tag-Along Blog Hop this week!

For those who haven't visited here before, welcome! I am Mrs. Camera Happy. I'm relatively new to the blogging world, but have been getting more active in it recently! I look forward to new blogs to read and comment on :) Thanks for visiting!

Dress-Tastic!

A few of you Nesties out there probably remember me hunting for a dress a week or so ago, and I came up with this super cute one :

Which I still adore and will for sure be able to wear repeated times!

But I found such a great dress, that I wound up buying another one. It was on clearance at JCPenney as well for $44.99. I had a $10 off a purchase of $10 or more mailer come in, so I used that, getting the dress for $34.99. Can't beat that! Annnnd here it is. I know it's dressier than I need, but it's so pretty that I had to own it!

 Color me excited!!

Revlon Photoready? Count me IN!

I've never had perfect skin. When I have no breakouts, my skin tone is very uneven. My skin is very inconsistent as well, so it's just a PITA in general.  Then I heard about Revlons new PhotoReady makeup line, and wanted to try it. So I took my $2 off coupons from the newspaper, and went up to Walgreens to get it. It wound up being Buy 1 Get 1 50% off. Which led to me buying both the foundation and the powder. (spent about $16 total)

I'm kind of insane about reading reviews about products before I buy them. And I was sad to find mixed reviews for this. Some people really hate it, and some people swear by it. But I'm a makeup junkie, so I couldn't resist trying it out for myself!

The bottle itself is a very generous size, and it has a pump on it, which I love! The product has a little bit of shimmer to it, but I barely noticed it at all once it was on. The foundation is smooth and lightweight. Doesn't feel sticky at all. It advertises as " Complete Coverage", which I agree it has, but it manages to do it without looking totally fake and caked on.

All in all, I love this product! I've been using it for about a week now, and plan to continue using it.

A New Baby Is Always Exciting!

Been a busy few days! It's really nice to finally have a few to sit and relax, after catching up on some much needed sleep!

Baby Luca came into this world on April 28th at 8:02 AM. 8 lbs, 3 oz. and 20 inches long. I'm so excited for my best friends to finally have the baby they have been trying for for 3 years now :) I'm also excited that he was wearing a Chicago White Sox onesie when I arrived :)

There he is! The lil peanut! I love his little smushy face!

We may be doing his photoshoot today to get some pics for his birth announcement, but we will see how mom, dad and baby are doing first, since they just went home last night.

Still waiting to hear back on the job I applied for a couple weeks back. The meeting that was supposed to be last week Thursday, got moved to just this past Thursday. My fingers are still crossed!

Riley got to play with the hose again the other day. MAN how he loves that hose. It was nice and hot out, so we figured let's let him have some fun!

Can't wait until we have the yard fenced in! Hopefully this spring :)

Life and Such

This past April 22nd was our doggie Riley's adoptaversary! We celebrated by bringing him a couple small gifts and taking him on 3 long walks during the day! He's so adorable, I just had to play with him a bit!

I can't believe it's already been one year since we adopted this little guy! He's such a great dog!

Posing for this picture was not something he planned on doing! Scratching his neck under his collar however did work.

Today I hung out with my mom. She wanted some help couponing at Target so I obliged! She wound up saving a lot of money, so I think I finally opened her eyes to never paying full price for anything, since she is always so stressed out about money! While we were there I found a few goodies on clearance, which sprouted my plan for what I want to do with the kitchen! We have to get rid of the awful purple floral wallpaper.

My current kitchen items and gadgets are all red. I have salt and pepper shakers and small canisters I found at target about 6 years ago that are beige with cherries all over them (I love cherries!) But I didn't want an all red and beige kitchen.

Then it happened:

I found these large canisters on clearance for $2.48 each! My mom thinks the colors clash and look terrible together, but when I saw them next to each other on the shelf, I found the combination oddly appealing! So I snatched both them, and a matching aqua paper towel holder ($3.74 on clearance). It will be nice to incorporate another color into the kitchen, so I am definitely looking forward to expanding a little.

And how was your week?!

Bored Inc!

I'm not going to lie, there are so many tshirt sites on the internet to buy shirts from, that Bored Inc somehow slipped right past me! Then I stumbled upon a giveaway for a Bored Inc shirt at Cake Mom (Thank you again!!!) , so on a whim I decided to enter, and I won! Much to my surprise, as there were over 120 comments.

I chose this shirt:

Mainly because it cracked me up and made me smile. There are a TON of adorable and hilarious designs and sayings to choose from, in everything from t-shirts to belts to tote bags to magnets to onesies for babies. A couple other faves:

It showed up today while I was at work! The shirt is amazingly soft and the print is crisp on the front. I put it on to make sure it fit, and it fits perfectly. Then my dear husband came out of the shower and cracked up.

All in all, if you haven't heard of Bored Inc, you should for sure check them out for all kinds of adorable-ness!