Just Playing Along

Hello, Deanna, my loyal reader! haha :)

and in case anyone else reads this...

so deanna showed me a new blog called heart of light and oh em gee. this girl has some of the cutest stuff on there! i saw that she had an etsy site and i died. then deanna tells me that she has tutorials on her blog that show you how to make the stuff!!! ahhhhh! i seriously was getting so excited that i had to walk away from the computer. then i showed faith and she died, too. so i found a new project. if it all turns out cute enough, i'll have some new christmas presents to be giving out. weee!

let's talk about this weekend. so thursday night my love had to go out of town, which killed me. i went to girls' night at jenny's but i started crying as soon as i walked in. he was only gone one night and one day but i HATE when he has to leave. then friday i taught and finally at like 9 pm i went and got him from the airport. we were supposed to go on a date, but that didn't happen since it was so late. saturday we ran some errands and then we celebrated the four year anniversary of our first date! it technically was sunday, but we had church that night. we went to roti grill in plano for dinner. i love that place, but since we have discovered how to make our own chicken masala, i think i'll stick with cooking it here. i do love their samosas, though! then we went to a game night at justin and jenny's. it was fun. we played a new game called "funglish". it's really fun! check it out! have i ever put our recipe for chicken masala up here? well here it is:

Chicken Tikka Masala

Ingredients

Marinade

1 cup yogurt

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt, or to taste

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

Sauce: (best if recipe is doubled)

1 tbsp butter (or more to thicken)

1 clove garlic, minced

½ jalapeno pepper, finely chopped, seeds removed

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt, or to taste

1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce

1 cup whole milk

Directions

In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, 2 tsp cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger, and 4 tsp salt. Stir in chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Drain marinade from chicken. On a stovetop, heat chicken until cooked through.

Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Sauté garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. Season with 2 tsp cumin, paprika, and salt. Stir in tomato sauce and milk. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Add chicken, and simmer for 10 minutes. Put on top of basmati rice.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 256 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 446 Calories from Fat 104

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 11.6g 18%

Saturated Fat 3.9g 20%

Trans Fat 0.0g

Cholesterol 108mg 36%

Sodium 874mg 36%

Total Carbohydrates 44.2g 15%

Dietary Fiber 2.1g 8%

Sugars 5.1g

Protein 39.2g

Vitamin A 13% • Vitamin C 7% Calcium 15% • Iron 17% Nutrition Grade B

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

you may notice that i have included the nutrition information. well, i found a website that helps you find out that information. you type in your recipe and it tells you the nutrition info! so cool! you sometimes have to change how you word your ingredients, though, or it won't find the info for them. for instance, we made chili and i typed "1 chopped poblano pepper", but it didn't bring up that info. then i typed "1 pepper, poblano", and it came up. if it doesn't have the information for a particular ingredient, it will have a red or yellow flag beside it. if it does have the info, it will put a green flag! here's the site:

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

i'm so excited about this. i love finding new recipes but if the nutrition info isn't included, sometimes i'm discouraged from using that recipe. i am always at least TRYING to be healthy!

speaking of trying to be healthy, we decided to start training for a half marathon. i know. it's crazy. basically what happened was we were watching Biggest Loser over Thanksgiving break, and the "where are they now" episode came on. one of the guys was talking about doing an Iron Man, and i was saying that that is so stupid. why would you need to do that ever? i guess it's really awesome if you can do it, but i don't see a point in trying for it, at least for myself. so then i was telling matt that the only thing like that i can see going for is a 1/2 marathon. well, there was my mistake- verbalizing that dream! now we are training. as you are reading this, you may think that i really am distraught over it, but i'm not. we are taking it slow. at the end of january we will do a 5K, then another if i'm not ready for a 10 yet. then we will do 1 or two 10 Ks and then we will do the half. our goal is just a year from now to do the half, but if it's sooner then great! we have been really good with our training schedule. it's kind of fun, and it's definitely motivating us to both work out. we started last week, and so this week i am starting to write down everything i eat- just to be more mindful of it. that tends to help me eat much better. and lordy lordy i need to lose weight. i'm not saying this in a "wah i'm fat" kind of way. no, i just need to lose it to be healthier.

so here is our chili recipe. our friend justin made it on halloween and we loved it so much. it is a little spicy, so next time we make it we will change it to what i'm going to type below, but it is so good and healthy healthy!!

Justin's Freaking Awesome Turkey Chili

INGREDIENTS

2 cups chopped onion

4 garlic cloves, chopped fine or 2 tsp minced garlic

1 chopped green passillo/pobalano pepper

1 chopped green Anaheim chili pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

5 (15 oz) cans stewed tomatoes, crushed

2 (15 oz) mixed Chili Beans

2 Tbsp tomato paste

3/4 cup chicken stock

4 Tbsp of Chili powder

2 Tbsp ground cumin

1 Tbsp dried hot red pepper flakes (2 if you like the heat)

2 teaspoon dried oregano

(optional) 1 Tbsp salt, plus more if desired to taste

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 pound 93/7 cooked ground turkey

Cooking Directions

1 In a large, 8-quart, thick-bottom pot, cook the onion and green pepper over medium high heat, stirring, until golden, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, for a minute or two more. Add a bit more olive oil if needed.

2 Add tomatoes, tomato paste, stock. beans, oregano, salt, pepper, and cooked turkey meat. Bring mixture to a simmer and reduce heat to low. Simmer, uncovered, for an hour.

3 Salt to taste. Add 1 to 3 teaspoons of sugar to take the edge of the acidity of the tomatoes if desired.

Makes about 12 cups.

it's been the perfect weather for chili, huh? :) i've also been loving banana smoothies. to make a big one or to make one to share, put 1 cup of skim milk in a blender, plus 1 banana (you may want to break it into a few pieces), a splash of vanilla, 1-2 packets of splenda OR 1 tbsp sugar, 8 ice cubes. blend until no more ice chunks. YUM!

let's talk about christmas. (ok let me side track for a moment. i know my entries can be really long, but i also don't update very often, so... bah.) so at church the other week, i heard BarlowGirl's "Hallelujia (Light is Come)". BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER. it really really helped me to understand the point of christmas. i mean, of course the point is that Jesus was born, but to be honest... which maybe is a bad idea in a blog that anyone can read... i just didn't see the point in celebrating Jesus being born, because He died for our sins, and that's what we need to celebrate. well, no, that's wrong. it IS something to celebrate, because people were praying for a savior, and God sent one in His son. this song sounds beautiful, too, so check it out.

also, we put our tree up. it's very beautiful. i love justin and jenny's tree with the birds and stuff, so i got some little owls to put in there. it's a very woodsy/woodland sort of theme, and i like it a lot. we put some pine cones in the tree and we have some in a dish on the table. the ornaments are all silver/gold/bronze/glittery brown. it's great. of course before we got the tree, i had already wrapped the presents with a paper that was not matching the tree, but it's still good. those presents won't be under the tree for much longer! haha :) here's a pic of the tree.

that's duke in the way of the tree. he's so weird but fun.

oh! we also had a thanksgiving potluck with our friends. here's a picture of our costumes:

we did this last year, too, but on thanksgiving day with our families.

also i needed to say that i am loving keane's CDs. i have heard hopes and fears and i already knew about that but matt also has perfect symmetry on our computer and i'm really loving it. i titled this entry "just playing along", because i was listening to it and i just love it so much! also, i just finished reading "beautiful boy" by david scheff. it's really good. it's his memoir and his story about his son's addiction to meth. really good stuff. i knew it would be. i saw it in starbucks this past spring break or the spring break before and i wanted it but i didn't have enough money for it at the time. (it was still in hardback.) so it came out in paperback and i got it. next i am going to read "loose girl, a memoir of promiscuity" by kerry cohen. right now i have a lot of nonfiction to finish up but as soon as i have one or two of those books out of the way, i'm reading it.

well, i have a lot more to get done today, so i better be done blogging for today. hopefully i'll update more this week! weee!