Matt wanted to grill, so we decided to grill on New Years Eve. I was really craving chili, so I made chili fries and I also added chili to my burger. Yum.
Matt being the grill master
Matt made a lot of meat
Jo Jo/ French fries
Pizza on Bryan’s new pizza stone
My chili
Nick’s green beans
Meat
My Dinner
This Year we had a small gathering for Christmas. My Aunt and Uncle and there children decided to not join us this year.
My Grand parents made a ham and provided Ice cream. My mom made meat balls with gravy, and brought some veggies and feta dip. I make a veggie platter with homemade hummus, Au Gratin potatoes and sautéed green beans.
My dinner
I made Gouda and Cheddar Au Gratin Potatoes. I found the recipe here.
Un cooked potatoes
Cooked Au Gratin Potatoes. I forgot to take a picture before people started eating it.
Here is the recipe I used for the sautéed green beans.
This years Thanksgiving my family shared the duties of making our meal. My grandparents made the turkey and provided some of the dessert. My Aunt and Uncle brought a suger dessert. My parents made rice stuffing and masshed potatoes. I made a veggie plater with homemade hummus, bake carrots and brussel sprouts.
Hummus
fresh veggies
Cheese and crackers
Baked carrots
I found the recipe at this blog.
-Next time I am going to cook for quite a bit longer. Maybe 2x as long as the recipe calls for. I like carrots to be very soft.
Brussel sprouts
-I found the recipe here. My family loved these and I definitely plan on making them again.
mushroom turkey gravy with tapioca starch
My mom’s stuffing
-Normally I don’t like rice stuffing but this year I really enjoyed it.
My Mom’s mashed potatoes
-I planned on making potatoes but stupidly forgot to buy them. My parents saved the day by having some on hand.
My grandparents Turkey
For this Thanksgiving I made simple mashed sweet potatoes.
Crockpots
Our giant seating arrangement.
Our giant seating arrangement.
Black bean quinoa burgers are one of my favorite foods to eat. I decided to make them without spinach
Ingredients serving ~6
-1 cans f black beans
- 1/4 cup of dry quinoa
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/2 a thing of mushrooms
- seasonings, salt, pepper, garlic
Directions
1. Start quinoa
2. Sautee mushrooms and onions -I sauteed them separately because I was making such a large batch.
3. Mix everything into the quinoa pot
4. Blend or mash.
5. Section out into portions and fry or place on a baking sheet covered in saran wrap or wax paper, freeze till you can handle them. But into zip lock bag, sometimes if I know it is going to take me awhile to eat them I first wrap them in saran wrap then put into a zip lock bag. For pictures of me using saran wrap check out this post.
My dinner
My mother sent up a ton of canned goods. Tonight was the first time use any of them. I was a little nervous how the ground beef was going to taste. It is really good and that is the reason why there is beef in this chili. (sorry danielle) This is the first time in a very long time that I put beef in my chili, normally its vegetarian. Sometimes I add bacon or chicken.
I don’t really like the taste of tomatoes, so this chili I decided to add less. Instead of tomato sauce I used chicken broth that my mom sent up. I was a little nervous while it was cooking because it was not as red as it normally is. I loved how it turned out. Again, I don’t like tomatoes so I still need another taste tester. Also, it looked a little funny because I was really hungry, so I just shoved everything into the food processor and not all of it came out a pretty as it normally does.
Ingredients Serves about 6 people?
- 2 small onions, chopped
-1 package of mushrooms, chopped
- 2 large red peppers, chopped
-1 green pepper, chopped
- 1 jalapeno, chopped I forgot this in mine 
- Jar of beef
- 2 cans of black beans
- 1 can pinto beans
- 1 jat kidney beans
- one med jar of chicken broth
- 3 big scoops of pre minced garlic
- salt, pepper
Directions
1. Chop veggies. Saute.
2. Add the rest if the ingredients.
-my mother’s jared goods, Beef, tomatoes, chicken broth, kidney beans
3. Cook about 20 mins.
My Dinner
This recipe is super easy. I really liked them. I wrapped the left overs in saran wrap and tossed them into the freeze. They didn’t last long in the freezer 
Ingredients
-1 medium carrot
-1 medium zuccinni
-1 pound of ground turkey
Directions
1. shredded veggies.
2. Mix togeather turkey and veggies
3. Form into patties and cook.
My Lunch
Matt and I made a moo goo gai pan off of a recipe last time. This time I added and took away stuff I didn’t want and made a sauce out of the things I had at my house.
Ingredients Serving about 6 people
-4 large chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
- 4 cups of broccoli, chopped
- 3 cups of snow peas
-2 cups button mushrooms, cut
-4 oz of fresh water chestnuts
- 2 sticks of carrots, chopped
- 1 jalapeno, diced
-3 spoonfuls of pre minced garlic
- 1/4 cup corn starch
-2 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups water
-2 cups of dry rice
Directions
1. Start cooking brown rice in micro wave. 2 cups brown rice, 2 cups chicken broth and 2 cups water. It took about 40min to cook. I would have liked it more if I had cooked it longer.
2. Saute veggies. set aside.
3. Brown garlic. Add chicken. Cook till done.
4. Mix together 1/4 cup of cornstarch, 2 cups chicken broth, 2 cups water and 1/4 cup soy sauce. I like a lot of sauce. -Next time I want to try 1/8th cup soy sauce and 1/8 cup oyster sauce.
5. added sauce mixture into the pan with chicken. Bring to boil. cook for about a minute. Add veggies mix together.
6. Serve veggie and chicken over rice and enjoy.
-Also there are some gluten free cookie that danielle made in the background
My dinner
Matt and danielle’s dinner
Matt and my breakfast
Eggs, bacon and hash browns.
Danielle and Gabe breakfast.
Scrambler.
-Gabe likes pepper a lot
I volunteer the other day and help make some seriously yummy food. I am excited to make the chicken recipe at home.
