southwest soup

My mom usually makes this soup for cold snow days, but we made it the other night on a crisp fall night & it was just as good. She got the recipe from Southern Living and it's one of my favorites.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 (16oz) cans light red kidney beans, rinsed & drained

1 (15oz) can black beans, rinsed & drained

1 (14.5oz) can diced tomato

1 (14.5oz) can diced tomato & green chiles

1 (14.5oz) can of beef broth

2cups frozen yellow & white corn

1 envelope taco seasoning

dash of salt & pepper

2 tbs chopped cilantro

sour cream

Brown beef, onion, & garlic; drain.

Stir in kidney beans and next 8 ingredients plus 4 cups of water.

Bring to a boil, cover & reduce to low heat. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Stir in cilantro before serving & garnish with sour cream

pink lemonade cupcakes

I made these cupcakes as an end of summer treat. Pink lemonade is one of my favorite drinks and cupcakes are one of my favorite things to make, so why not mix the two? I found this recipe online and changed it up just a little to satisfy my tastes.

Cupcake Ingredients:

White cake mix

1 small package of instant vanilla pudding.

4 tbs pink lemonade mix

1 cup sour cream

As little or as much lemon zest as you want.

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup oil

4 egg whites

pink food coloring.

Cupcake Frosting (I did not need to make as much frosting as the recipe called for so this is my version)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup frozen minute maid raspberry lemonade concentrate, thawed*

1 tbs milk

2 tbs vanilla

as little or as much lemon zest as you want

4 1/2 cup powdered sugar

pink food coloring

Preheat oven to 350º

Whisk together the cake, pudding and pink lemonade mix

Add remaining ingredients. Beat for about 2 min.

Pour evenly into cupcake cups & bake for about 17-22 min.

While the cupcakes are baking, you can make the frosting.

First mix the butter, shortening an zest. Add concentrate, milk, & vanilla and beat until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar until fluffy.

(*While I was making the frosting, I added about a teaspoon of concentrate at a time with the sugar to get more of a lemonade flavor. In the end, I probably used 1/2 cup plus 4 teaspoons of concentrate)

Once the cupcakes are done, let them cool ~30 minutes. You can either spread on the icing, or pipe it on. No matter how you put your icing on, the outcome is the same: refreshingly delicious.

applesauce cupcakes

There seems to always be applesauce and apple juice in my house (my boyfriend loves it), so I decided to take advantage of those ingredients and do what I love: make cupcakes. I found this recipe on betty crocker and fell in love with it!

Ingredients:

1 box of yellow cake mix

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (I put a whole teaspoon, i love cinnamon)

1 cup apple juice

1/3 cup applesauce

3 eggs.

Frosting:

red food coloring

1 container white vanilla frosting.

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix ingredients in a large bowl and divide evenly among cupcake cups.

Bake for 18-23 minutes

While the cupcakes are baking, you can make the frosting. I added about a tablespoon of apple juice to the frosting to make it taste more like apples.

When frosting the cupcakes, you can add gummy worms or mint leaves as shown on the Betty Crocker site, but I chose to garnish with a single pretzel stick.

enjoy!

curry chicken salad

I've never been one for fruit and nuts in my chicken salads. I prefer the simple chicken salads with some onion, salt and pepper. When I decided to try and make a curry chicken salad, I couldn't find a recipe that didn't contain apples , walnuts, or pineapple(?). I just decided to make my own since chicken salad isn't that hard to make.

All you need is:

Shredded chicken

Mayo

Curry Powder

Red Onion

Salt & Pepper.

For the shredded chicken, you can either get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, skin it & pull it apart, or get chicken breasts to cook and shred. For the mayo, I use Kraft Mayo with olive oil and for curry powder I use Badia Jamaican Style Curry Powder.

I love red onion so I use almost a whole one, chopped. I put the shredded chicken and onion into a large bowl along with a couple dashes of salt and a bunch of pepper (clearly i use measurements well). I put just enough mayo into it all to have everything stick together, but not be too dry. I then add about 3 tablespoons of curry powder to the mix, adding about 1 tablespoon at a time to ensure that all the chicken is covered and it's a nice yellow color.

Once it's all done, I eat the curry chicken salad in whole wheat pitas ripped in half to make pockets.