Creamy White Chili

I tried this amazing new recipe this weekend that everyone absolutely loved, so I though I'd share.

I've been looking at several non-gluten free cooking blogs for ideas and stumbled upon this recipe for Creamy White Chili. You don't have to play with the recipe at all, it's gluten free as it stands (make sure the chicken broth is gluten free, though).

Here is the recipe, copied from the blog. Please check out My Kitchen Cafe for the original.

Creamy White Chili

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon oil
2 cans (15 1/2 ounces each) Great Northern Beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) chicken broth
2 cans (4 ounces each) chopped green chilies
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whipping cream

In a large saucepan, saute chicken, onion and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add beans, broth, chilies and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in sour cream and cream. Garnish with fresh cilantro, if desired. Serve immediately. This is especially good served with tortilla chips. Makes about 6 servings.

I am not joking, this turned out to be incredible. And her suggestion to eat it with tortilla chips is a great one. We made some white rice to go with it that we stirred into our chili to thicken it up a little. Everyone liked to spoon it into a corn tortilla and eat it like a taco. Its a very versatile recipe that you need to make. Tonight.

I fed this to 5 people (including myself), and everyone was commenting over and over again about how amazing it was. It was so good, I'm already craving it again!

One More Fantastic Suggestion

I almost forgot to mention this fantastic idea for gluten free breadcrumbs that I tried out this weekend!

I got the idea from Karina's Kitchen, specifically here.

Click on the link, read the directions, memorize.

Gluten free waffles! Who would have thought, right?? Well I tried it out this weekend in stuffed chicken marsala, and what do you know, it worked fabulously! SO EASY!

It is probably the quickest, tastiest idea for breadcrumbs ever invented.

This post is too big for a specific title.

Hello! I am sorry for my long absence. I honestly haven't had much to write about. I've been feeling really burnt out on a lot of things, and unfortunately, my blog has suffered.

I've done a few things in the past three weeks that are worth mentioning:

-Brandon and I attended Jacob's 2nd birthday party in the park. Jacob is Michelle's son; she has been my best friend since we were in the 7th grade. She is an amazing mom, and she has a really great blog (she is also gluten free), check it out here. I also got to see Melissa and Kat (other friends since jr. high) there, neither of who I had seen in FOREVER! It was a fun!

-Later that night, Lifehouse was playing a FREE concert for Founder's Day in my small little rural town! They played in the park that is 2 minutes from my house! I love Lifehouse, and they always make me think of when Brandon and I first started dating. We were both listening to their first cd No Name Face in our cars. We shared some special moments in those first couple of months with Lifehouse as our soundtrack. And that's not meant to sound as naughty as it does. :-) The concert was amazing, we were soo close! Next time they come to Arizona, I definitely want to go. I am so bummed I forgot my camera this go round.

-Brandon went on an Elk Hunt in Payson with my family for 5 days last week. I stayed behind. On Saturday, my mom and I drove up there for the day to hang out. We had a really good time! I missed my man! Thankfully, I didn't forget my camera that time so here are some pictures! (captions above the pictures; I know sometimes it can get confusing)

When we arrived, I was soooo hungry, so my man (did I mention he's sooo wonderful?) grilled me a HUGE bunless burger! YUM!




Then we decided to take the Arctic Cat out for a spin. For those of you unfamiliar with an Arctic Cat, it looks like this:



You can tell B loves to get dirty in it!

This is a trail we were taking:



When we finally reached the top, the view was amazing!



Here we are, in all our wind-blown glory. Sorry I look like a freaking tool bag. :-)


Ugh, man, I look terrible in that picture! Haha. You'd think I'd use some descretion on posting pictures, but no.

Moving on.

There was this cool rock ledge that hung over the side of the cliff. So we lived dangerously and stood on the edge and lived to tell the tale! Look at his little kicked out foot, he's so cute.



I was so excited to see trees that actually change color in the Fall! We don't see much of that in Phoenix.

Back at camp! B grew a beard! And I don't hate it! Lol.

This is the fam, minus my brother. Mom, Dad, ME, and Brandon. He put on the silly hunting hat that my dad gave him.

This is my dad and Brandon. As you can tell, they get along pretty well.

We grilled steaks that night and Brandon made sure that no offending tortillas were added to the grill until my steak was removed! He's so good, he always thinks about the little things that most would over look. <3

-Monday I bought tickets for the Backstreet Boys concert that will be here in November. Judge all you want, I am really excited!

-Last night, we went for dinner at B's mom's house for her husband's birthday. She had a broccoli salad with dressing on it from Costco, but we weren't sure of the dressing. Brandon dug through their trash dumpster to find the package to read the ingredient list! I made sure to tell his mom that I didn't force him to do it! Haha. It turned out to be safe.....and delicious! Brandon even requested my own fresh stick of butter for my corn on the cob so there would be no illegal crumbs! I know what you're thinking, I need to lock him in my basement and never let him get away! Trust me, if I had a basement, he'd never see the light of day. :-)

I kid, I kid.

And that brings us to present. Brandon is in Utah for business until Friday evening. It's been a hellacious work week that's wearing me down. I'm looking forward to an early bedtime tonight. I'm itching to get in the kitchen to cook and/or bake, but with Brandon being gone, it's not really worth it. Here is what I have been surviving off of:

-Homemade potato soup. Oh-so-good.

-Every variation of meal I could think of using taco meat. We had tacos one night and I've been trying to eat up the leftover meat. I ate a taco salad which consisted of lettuce, Black Bean and Corn Dip, taco meat, and Ranch dressing. It was SO GOOD.

-Plain, boring Salad.

-"Rice gooeys." Oh my. My new obsession. I saw this on Gluten Free Cooking School, and thought, of course! The clever name is ours, though. They are rice crispy treats, with Rice Chex subsituted for the Rice Crispies. I've missed them. So far in two weeks, I've eaten two pans of these. I'd like to say that B ate a good portion of that, but that would be a big fat lie.

I can't remember anything else. But here is what I would like to make soon. I can see them on the horizon.

-Caramel apples.

-Homemade cinnaman sugar chunky applesauce.

-Gluten free pumpkin pie.

-Gluten free cheesy lasagna rolls.

-Tomato vegetable soup.

- Gluten free mini peanut butter cheesecakes

-More rice gooeys.

I know there is more floating around this melon head of mine, but I'm spacing them. You can see why I am anxious to get in the kitchen! Maybe I'll get to cross some of these off my list this weekend, but probably not. Sigh.

Well, this is where my post must come to a close. My brain is mush; I am so tired and I have a headache. I promise not to be such a stranger.

Enjoy Life Cinnamon Crunch Granola

I had been eyeing this gluten free granola in the grocery store for a long while now. I just couldn't bring myself to pay the 5 bucks for it though, so I patiently waited for it to go on sale. FINALLY! They were on sale for like 20% off, so I scooped it up and internally did a happy dance.

I couldn't wait to try it! I've been waiting some granola something fierce. I took out one of the delicious looking clusters and popped it in my mouth.

Yuck, yuck, yuckity yuck. This tasted like dirt. Worse than dirt. Like STALE dirt. How does dirt become stale? I don't know, ask Enjoy Life! They mastered it!

It's really unfortunate that this didn't turn out to be as incredible as I anticipated. I had visions of me adding some of this to my yogurt, or just snacking right out of the package. This may or may not be an itty bit better if you eat it in milk as cereal. Maybe it would help wash away that sawdust taste and texture. If you try it, let me know. But as for right now, this product is getting shoved to the "disgraceful" part of my gluten free cabinet. The only good thing about this product was that I saved 20% of my hard-earned money on it.