Recipe: Burrito Bowls

For those of you that don't know me and Nate used to live in San Diego and we often miss Mexican treats. So from time to time I love to make some Mexican inspired meals  to fulfill our cravings. Burrito bowls is super yummy easy dinner that I will for sure make again!

You'll want to prep a few of the toppings the night before to make for a quick dinner prep the next day. I make my own homemade guacamole and salsa but you could for sure go store bought and not have to worry about the the night before prep. Though I think homemade tastes so much better and is much healthier of course.

Ingredients
Rice:
2 cup cooked brown rice (I prefer brown but you can for sure use white)
2 limes juiced
1 handful of chopped cilantro
1 stalk green onion chopped
1/4 t. chile powder
1/8 t. cumin
Salt to taste

Toppings:
1 chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces and cooked
Black beans
Chopped red and yellow peppers
Shredded cheese of choice
Plain greek yogurt (sour cream if you prefer)
Guacamole
Salsa

Stir lime juice, green onion, and parsley into the cooked rice. Season with  chile powder cumin and salt to taste salt and set aside.

Divide rice into serving bowls, and toppings and enjoy!

Fall/Winter Retail Therapy

New seasons call for new clothes! Well at least in my books they do, I wanted to share with you guys some cute new things I have got recently. You'll notice I pretty much only buy black and white and tacky leggings... lol I can't help it!

 

(got this one in a taupe pony print to)

 

 (got this sweater and the following dress in black not white)

Crosses, skulls, black and white lol even for the holidays my tastes don't change! Also pretty much everything is from Sirens and F21 I am addicted to cheapo thrills. Hope you guys are all having a great weekend!

The Holidays Are Here!

So growing up Christmas was always a big deal at our house. My mom always decorated the house beautifully and it has for sure rubbed off on me! We always went out and cut down our own tree every year. But with the 2 dogs it's just too messy so we decided on a fake tree.

I really wanted a white one so we went on a mission! 3 Walmarts later we finally found one, they were sold out everywhere! We decided to do teals and silvers to match our living room. Nate is American so to him setting up a tree so early was a little weird because down there thanksgiving hasn't passed yet lol. But we got him in the spirit by getting him to put the star on the top of the tree!

It turned out amazing!!! 3 cheers for our tacky Christmas tree!

I got my mom to snap a few corny family photos by the tree <3

The rest of the  house is starting to look pretty festive too! Not sully there yet but it's getting there.

I am off tomorrow and my plans are to get my Christmas cards ready to send out and make a wreath for the front door! Hope you are all starting to get in the Christmas spirit <3

Nail Of The Week

Been slacking on my nail posts this month sorry guys! So this time around I took a picture of my most recent additions to my polish collection! You'll notice my addiction top F21 love and beauty polishes is a little intense. But I find the quality better then almost all drugstore brands and at half the price!? To good to be true!

But first off here are my talons of the week! I crossed over to the dark side and got acrylics. Didn't like my first set. So I went to another salon (Queen Nails) for my next fill and they did an amazing job and fixed the shape to exactly what I wanted! I love them.

 

Alright now onto my collection! 

 

My favorite most recent purchase is that silver sparkle Misa brand polish. I got it at trade secrets for 7.95$ and was blown away at the results. 2 coats and you'll have a solid glitter nail that catches every light. so pretty on! I think I will be buying some more Misa polishes since I loved it so much!

Least fave recent purchase is that purple Revlon color in the last photo. No matter how thin of layers I do and how long I let it dry between layers it dries with air bubbles and just looks gross. Super bummer because I really loved the color.

Recipe: Chicken Pot Pie Soup!!!

So to begin with, yes this tastes as amazing as it sounds! So perfect for the winter months ahead and super easy recipe. As always I found this recipe online and made my own changes and additions.

It made the perfect amount for me and Nate to have a meal as well as freeze more than enough for another meal. It would be the perfect amount for a family of 4 for 1 meal though I would suggest doubling the recipe to have some left over to freeze for those lazy winter nights when you're not in the mood to cook.

The perfect companion for this soup would be some warm tea biscuits (this is a recipe my mom has used or years and they always turn out perfect). But I 2was feeling a little sick the day I made it so left it to just the soup. I wanted to be in bed bundled up not in the kitchen any longer.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups water 
• 5 cups fat free or skim milk
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1/2 of a large white chopped onion
• 3 medium carrots peeled and chopped
• 2 chicken bouillons
• fresh ground pepper
  
• pinch of thyme
• 1 cup canned, frozen or fresh corn
• 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 16 oz cooked chicken breast, diced small
• 2 tbsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp onion powder

Directions

Create a paste by combining 1/2 cup of the cold water with flour in a medium bowl and whisk until well blended. Set aside.

Chop chicken into small bite sized pieces and cook in frying pan with a bit of oil on medium heat until cooked through. Set aside

Pour remaining water and milk into a large pot and slowly bring to a boil. Add celery, onion, carrots, chicken bullion, thyme, fresh pepper, corn and return to a boil. Partially cover and simmer on low until vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes. 

 Remove lid, add potatoes and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Add chicken, and slowly flour paste, stirring well as you add. Cook another 2-3 minutes, until soup thickens, adjust salt and pepper to taste and serve.

I made a fast little garlic toast to go with it. Enjoyed every spoonful and hope you guys will too!

Recipe:Texas Oven-Roasted Beef Brisket

I had a huge piece of Brisket left in the freezer  so I as always, googled some recipes. I found a few that sounded pretty alright but decided to go with Paula Deen's Brisket recipe, cause I mean really, how can that woman go wrong?

Ingredients
2 tablespoon chili powder
2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoon dry mustard
1   bay leaf, crushed
4 lb beef brisket, trimmed
1 1/2 cup beef stock
1 1/2 cup water

I really liked this recipe because aside from the beef stock I had all the ingredients in the cupboard!

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Make a dry rub by combining chili powder, salt, garlic and onion powders, black pepper, sugar, dry mustard, and bay leaf. Season the raw brisket on both sides with the rub. Place in a roasting pan and roast, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Add beef stock and enough water to yield about 1/2 inch of liquid in the roasting pan. Lower oven to 300 degrees F, cover pan tightly and continue cooking for 3 hours, or until fork-tender.

Trim the fat and slice meat thinly across the grain. Top with juice from the pan.

Served it with garlic mash and brown sugar carrots! This was an insanely easy recipe with a huge pay off. Took max 10 mins to toss together before putting it in the oven, the meat turned out amazingly tasty and moist and I didn't have to pay any attention to it for 3 hours!

Perfect recipe to try for a Sunday night dinner or if you are having people over because this cut of meat is cheap you get so much for your money!

Adventures In Food: The Whalesbone Edition

We live literally a block from this super cozy restaurant called The Whalesbone. They are a seafood restaurant, there for I have been a  few times because seafood is an addiction for me.

 (stole this from google images cause I forgot to snap a pic of the outside)

Having so much family out east when I was growing up, I would spend summers out there and try everything under the sun. There for I am not scared of anything food wise these days. Which is good because they specialize in oyesters! OMG THE OYSTERS! K but let me get back on track.

So Nate always hears me rave about how amazing the food there is and wanted to go. It is pretty pricey there so we saved it for a special occasion. Last night was out wedding anniversary so we made some reservations to have dinner there. Reservations are  a must, I have never been there and not seen this place full to the brim. Last night was the perfect example, 7pm on a Wednesday night that also happened to be Halloween and had we not had reservations we for sure would have been sent packing lol.

This place is very tiny and generally you are sitting pretty close to the next table, but I find it adds to the homey cozy atmosphere of the restaurant.

We started off with oysters! The Whalesbone is a local distributor for fresh sustainable seafood out of their retail store on Kent a few blocks from the restaurant (they sell the the public as well and have an awesome little lunch menu out of the retail store). Not to mention they run the Ottawa Oyster Fest. So when you are getting oysters here you know just how fresh they are going to be!

They serve them with every type of sauce and reduction under the sun to choose from. I think Nate was a little scared at first but he loved them!  They gave us a selection with some from the east and west coast. I was pretty much in heaven.

Next was on to the mussels. We got a pound of PEI mussels served in a thai inspired broth with peanuts and herbs. IT WAS AMAZING! I will probly some time in the near future be tempted to go in on a normal night get 2 orders of these and count it as dinner lol.

For mains I got the lobster with chorizo and root veg and  Nate got the steak and  fries.

We both barely talked through our whole mains because they were soooooo good, we were busy being food focused lol. Don't let the pictures deceive you either these were huge platings. We were both about to burst by the time we were done.

Though that doesn't mean we were able to resist a desert lol. We got churros with chocolate! There are our so full we might puke bvut about to eat desert faces....

I don't even think we left crumbs on any of our plates everything was delicious and worth every penny of our very expensive bill lol.

Last but not least, food coma Nate and Wren soooo ready t go toss on some sweat pants amd hoodies and watch a movie <3