Homemade Chili

Last night, I was in a bind of what to do for dinner. I really didn’t feel like going out to pick something up after church, but I didn’t feel like cooking or left overs either.  Well that’s a problem.  I found some ground beef in my freezer so I opted for Chili.  As a poor, running, medical student, it’s also nice in the sense that it’ll last me a few meals.  So here you go, an improvised chili recipe.

Ingredients

• Ground beef or ground turkey. I used 96% fat free ground beef
• Tomato Sauce (8 oz can)
• Kidney beans
• Chili spice packet
• Optional: Onions

note, my kidney beans supposedly had chili flavor in with them but I couldn’t taste it, so I added a chili spice pack

The How To:

If you know me, I like things to be ridiculously easy.  Why make things difficult, if they don’t need to be, right??

1. Defrost the meat if you need too.  I put it in the microwave to defrost for about 5 minutes and then threw it on a wok to cook on the stove
2. After the meat is cooked through, drain the fat from the wok
3. Add: Kidney Beans, Tomato Sauce and Chili flavoring packet
4. Mix everything together and let it simmer for 5 minutes or so.  Or until you don’t feel like waiting anymore
5. Add Onions.  You can do this before or after (or not at all, but I like onions with pretty much anything so any excuse I have to use them, I will)
6. Enjoy!

I had enough to set aside for 4 more meals for later in the week.  Who knows, tacos could come of this later in the week! Feel free to add anything else you’d like (cheese, rice, tabasco sauce) but this is the quick and easy version.

Per serving: Calories 310 Total Carbs: 30 Total Fat: 7 Protein: 34

The Not My Mom’s Apple Crisp

The good Catholic I am, for Lent I decided to give up eating out and the general crap I noticed myself eating since I have such a sweet tooth.  I figured the Ben and Jerry’s had to take a hiatus.  But I still had somewhat of a sweet tooth and googled recipes last night on something that I could possibly substitute and I found Mom’s Apple Crisp.  I figure if it only has 5 ingredients, someone like me shouldn’t have any sort of problem with it (ie how hard should it be?).

What you need?

1. 1/2 cup brown sugar
2. 1/2 cup flour
3. 1/2 cup quick oats
4. 1/3 cup margarine
5. 1 tsp cinnamon
6. 4 cups apples (sliced)

What to do?

1. heat up the oven to 375*F and spray non stick spray into an 8×8 pan.  I used a foil one because I was feeling lazy and wanted one less thing to clean once the apple crisp was gone.
2. While the oven is warming up, mix brown sugar, flour and oats together in a bowl with the cinnamon
3. Rub margarine in bowl with fingers
4. Cut and peel apples (or be like me and by the pre sliced apples because I wanted less work) and put into pan
5. Put sugar mixture over apples and cook in oven for 30 minutes

If you’re like me, this is what mine turned out to look like (and I have no idea if it’s correct)

I think I enjoyed it too much when I made it last night if you know what I mean 😉 Hope you enjoy!!

My Best Friend’s Cake

My best friend of 20 something years, Rachel, is a blogger and every once and awhile, throws a recipe onto her blog.  I look at them and decide if I’m smart enough to cook them myself.  Her most recent one was for Cherry Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing which looked pretty good.  After a quick twitter conversation to see if the thought of trying a white cake instead of chocolate cake while keeping the chocolate icing had been attempted, I decided to give it a shot and see how it turned out.

Now mind you, I had only about half the ingredients in my apartment which ended up leading to a Pathmark (better known as Pathogenmark) trip down the street.  I used a Betty Crocker White Mix with the egg whites and the “healthiest” cherry pie filling (1/2 the calories and fat of the regular kind), mixed everything together and put in my cake pan and cooked the thing.  This was all followed by licking the bowl (don’t judge, you know you do it too).

Ignore the chunk cut out, some is being saved in the freezer!

After it was cooked, I made an attempt at the icing.  Mind you, I’ve never attempted making my own icing before.  Ever.  So I took the healthiest butter I could find in the store and mixed in the sugar and chocolate chips, boiled it and poured it over my cake and let the whole thing cool.  After forgetting about it (due to a run and a shower) I came back and tried a piece for myself and it turned out good to me!!  Now I just have to figure out who wants to help me eat the thing since it’s only me in my apartment.  I might be sharing with the doormen and the porters of the building, especially since lent is coming up starting Wednesday…

Recipe Wednesday- Vegetable Beef Soup

If anyone knows med students, we’re cheap, don’t have a lot of money and have to learn to cook at some point if  we don’t want to live off of roman noodles.  For me, my new best friend is my crock pot.  I can prep whatever needs to be prepped, throw it in the crock pot and let it go for 5 hrs and do whatever else I need to do.  When I’m done, I have more than enough for dinner for a week.  This week’s recipe: Vegetable Beef Soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef (to be healthy, leaner the better)
• 4 cups water (you don’t even have to buy it at the store!)
• 1 lb potatoes (ie 2 ish smaller potatoes) peeled and cut up into pieces
• 1 onion, cut up
• mushroom pieces
• Onion soup mix pack
• 1 jar (16 oz) salsa (chunky)
• 2 carrots, chopped up (or if you’re me, baby carrots dumped in)

What to do:

• cook the beef over the stove until it’s brown
• while the beef is cooking, get all of the other ingredients into the crock pot in whatever order you want and mix them up
• add the beef when it’s brown enough
• cook on high for 3-4 hrs (in med student time) or 8 hrs on low
• enjoy!

If I had pictures, I’d share them, but I don’t unfortunately.  Any left overs can be thrown into plastic tupperware and put into the fridge for supper in the the rest of the week’s meals.  If I can do it (and this being someone who doesn’t cook a lot), anyone can.   It’s idiot proof!!! Just don’t forget that you have it on