Vegetarian Chili and a Fun List

Sunday night fall cooking is the best. I love the way the apartment smells after a spend an afternoon or evening cooking and baking away. On Sunday evening I did the most fall thing I could think of, I made chili and pumpkin bars!

I really like chili. It’s quick, easy and healthy. I hate how most recipes make 12 servings! It’s only me here and I’m not a huge fan of leftovers. I also don’t like to freeze thing, I hate the way the taste when they defrost. Anyway I have spent a year or two trying to come up with the best chili recipe ever and I didn’t get it on Saturday but figured I’d share anyway

Vegetarian Chili (serves 4)

1 can diced tomatoes ( used TJ’s fire roasted)

1/2 green pepper

1/2 small onion

6 mini bell peppers

1 can of black beans (rinsed)

2 stalks celery

1 cup canned corn (frozen or fresh would work too!)

First start by chopping up all of your vegetables. Once chopped throw them in a pain with some cooking spray and cook them for 10 minutes or until they are soft. Next add you tomatoes, chili powder, corn and beans and bring to a boil. Simmer for an hour then serve!

Two things I wanted to share. One, when cooking spray burns it smells really bad. Kind of like my cats pee. Do not burn it! Two, did you know that whole foods brand no salt added beans are .20 less than regular ones? I always buy reduced sodium when I see it and now I save money too!

Next up were pumpkin bars!

I just used this recipe. I don’t have all of those spices so I just used pumpkin pie spice, I also left out the oil and just used a TJ’s 100 calorie bar cut into small pieces for the chocolate chips. They were very good at only 60 calories each.

Since I eat alone at the dinner table, I use that time to think about things. Usually I think about how good my food is and how I am so brilliant about coming up with new ideas and I really should share what I eat with everyone because it’s that great (there’s sarcasm here!!!). Then I remember there’s a million reasons why I could never be a blogger who photographs everything I eat. Here are my top reasons!

Reasons I Am Not a Full Time Food Blogger

I burn a lot of food. The other day I ate an omelet that was black. I didn’t want to waste!

A lot of times I’m too hungry to take a good picture and take bites in between photos.

I take way too many nibbles to document.

I also take pictures of my food and then am too lazy to write a post about it. I have so many food pictures that I never shared because I forgot the ingredients or was just too lazy!

I say I hate leftovers and like to switch it up but I have eaten almost the exact same thing for bfast, lunch, dinner and snack for the past 3 days.

My camera sucks. I need a new one but I can’t afford one right now. I think I spilt something on it 2 years ago and now I can’t zoom.When I first decided I wanted to start blogging I had to fix my camera by massaging the lens with EVOO. I still can’t zoom though!

Although I personally think I eat pretty healthy, I still eat my fair share of crap that I would rather keep to myself Like the 6 mini pb cookies I had after dinner last night.

Do you take photos of everything you eat? If not, why not?

Dessert Date

Last night, I told you I was gearing up for a healthy dessert. Well here it is!

How to make the best dessert ever: First you take your healthy brownie- i made mine with whole wheat flour and applesauce, but they weren’t amazing so I’m not going to share the recipe. Then you make your banana soft serve by blending 1 frozen banana and a small amount of almond milk. Place that on top of your brownie. Next you take 1 large tablespoon of peanut flour and combine it with 1 small tablespoon of water to make a peanut sauce. DELICIOUS!

Since I showed you my dinner date, I figured I would show you my dessert date too.

 

Nelly! My poor cats. They love meat and milk and I eat vegetables and bananas.