Chili Dogs (With The BEST Boiled Hot Dogs)

I'm sitting here typing this up and I just watched the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. I don't watch baseball usually. Unless it's live. But either way this would have went it would have been historical. So we watched and it was stressful at times! What a game! Appropriate that this post is about hot dogs, a great ball park food.
I made about 40 of these for a Halloween party, they are a huge hit. My kids hardly ever eat hot dogs and they loved them. I knew that for a crowd I wanted to put them in the slow cooker like I did for DD's Big Hero Six party. As I was putting them in the slow cooker (my Instant Pot was busy with the chili) I thought, I should flavor this water. I choose whole spices like garlic, bay, and celery seeds. It was PERFECT. Usually hot dogs can be salty for us, so I didn't add any salt. I didn't use stock or anything like that. Even my DH, who doesn't really eat hot dogs said they were good. My kids requested them for lunch the next day. I kept the chili hot in a thermos, and cut hot dogs up in there. I sent buns and toppings separate.

Beans and Legumes, Cheap Fall Vase Fillers

Happy Fall Y'all!! I thought I'd share what my vase fillers are. I was trying to figure out something to fill them with that was 

1. Cheap

2. Reusable

3. Something I don't have to change out until Christmas, or ever. So neutral.

SO, candy corn and candies while cute could potentially be expensive and draw ants. That and they are more specific to October I think. Coffee beans were on my list, but they are definitely not for the frugal! I decided on lentils and beans. Cheap, and they last and last. There are SO many varieties and colors. Black beans are pretty,  black eyed peas, orange lentils, so colorful.

Pressure Cooker Black Beans

Hello everyone! School is starting soon around here, that means a few things:

Lunch packing (Speaking of which, check out my very first lunch post from 2007 HERE.)

More blog posts because the kids are gone. :)

Less blog posts because of the school rush. ;)

We will wait and see how it goes huh? In the meantime I've been playing with my new toy quite a bit, my Instant Pot. I have mostly been using it with recipes on this blog, cooking simple things, just adapting what I cook. Not sure how much I'll be blogging about it, but I'll try to put up some recipes. So far I've done carnitas, "boiled" eggs, steel cut oats, rice, beans, Shepard's Pie, quinoa, spaghetti (no good), lots of soups- Pho, chicken noodle, sausage and kale. Stuff like that. Do you have an Instant Pot? OR use a pressure cooker? What are your favorite recipes?

Decked out my Instant Pot with Doctor Who goodies. 

Easy Peasy Curry Chickpeas

Some nights I like to plan for something easy on the menu that takes very little time and doesn't require a trip to the grocery store. These chickpeas are quick, easy, and healthy. Diced chicken is pictured but I've made them without also. If you want to use chicken, just dice up a chicken breast and saute it to brown before adding the chickpeas and tomatoes. Leave it out for a wonderful vegan dish! This dish is very easy children can chop vegetables, saute them. They can rinse the chickpeas, or pick them over if you are using dry ones . Very easy family friendly dish! I hope you'll try it.

If you are looking for the Instant Pot version of this dish, please follow the link here.

Black Bean Tostadas

These are so simple. They are a great leftover meal. Top tostada shells with Refried Black Beans and add one or more of the following- 

Fajita meat and vegetables 

Taco meat

Caramelized onions

Steak

Roast Chicken

Carnitas

Salsa Chicken

Mexican rice

Seven Layer Dip

Cheese

Lettuce

Cheese

Fried Egg

Jalapenos

Salsa- tomato or mango

Guacamole

It's perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. What would you top them with?
Thanks for reading Give Peas A Chance.

Fajita's and Refried Black Beans

I love making my own seasonings at home, Taco, dry Ranch, curry powders, Fajita seasonings and more. I'm able to adjust the spices to our liking without fillers and things we don't want to eat! I love fajitas with lots of veggies. I prefer steak, as do most of the girls, and DH likes chicken. Shrimp is always yummy. 

I use this fajita seasoning on chicken before I grill it, on fish before I put it under the broiler, in a soup or stew, roasted potatoes are good also. I like fajitas served in lettuce, flour and corn tortillas are yummy also. I just don't miss them as much as I thought I would with fajitas. I still like them other times though! YUM. 

DH and the girls like beans, mostly black beans. I am not a bean fan. I leave it out of most foods, and serve some on the side when I cook. Like this Frito Pie here this works well for everyone. I do like refried beans though, I'm certain it's because I refry them with bacon fat. Who doesn't like that? These beans are a great side dish, perfect with rice, and on a Tostada that I'll share next week. Until then let's make beans.

Below are links to both Fajita and Taco seasoning.

Fajita Seasoning

Taco Seasoning

IF you have a pressure cooker here's a method to cook dry beans in a fraction of the time.

These black beans are wonderful topped with a fried egg and leftover fajitas for breakfast.

Give Peas A Chance Refried Black Beans

3 (ish) cups of black beans, cooked (if canned, drained and rinsed)

1 cup chicken stock, veggie stock or water are ok also

1 1/2 tablespoons bacon grease, ghee, or olive oil

1 small garlic clove minced, or grated with a microplane

1/2 - 1 teaspoon cumin

salt

pepper

In a pot heat the bacon grease until melted, add the garlic clove. Let this cook until fragrant. Add the black beans and stock. Stir. Bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer the beans uncovered until half the water is absorbed. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, mash the beans on the side of the pot until you get the consistency you like. Some people don't like them mashed at all, other people like them really smooth. I like them in between.  Season to taste with cumin, salt, pepper.

Thanks for reading Give Peas A Chance!

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Give Peas A Chance- Taco Soup

 Taco Soup, this one pictured above is regular taco soup with corn and black beans which is pretty standard. I have a Paleo Taco Soup that I keep saying I'm going to blog, no grains, nothing processed, I just am so backlogged. BLAH. I'll post a picture of it below (if I can find it), I even won first prize for it. It was a small gathering of peeps, but don't rain on my parade alright?

Simply Stinking Good Hummus

Sometimes things can be simplified and it's just better. This hummus is one of those dishes- for me. It used to be that when I wanted to make hummus I had two problems

1. I had to go out and buy tahini because I didn't have any.

2. I had tahini but it was expired. 

After I made hummus, I had tahini sitting in the fridge and there's TWO things I use tahini for. Hummus and Sukiyaki Sauce- which is awesome, but that's another post. I just don't use tahini enough. So I decided to make hummus without it. I add a little something to give it that tahini flavor, it's an ingredient I always have  on hand, AND it has a longer shelf life. Perfection. Simple. Easy. Still stinking good.
If you'd like some Pita bread with your hummus, I've got you covered HERE.

Let us go forth and maketh hummus.
Greek Chicken Kabobs
Perfect Pita Bread

Simply Stinking Good Hummus

Simple Roasted Garlic Hummus

Give Peas A Chance Simply Stinking Good Hummus

1- 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained, or one can of chickpeas rinsed and drained

1-2 cloves of garlic, grated (or mashed into a paste with a little salt)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 teaspoons sesame seed oil

1 Lemon, reserve zest

Water

Kosher salt

Cayenne pepper (to taste, optional)

Top with-

Olive oil

Paprika

Flat leaf parsley, chopped

1. Place chickpeas in the food processor or blender.
2. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, garlic, and 1 teaspoon sesame oil to the food processor, processes until smooth. 
3. Add lemon zest (optional) and juice from half the lemon and process.
4. Add remaining oil to the chickpeas, if needed to get the consistency smooth. 
5. If the hummus is not as smooth a consistency you like, add a tablespoon of water at a time and process.
6. TASTE.
7. Add salt, lemon juice, and sesame oil to adjust seasonings as needed.
8. Transfer hummus to a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and top with paprika and or flat leaf parsley.

-Roasted Garlic can be used

-I usually double this recipe.

-It's not traditional but curry powder, or cumin are good in hummus also.

Sorta Senate Bean Soup

*This is the body of an older post, found HERE. But I thought I'd repost with different pictures, since I just made some! I used a bag of Navy beans and a leftover ham bone from a spiral ham.
I don't use the grease any more. I also put everything in the crock pot, turn it on low and call it a day.

Sorta Senate Bean Soup is my version of Senate Bean soup. They serve this soup for 18 cents with a purchase of a meal at a Pub called Mcguire's Irish Pub. Great place to eat. I am still in the middle of Operation clean out the pantry, which by the way includes the freezer. I had the everything in my pantry or freezer. The celery was already in the fridge all I had to get was carrots. So this soup was perfect. This meal ended up costing me, including the Quick Jiffy Extra Corn Cornbread about about $4.63 (see my breakdown at the bottom of the post) ... and that's not per serving that's the whole pot and all the cornbread. So not bad and with plenty leftover, so much so that some of it is in the freezer. I think you could feed at least 5 people with this pot of soup and add another cornbread. The girls loved it, Diva wants it for lunch tomorrow.

Seven layer dip

Seven layer dip, again. This one I added cream cheese to the sour cream NOM NOM.

I just mix the sour cream, cream cheese and Mexican seasoning together. Use any other layers you'd like. I have never tried shredded lettuce but I may try it next time.

7 layer dip

1 can refried beans, mixed with Mexican seasoning or I have a taco seasoning mix here.

1 -16 ounce container sour cream

1 -8 ounce block of cream cheese, softend

Guacamole

sliced olives

shredded cheese

diced tomatoes

green or white onion sliced/diced

chopped cilantro

Layer everything and serve chilled. (I'm actually OK with the beans not heated this way).

DO you like 7 layer dip? How do you make yours? Have you ever had it before? Leave me a comment below!

Split Pea Soup

We had ham for Christmas. Yummy ham that I glazed with orange juice, cloves, honey and a little brown sugar. NOM NOM. For leftovers Diva made us green eggs and ham and I made split pea soup.
I realize that to some people split pea soup brings flashbacks of a certain movie. So sad, because split pea soups is easy to make, smooth, creamy and pretty good for you. I have made split pea with a splash of cream, in this recipe I omitted the cream and substituted navy beans to make it creamy. I blend the beans to make the soup creamy, if you don't want to puree the beans just put them in the pot with the peas at the start of cooking and follow the recipe from there.

Zuppa Tuscona made light

I apologize for these pictures. But the soup is amazing even without the cream!  Here is the original recipe I make LINK. The bowl above has a kale chip on top. That I made with bacon grease. I know right, but they were so good. I did use bacon grease in the soup for flavor because I subbed Italian sausage for ground turkey.

My favorite Cheaters Baked Beans

 I love these Cheaters Baked Beans. I call them that because I use canned beans and they take no time at all. No baking needed.  Sometimes I do bake them or throw everything in the crockpot and they are sooo good.

Grilled Confetti Rice

There is still a bit of summer left! Not that you can't grill in the Fall or Winter. Unless of course you lived through Snowpocalypse last year here in the nations Capital. Then you may not grill in the winter. You may not even get to leave your house. See? Lots of snow.
That's okay though because you can enjoy this Grilled Confetti Rice now!

Grilled Confetti Rice. I didn't know what to name it. But, it's colorful and it's grilled. It's about as original as the Chicken and Vegetables dish, great name right. Whatever, just make this rice. It's good, it was a hit with my family. You don't have to grill it either, but it's fun and gives it a little bit of a smokey flavor. Not a whole lot, but a little. You'll need corn husks if you are going to grill this. I wrapped the rice like I did the poblanos. You can also put the rice in a baking dish and bake it.
Beef it up (literally) with leftover taco meat, carnitas, or even leftover fajitas.

 Grilled Confetti Rice, Citrus Chili rubbed chicken breast and sliced tomato with Hiwa Kai Finishing Salt.

Seven-ish Layer dip

I don't know how people make 7 layer dip there's about a million ways to make it. The only thing I *DO* know is that refried beans should not be eaten cold so I heated these ones. I've gotten better at eating them cold though.

Cheesy Beans and Rice- Sort of.

A friend on Facebook posted this recipe and I thought I would try it out on the non casserole eating family and my non bean eating self. I'm getting better at eating beans, I promise.
I put Salsa Chicken in it also because I had some in the freezer. Taco meat would probably be good too. I liked this but being that I don't like beans- unless refried with cheese and we don't eat casseroles it wasn't a go back for seconds kind of dish. The person who posted on Facebook said they used the leftovers for burritos and that sounds good to me, so I think it's a mental thing. I say this is "sort of" a Cheesy Beans and Rice because I didn't exactly follow the recipe.

Roasted Chickpeas/Garbonzo

My girls and I love these. Diva and Piglet said they were better than popcorn. Can't beat that. They are high in protein and get so crunchy. You can season with anything you want, curry powder, Chinese Five Spice, South African Five Spice, Za'tar, cumin, chili powders, any Love Abounds rubs,  whatever.
For the chickpeas you can used canned OR soak your peas overnight. Then gently boil them the next day.

Chili

It was a bowl of chili kind of day. Cold and gloomy.

Ground beef, seasonings (bay, cumin, chili powder, etc), onions, bell peppers, celery, jalapenos, tomatoes, beans...
I'll get some recipes up soon.

Taco Soup

This soup really isn't good for you, but it's YUMMY. It has dry ranch dressing mix in it. Yeah, I know MSG. But other than that for the most part it's not too shabby for you. Get low or no sodium canned goods and read what's in your stock if you don't make your own and you are good to go. It's so easy to throw together and everyone loves it.

Southwest Egg Rolls

I got this recipe from a cincster's blog... Cooking with Mrs Sea Monster. I served it with homemade guacamole, salsa and sour cream. The recipe made a TON, and I did change it up a bit to suit our tastes- added more cheese, omitted pinto beans and adjusted seasonings. It's a great recipe! Next time I think I will add some cream cheese.