Turkey Taco Soup

A friend of mine gave me this recipe, and I had to make a couple changes to make it allergy-friendly.  It's delicious, makes a ton of food, is super easy, and customizable.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground turkey
• taco seasoning
• you can use packets, but I haven't been able to find one that is soy and corn free.  I have a coffee grinder for spices, so I toss in some garlic powder, onion flakes, cumin (that gives you that taco flavor), paprika, and salt.  If you're not a wimp like me, you can throw in some cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes to add some spice.
• 2 cans of black beans, drained (if you can have corn, do one can beans, one can corn)
• Assorted veggies, chopped in bite-size chunks
• I like baby carrots, potatoes, and zucchini.  You can use whatever you like or have on hand.
• Chicken stock (you'll add just enough to get the soup-iness you want)
• 1 medium jar Pace picante sauce
• 2 small cans Rotel tomatoes and peppers  

Directions:

• You can either use a pot on the stove, or you can use a crock pot.  When I'm using my big soup pot, I just do step #1 right in the bottom of it.
• Brown turkey with half of taco seasoning
• Put into pot (or crock pot), and add in the rest of the ingredients along with the rest of the seasoning.  Just go ahead and dump them right in.
• On stove, bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes or until veggies are tender.  If you're using a crock pot, I'm guessing that 3-4 hours on high or 5-6 hours on low should work.  Don't take my word for it, I have only used the stove thus far.

I serve this over brown rice (of course, I serve everything over brown rice, lol) and eat with a fork.  It's so good when the rice soaks up the juices from the tomatoes with the spices and all that delicious flavor. If you can have corn you can eat it as a dip with some tortilla chips, you can scoop it into tortillas and make tacos, or you can just go at it with a spoon like a classic soup.

This dish is SO good, and makes a ton of food.  Seriously, I could feed a small army, especially because I'm basically doubling the amount of food just by adding rice.  I'm on day 3 of leftovers right now, and I'm not sick of it yet! 

It's very very filling, I've had to pace myself and take smaller portions than I normally would.  An extra bonus is that my 9 month old loves it! I was a little worried about the spices (even though it's not hot-spicy), but he loves it and I feel good giving him protein, veggies, and grains all in one dish.

I hope you enjoy it!!

Allergy Update... Kindof

Last month C had blood drawn (terrible, by the way) to test for antibodies to indicate allergies.  We went to the GI today for a follow up, and all of his blood work was negative, so he doesn't have allergies.  Except that he does.

I guess at his age, the blood tests aren't accurate yet (so why didn't the doctor wait to order the tests?  Good question), so it's very likely that he'll still have symptoms/reactions with a negative blood test.  The GI said I *could* start doing food challenges, but it makes me nervous.  It's so much easier to restrict my diet than to have my baby in pain.  The doctor said if I was ok with continuing my restricted diet, it would probably be better to wait for a couple of months and revisit the food challenges in 2 months.  So, as of now, that's our plan.  We see the GI again in 2 more months, we'll discuss challenges, see how everything is going, etc.

C is 19 lbs 10 oz, I can't believe how big he's getting!!  With my restricted diet (and his too, now that he's eating some solid foods), he hardly ever spits up, his tummy problems are almost nonexistent, and he's such a happy baby most of the time.  Not to mention how much he's growing!

C will be 9 months old in 4 more days.  He is crawling now, but only until he gets to a piece of furniture (or a mommy) he can use to pull himself up to stand.  He's cruising all over (walking around holding on to something) and getting into EVERYTHING!  Absolutely nothing is safe, and he has a knack for finding the ONE thing on the floor he's not supposed to have, even though I surround him with his toys. He zeroes in on a cord, remote, magazine, cell phone, or stray piece of paper and for some reason those are much more fascinating than all his fancy toys, lol.

C has figured out that his fingers move independently, and is constantly pointing at and poking everything, it's pretty hilarious.

He loves getting kisses and opens his mouth to receive them, hahaha.  After I give him a kiss, I get a big smile in return <3.  He has 4 teeth (2 top, 2 bottom), and he's been working on #5 and #6 for a LONG time now.  They come in quick, then sit right under the surface forever, refusing to break through.  It's very frustrating.

C is super friendly and gives almost everybody smiles, even when he's exhausted.  He's such a sweet, amazing boy and I feel so blessed to be his mommy.  It's so amazing to watch him and see what he learns, the new things he can do, and how much he understands.  We have so much fun together, and I can't even count the number of smiles he puts on my face every single day.

Here's C getting into some mischief, and you can see the pointing I'm talking about:

Pot Holders!!

I recently entered a contest at Prudent Baby to create pot holders.  I had so much fun designing and sewing these!  I hope you like them :)

 

 

C crawling!

And tooting a little because crawling is really hard work :-)