Triple-Grain Chicken Chili

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a little more than obsessed with fiber. It’s my favorite part of carbohydrates – which happen to be my favorite nutrient, by the way. There’s so much fiber does for us in so many ways, it’s really, truly incredible, so I’m always looking for more ways to include it in my daily diet (more on those incredible fiber-powers in a future post). With Winter fully upon us, I’ve been using my crockpot a lot to make soup, stews, and chili because it’s super easy and convenient for cooking in bulk. Chili, for me, is especially awesome because it’s so versatile. Eat it on its’ own, on a baked potato, with eggs, tortillas, as a dip, with steamed greens – the list goes on. It’s sad that it gets a bad rap so often for being a not-so-healthy food, considering it’s typically made with lots of fatty beef, cheese, and salt. Not to say any of those things are necessarily bad, but if you’re on a budget and eat the same thing every day, it can get pretty rough.

I’ve designed this chili to be everything chili is supposed to be – hearty, hot, and satisfying – without all of the grease. It’s also easy to make it vegetarian by leaving out the chicken and using vegetable stock in place of water. The grains give it the same texture that would come from ground beef without the environmental impact and high fat content. This recipe makes about 4 cups of chili, which freezes well for storage. If you have Celiac or gluten allergies, simply leave out the barley and replace it with another grain or more beans!

¼ cup rinsed Quinoa

¼ cup Barley

¼ cup Wild rice

½ cup dry Black beans

2 Bone-in chicken thighs

2 tsp Chili powder

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Cumin

½ tsp Allspice

½ tsp Cinnamon

1 cup no-salt added crushed tomatoes

½ Onion, diced

1 bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic

Water

Add all ingredients to a crockpot set on high. Cover with water and set to high for 3 hours, then set to low until beans are tender and chicken is cooked through. Be sure to check your water level. If the grains soak in too much water, it will burn the chili and make the entire thing taste bad. Add about ½ cup water if things are looking dry, and adjust as you need to. In the end, you want it to have the thick texture that chili typically has, so don’t worry if things are a little goopy looking!

Here in Phoenix, our weather is looking more like springtime than January, but for those of you on the east coast covered in feet of snow, this is the perfect recipe for being holed up inside over the weekend!

Really Real

So here we are again. Another year past, and another apology post from me for being the worst at updating my blog in the history of blogs. In all truth, the excuses of the past are no more – I don’t have the excuse of busy classes or a too-busy work schedule, though I have managed to stay “busy”, just not with things that are necessarily productive. I’ve never been one to worry much about New Year resolutions. My philosophy on the matter is that every day is the beginning of a new year, so why wait until the calendar resets to decide to make a change? Typically, the types of changes people plan to make for resolutions are fairly important things – change my health, change my finances, fix my relationship – these things are so important to fix ASAP, yet we wait and make excuses, and when we finally do decide to change at the new year, we’re usually not very successful after the high of the holidays has worn off. So, I won’t tell you that I’ve made a resolution to update the blog more often – that’s something that I should take more responsibility with, especially if I really want to be serious about it. But I will tell you why I’ve slacked so much with it, and what I’m going to do to change that.

The theme of this blog is Keeping it Real. My goal is and has always been to inspire others to lead healthier, better lives through diet and exercise the way I have, but in a way that doesn’t become discouraging if you don’t look and act just like me (something I’ve noticed can be difficult in the world of social media). So I’m going to be real here. I’ve never struggled with sustaining my health habits in the past – I’ve always worked out, I’ve always eaten healthy and cooked at home more than I eat out. That is, until the past several months. It’s funny how different people react to different environments. For me, during stressful periods of time, for example, during school, it’s easy for me to make healthy decisions and keep healthy habits. There’s something about life being out of control and non-stop that makes it easier for me to be able to slow down and take control for an hour of my day.

Since graduating, I’ve had a lot more time on my hands, and rather than filling that time with the good habits that I’ve developed for so many years, or taking advantage of the time to start building on my career, I started forming new, not-so-great habits that have distracted me and ultimately brought me to a point where I’ve had little motivation to do anything. I wouldn’t say that I have or ever did hit a “rock bottom”, but I didn’t like where I was going and decided it needed to stop. I had invested too much of myself into other people, and stopped taking care of myself. I fell into depression for several months, and this lead to a number of bad habits to form – staying out later, eating junk food, exercising less, and neglecting my spiritual life. At work, there’s a saying that goes “you need to fill your own cup if you plan to pour into others”. I was failing to fill my own cup, and it was getting dry.

During the past month, I’ve started running again. Running was never an activity I really enjoyed, but there aren’t many pools open in December, so I said to myself, “deal with it”. This week, during my run, I felt good. Great, actually. I felt strong, I felt powerful; I felt like I could run forever. And I realized that it had been far too long since I had felt that way. It had been far too long since I had really felt my heart burn for anything that I used to love, and it felt good to feel that fire again. Before, I had felt that I couldn’t be motivational or inspirational because I wasn’t feeling inspired. And that is why I’ve been so inconsistent with my updates.

So I can’t make any promises whether or not I’ll update daily, weekly, or even monthly. But I will try. Life is unexpected. Sometimes anxiety and depression sets in. Sometimes I let it get the best of me, other times I charge through it. Thankfully, I’m blessed with friends and family who are supportive and keep me inspired. Hopefully, in turn, I can be a source of inspiration once again, and more frequently in this format!

Happy New Year!