Crock or Pot: #FoodVixen Is All About the Chili #foodporn

Fellow Foodies!

Welcome to my Culinary Escapades. This week I had a hankering for chili, more specifically MY chili. I developed this recipe when I bought my first crock pot. The little book of recipes included in the package had one for chili. I tried it out and it turned out okay.

But something wasn't quite right.

I found another recipe in one of my other cookbooks and compared the two. I liked the flavor of both dishes but wanted something more...with a little bit of a kick. So I combined the two into a basic recipe of my own that I can change up depending on my mood. 

The end result is what you see in the photo. Besides browning the meat in a skillet, everything else can be thrown into a crock pot or large soup pot on the stove to cook together and marinate the flavors together into the perfect bowl of chili.

Don't like meat? Don't put it in there. Want ground turkey instead of ground beet? Go for it. More or less beans? Your choice. Don't like chunky veggies? Cut them up as small as you want them to be. Sometimes I want chunks of tomatoes in there so I use diced canned tomatoes. Other times like for the pot above, I used a can of crushed tomatoes.

The amounts of seasonings listed in the recipe below are approximates based on taste. You can add more or less to suit your own preferences.

The choices of combinations are endless. This is a basic recipe. Take it and make it your own!

The Vixen's Chili

Brown 1 to 2 pounds of ground beef or turkey. Drain and set aside

1 large can (30 ounces) tomato sauce

1 large can (30 ounces) canned tomatoes (your preferred variety)

2 cans (15 ounce each) dark red kidney beans

1 medium to large yellow onion chopped

1 to 2 bell peppers chopped: I use one green and one red

1 to 2 teaspoons of garlic powder

1 to 2 teaspoons salt

1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper

1 to 2 teaspoons cumin

3 to 6 tablespoons chili powder

Mix all ingredients together in a large pot on the stove. Cook on medium high heat until starts to simmer. Then turn the heat down to low to continue to simmer until ready to serve. During this time, the veggies will soften and add their flavor to the sauce.

Crock pot: combine all ingredients in the crock and cover. Set for your desired time. This dish can be done in 4 to 6 hours or slow cook for 8 to 10 depending on your schedule. 

Go on and have fun with this recipe and let me know how it turns out!

Enjoy!

~Food Vixen

The #FatChick Asks: What's with the #bodyshaming, Cheryl?

I'm sure many of you have heard about the comments from former super model, Cheryl Tiegs concerning the plus sized model who graces the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Apparently, Ms. Tiegs has earned a medical degree some time in the decades she last graced the cover and feels that Ashley Graham shouldn't be there because she's "not healthy".

Her criteria? Anyone with a waist that's not less than 35 inches isn't healthy. Where did she get that bullsh...information? Dr. Oz of course. And we all know how often Dr. Oz's advice has been shown to be "out there"...at least 80% of the time. 

Let's look at it from another angle. Ms. Tiegs feels she can tell by a photo that Ashley's waist size is not less than 35 inches. If she would have bothered to check her facts, she would have determined that Ashley's waist is actually 30 inches. See all her measurements HERE. So based on her own guidelines (and that of Dr. Oz), Ashley is in fact healthy.

By making her snap judgments, Cheryl has shown her true colors. She's part of the problem in this country. What is it with women attacking other women for their appearance? We finally put a woman with real, HEALTHY curves on a cover of a magazine looking smokin' HAWT in a bikini and she's labeled unhealthy by someone who made a living being flatter chested and stick thin.

Did you see what I did there? Don't let me get away with it. I just body shamed the Cheryl out of anger for her crap about Ashley. It's not acceptable to slam thinner folks either.

I'm not a healthy 49 year old. By medical standards I'm considered morbidly obese. My ideal weight should be around 150 pounds. I used to weigh 350. I've lost 100 pounds but still 100 from my ideal. Ashley's cover is the photo I put up on my fridge as inspiration because I'd "kill" to have her curves.

I'm going to do my best to get there!

~The Fat Chick (aka Tammy)

Tammy's Tidbits: Inspiration, Imitation or Plagiarism? #WWoW #MyWANA

If you've been anywhere on social media over the last week, you've come across the posts concerning the latest round of plagiarism. No one appears safe from it. Sandra Brown is among a group of authors one particular person has plagiarized. What possesses a person to copy another's work and pass it off as their own? Is it laziness? Greed? The fame?

I've thought about this for a long time now ever since an author I'd supported turned into one who had plagiarized a passage from another author on a vampire fan fiction site. It was only one passage, but the fans of the original author were able to find it easily. As someone who has never had to urge to write fan fiction, I wouldn't have known my friend had done this. Reading her work, you could see the heavy influences from True Blood, Vampire Diaries and Twilight--some of it was embarrassingly similar and more than coincidence but not outright plagiarism.

The end result for my friend is she pulled all of her work and left writing. She's left all social media and her blog is now private. Before all of that happened, she was confronted on all retailers. Comments and reviews of her books shamed her and those of us who had supported and helped to promote her releases. Some of the posts were vile, but others were spot on. Stealing another author's work is not only a crime, but the ultimate betrayal by a colleague. I felt bad for my friend, but even worse for the author who's work she copied and said was her own.

There is no way any of us can say we're not inspired by all the books and movies we've enjoyed. It's the reason fan fiction sites have become so popular. There writers can share their ideas of how they see their favorite characters in different situations in and outside the world of their favorite book, TV show or movie. E.L. James took her Twilight fan fiction and created the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Fans of her writing on the website followed her from there and the rest is history.

It's that fame that's fueled some to go from being inspired by another author to stealing their work. Lorelei James had to deal with a person who stole her work and posted it on a fan site as an original story. Entire chapters went up. This person denied the allegations even when presented with proof and the threat of lawsuits from Lorelei and her publisher. 

Becky McGraw had to deal with another author who took her best selling MF romances and changed them to MM. Line by line comparisons showed the outright theft. The readers of MM romances who had supported the author who plagiarized felt betrayed and sick over the whole thing. Come to find out, Becky wasn't the only author the plagiarist had stolen from to create her prolific line of gay romances. 

Why bring up all of this now? It's a warning to all authors to keep ever vigilant and not fall into the trap of copying another's work. Admiring their style and storytelling is one thing, blatant stealing it so you can get a piece of the best selling pie is against the law. Not only can you lose a huge portion if not all of the royalties you earned with the books, you will be blacklisted in the publishing community.

No agent or publisher will want to represent you or your work. No blogger will want to host you or your book. No one will review your work. Go ahead and self publish...the one who ripped off Becky McGraw and others did. Same goes for the one who stole from Sandra Brown.

It's not worth it. 

Last week, another friend of mine was notified that someone in her author support groups had imitated her best selling Wanderlust series. Taglines that had been used for over a year for the series were now showing up in promotions for this "new" sweet romance. The cover and title to the "new" release was nothing like those of my friend's, but enough for others to think it was similar.

The blurb of the "new" story had a heroine from the same city escaping a heartbreaking trauma in her life to find love in an exotic locale. Reading the "new" book I had to laugh. My friend had no worries. While this copycat tried to incorporate the same feel, it's a poor imitation. Instead of creating a different story, the "author" attempted to cash in on my friend's success. While there isn't anything illegal in what this other person has done, her actions haven't gone unnoticed by the others in our same circles. At this point, she's created a target on her back and she's been labeled as untrustworthy.

It's not worth it, people. 

Take the time to create your own world and characters. Sure be inspired by your favorite stories, but don't "borrow" another's tag lines in promotions in order to ride the coattails of their success. Take your characters into new territory and allow readers to enjoy the ride with you.

Until next time

~Tammy