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Some people think that eating health means giving up all their favorite comfort foods. When I first started eating a healthier diet and eliminated the foods that created or exacerbated my health problems, I had this thought to. But once I got into it and started experimenting with different foods, I quickly realized that it is entirely possible to eat a diet of healthy foods without sacrificing any of my favorite and nostalgic comfort foods.

When the weather starts to turn colder, I start thinking about warming foods like soups, stews, and casseroles. When I started out cooking in college, I need to an EXACT recipe and would follow it without any variation. These days, I hardly follow any recipes. The results are either amazing or horrific. My husband and I give letter grades to these made up meals and the ones that are a unanimous get shared here. This Turkey Pot Pie was sort of a "keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best" kind of meal, but after just one bite we both agreed that this recipe was a keeper! 

About a week or so ago, I announced on my Facebook Page that when we reached 200 "likes" I would be giving away a copy of one of my favorite books to a random winner. 

I am happy to announce that the time has come! 

The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz is the kind of book that you can come back to again and again and always fnd a new bit of wisdom or insight. The book covers 4 agreements, or principles to live by. 

Agreement #1: 

Every Monday, I work a 12 hour day. I get home a little before 8:00 and by then I'm absolutely starving! Knowing that its much too easy to get take out on these busy days, I committed to using my crock-pot every Monday. I've had my crock-pot for a few years and prior to this promise to myself I could have counted on less than one hand how many times I've used it. I started looking up slow cooker recipes and quickly found that most of them called for ingredients like cream of something soup in a can, or overly processed refined flours. Crock-pot recipes dont seem to be synonymous with healthy, but there are a couple shining stars out there! 

By my third week of Monday night crock-pot meals, I remembered two frozen turkey breasts in my freezer. The weather was rainy and cold and the beginning of Fall was finally setting in. I got the idea of a Creamy Turkey White Bean Chili, but none of the recipes I found seemed to be exactly what I wanted. I ended up combining a few of them, along with my own twist. The result was good enough to eat two days in a row (and my husband isn't normally a fan of leftovers). 

There is a lot of ingredients, but most of them are things you likely already have in your kitchen.