Poor Boy Chili

So I've issued myself a challenge. I am not going to buy groceries for 2 weeks. I have a lot of food in my house. My pantry is overstuffed and both freezers are basically overflowing with food. The lazy susan, well I don't even know half the stuff that's in there. The problem is, we've lost our inventiveness for food...

In our house, we tend to buy what we're going to eat for a couple days, or one day and once that's gone complain that there's nothing to eat. (picture cartoon woman staring into overloaded closet saying, "I've absolutely nothing to wear!")

So this is the end of the first week. We've done spaghetti with meatballs, which we didn't have to buy anything for. Other than that, Cody has bought ingredients for meals 2 or 3 times, I've eaten Wendy's for lunch, the challenge doesn't seem to be going very well. But tonight, a breakthrough! And a delicious one at that. Chili. And oh how yummy it was.

Had the steak and the ground beef, frozen for who knows how long in the deep freezer (2 years, now? 3?). I am happy to report that it's still good. Went out and plucked the last bit of goodness from the garden. That is what bummed me out the most. Our garden is done for the year. I absolutely love our garden. I am not that great at eating vegetables, but I do love salsa and I love having the ingredients to make it. Interestingly, chili requires basically the same ingredients. So tomatoes, anaheims jalapeno and green pepper. Got it.

I've had this award-winning chili recipe for about a year now and had never made it before. But I did have the chili mix, the spices, the beans, etc.

So, the end result? Probably the best chili ever. I didn't have ingredients to make corn bread or anything, but we had cheese to grate on top, and oh my was it delish! I set it out for the kids and was about to get out the crackers when they started devouring it. If you've ever been in my house, you know how unusual that is! So I decided to forgo the crackers.

The moral, or the point... I am proud I made a delicious meal with what I had. I am really trying to get better at that. So chalk one up for me!

And here is my modified version of Don Staib's award-winning chili recipe, if you're interested:

1/2 lb round steak, diced small, simmer for 1 hour until tender, add water if needed to avoid dryness (I may skip this next time or add less)
1 lb ground beef
brown each, combine
1 anaheim pepper
1/2 onion
1 jalapeno - remove seeds
1 lg green/red pepper
-chop small in cuisinart, add to separate (chili) pot
Add generous toss of each:
paprika
chipotle chili powder
cilantro
clove garlic
cumin
mexican oregano

simmer low

cuisinart and add to chili pot:
1 can diced tomatoes (w/chili peppers)
4 or so Lg Tomatoes

add 1 can chili beans, drained

from Shelby chili mix, add chili spices & salt (no cayenne or masa flour)

if you like it spicier, add cayenne & more jalapenos

add meat to chili pot

simmer 30 minutes to an hour

Serve with grated cheese, cornbread… enjoy!!

Halloween 2010

This year, Halloween fell on a Sunday. Since we live in Utah that means we went trick-or-treating on Saturday evening. I was not in the best mood all day, for various reasons, and was further annoyed that trick or treating was happening on Saturday, especially since the weekend was supposed to be lovely weather, except Saturday afternoon/evening when it was raining and very very cold. But hey, when in Rome...

So to back up a bit, Friday, Finn had his Halloween party at school. No costumes allowed. (There have been many things annoying me this Halloween, it seems) I didn't tell him I was volunteering so it was fun to see him so surprised and happy that I was there! My game was TP mummy wrap up. The idea was to have teams of two, wrapping each other up like mummies. Of course, with kindergartners, your plans often go out the window and it was basically a free-for-all of flying toilet paper and 5-year olds. But they loved it so that's all that matters.

Other moms had stations of wreath-making, necklace making, a memory game, other fun little stuff. When we were all done, the teacher wanted to do another big mummy race so all the kids were wrapping each other, themselves, anything that would stand still (including me) with TP. Good times.

After school, we went to visit Grandma Jean to go trick or treating in the med-rehab center. That was fun, for the kids and for the residents I'm sure. I always get a kick out of how people react to my kids. Going in to each room, everyone said, "oh what a beautiful little princess!" And leaving each room, they said, "what a polite young man!" That's because Finn, who somehow managed to overcome genetics to be an outgoing and friendly person said in every room, the standard "trick or treat," followed by, "thank you very much, happy Halloween & happy fall!" Every single room. Little charmer, that one. No wonder he's already engaged to a girl in his class ;)

Then a costume party at our neighbor's house, which brings us to trick or treating. Finn was a train conductor on Friday and a cowboy on Saturday. Burgundy was princess Belle, which she loved telling everyone.

Raining, cold, ended up in hats, coats & gloves not too far into it, but lots of candy so that's all that mattered to them. I'm just amazed each year how big and yet how little they are.

Here's daddy driving the princess around in her carriage. She did about 10 houses and then was perfectly happy to be carted around like a princess. Finn would've gone until he got frostbite if we let him, but was happy to go home and get in a hot bath when it was time. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Preservation

Much has been happening. So much so, that I have been too busy (or too tired from being too busy) to blog. But I know that you, dear reader, anxiously await my updates, so here we go with one…

This harvest season I have been quite busy.

First, I did peaches. With the help of my friend Heidi, we processed probably around 150 pounds of peaches. Peaches from our little tree, peaches from Jim & Paula & peaches from Cody’s tree at work (pictured on the forklift below).

We had a great set up for doing the peaches, using Cody’s camp chefs (high BTU camp stoves) in the garage. Saved the mess in the kitchen.

We also have a LOT of salsa. We have salsa that Paula helped with, Cody’s salsa (which he roasts the peppers on the grill first) and my salsa.

Because our garden was not quite as productive this year, we were lucky to be able to get a ton of stuff from a friend’s garden. Here’s what we got from him, and some fun pics we took while there.

Then my parents came to our house, and my mom made a bunch of her yummy spaghetti sauce so now I have a bunch of that.

Then came the apples. Lots & lots of apples. We filled this 5 gallon bucket 3 times.

In the end, I decided to line up all the jars down the hallway. So we did, but the line had to turn and come back down the hallway, then had to turn and go back down again. So I think we’re set for now… Until next harvest season.