Chili: The Family Recipe

This is a very special recipe for chili. It's actually the only chili I've ever made. My mom found this recipe years ago (not sure where) and has been making it ever since. I've been making it for quite a while as well. It's so good, and it's very healthy because of the huge quantity of vegetables that goes into it. Trust me, by the time it's done simmering, you'll know you're onto something good!

The recipe makes roughly 10 cups (a lot, in other words).

Chili (The Special Buys Soon-to-be-Ledbetter Family Recipe)

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
cooking oil
2 onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can white corn, drained and rinsed
2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained (I vastly prefer the petite cut tomatoes.)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups chicken broth
salt & pepper to taste (I use 1 1/2 or 2 teaspoons salt, can't remember which, and no pepper.)

Prep

Brown the ground beef in a large pot. (I use my big 8-qt pot. You'll need something bigger than a 3-qt) Remove beef from pot; drain and set aside. Heat oil (1 or 2 tablespoons) in pot and add onions, pepper, carrots and celery; sautee until tender. Add beef and all remaining ingredients to the pot and simmer 30-45 minutes. If chili reduces too far, additional chicken broth may be added to achieve desired consistency.

THE END

If you're a busy working gal (or guy), you could make up a batch of this over the weekend, then take some for lunch to heat up throughout the week. Unless you're on a serious diet, you need to dress this up with some shredded cheese and saltine crackers. And if you're seriously NOT on a diet, shredded cheese and Fritos (the most calorie-dense food known to man). If I'm eating 1 cup of chili (230 calories), I use 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar (110 calories) and 6 crackers (70 calories). 410 calories. (I find it helpful to know how many calories I'm eating.)

By the time I got around to taking a picture of my chili, it was almost gone. This is the last little bit I packed up for Josh's lunch this morning.

Heart Healthy

Good Lord. I think it's an art to make each element of the dinner you are making come out of the oven (or off the stove) at roughly the same time. Tonight I made baked potatoes with a bunch of stuff on them (including bacon for Josh's potato), macaroni & cheese, and fried catfish with lemon. I wanted to take a picture of it b/c it was pretty, but I was too tired. It's always such a scramble at the very end, when everything is coming together. I think the moral of this post is that I need a double oven. One oven for cooking stuff, and another oven for keeping stuff warm. Also I've heard of this thing called a 'warming drawer'. I'll take one of those too. Yep. I'll take both.

Anyway... I don't think I fully enjoyed my dinner b/c I was so exhausted by the time it was done. And I accidentally ate 200 more calories than I meant to. Whatever. I think I'll do better tomorrow. I did get to the park to walk my mile today, go me.

Tomorrow I'm making beans, cornbread, squash casserole, and pork chops. (The pork chops are for Josh only, I can't be eatin' all that.) And the next day I'm making beef stew (to eat with the leftover cornbread). And then the next day I am taking a break from my kitchen! I did get a couple cute pics today.

This is the 1 1/2 cup of beans I'll be soaking overnight tonight.

And this is self-explanatory. Look at their sleepy little cat faces...

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year! This morning Lux let me and Josh know (in no uncertain terms) that it is definitely time to take the Christmas decorations DOWN!

This is our Christmas tree skirt. She dragged it into the hallway and deposited it just outside our bedroom door. BTW, that black glove is Lux's FAVORITE toy. She's played with it for years and she never gets tired of it.

It's pretty nasty. It's been submerged in water bowls and everything else. We have the other one too. She loves them both equally.

...But alas, it's now a little after 4pm, and we haven't even started taking stuff down. We are both suffering from 'holiday fatigue' at this point, so we're taking a little down-time. Josh is watching 'Ghost Busters' and I'm blogging (obviously) and organizing some of my many Word documents.

I weighed myself earlier today and was SHOCKED to see that I had lost 4 lbs in December. I don't know how that's even possible, but I'll take it! A year ago I 'resolved' to lose 48 lbs in 2009, and I now know I have lost 51. I hate to brag, but I'm pretty proud of myself right now! (And shocked. Did I mention that?) But enough of that. I have 20 more lbs to go. Hopefully I can get that knocked out in the first half of 2010. Then I will weigh what I really want to weigh: 125. What a glorious number...

I'm comin' for ya!