Dinner's at 6

HELLOOOOOOO!!!!  I'm baaaackkk!  Sorry for the delay in posts, but I had one crapper of a week.  If you'll allow me to whine for a moment, you'll understand why I couldn't find time to post...

*Inhales* I own my own bakery as some of you may know, and the kick off to our community farmers market was this past Saturday, which I was a part of.  I had big plans for baking all week and I couldn't wait to get started.  My body had other plans.  I got sick.  I couldn't sleep and didn't from Saturday night until Tuesday night.  I'm not talking up for a few hours.  I'm talking sleep-for-30-minutes-if-you're-lucky up all night.  So of course, I was in the bed all day.  No school for us, save one day, and no baking for me.  I finally gave in and went to the doctor on Wednesday after convincing myself I had the whooping cough.  (Never go on WebMD when you're sick). I just had a case of bronchitis, which was close to turning into pneumonia.  Nothing a little antibiotic couldn't fix. I came home Wednesday, slept all day and night (thanks to a cough medicine the doc gave me that knocked my ass out) and was baking away the rest of the week.  So this long explanation is why I didn't post.  *Exhales*

I feel like I owe you guys so much.  I'd love to tell you I have stockpiled pictures and cooking stories to tell you from this week, but I don't.  I just didn't cook this week really.  But today I planned our "homeschool" meal from what we've been studying. I'll give you a little background.  The one day we did school we studied about the Mexican Revolution.  Sadly, I don't remember much about it, being sick and all, or I would flood your brains with knowledge of this historical event.  But every so often we have a meal that kinda goes along with what we are studying.  This week's meal was titled, "Remember (Those Great Tortillas At) The Alamo!".  No, really.  It's from this really fun book we have.  Anyway...back to the important part.  The food.  We decided we would have this meal on Sunday, since the weekend was so busy and we were preparing a LOT of food and we could just eat on it all day.  Here's the menu:

Awesome Tacos

Ralph's Rib-Stickin' Hot and Spicy Texas Ribs

Meatless Chili

Friends, that's a lot of food.  But we made it.  And we ate it.  I decided to highlight the meatless chili, since I already kinda talked about taco meat and Danny did the ribs.

I started with green peppers.  If you don't like green peppers, you probably wanna stop reading right now and watch TV or something, because that's the main ingredient.  You take two green peppers, dice them up, cut up an onion (it called for two, but that's too many for us), 2 cloves of garlic and olive oil.  Saute that all up, then add a big can of crushed tomatoes and a myriad of spices that, quite frankly confounded me.  Dill in chili?  But, seeing as it was the first time I'd made this chili, I wanted to stick to the recipe and tweak it later if it wasn't good.  Let all this cook for a little bit, then add a can of kidney beans, pinto beans and green chiles and let that cook for a little bit longer.  We served it with shredded cheese, sour cream, and you guessed it...GUACAMOLE!!!

It was good.  I think it will be a repeat.  I don't think I'll tweak the dill either.  It gave it a sharpness that was a surprising addition.

So now, after eating all that food, we've been lazy and content, and I think that's how the good Lord intended Sunday's to be, don't you?

Meatless Chili


2 green peppers, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 (28-oz) can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 (15-oz) can red kidney beans
1 (15-oz) can pinto beans
1 (4-oz) can green chiles

Preheat your pot for 2 minutes on medium heat.  Add the olive oil, bell peppers, onion and garlic.  Saute for 10 minutes until soft and translucent.  Turn the heat to low and add the crushed tomatoes and all the spices. Cook uncovered for 30 minutes.  Add the beans and green chiles and cook for an additional 20 minutes.  Enjoy!