It's getting to be chili weather. I am making up a pot this afternoon and I thought I would share my recipe with you. I love this one as it is a total harvest veggie chili and I don't mind not having meat at all. See what you think. Let me know. If you have a favorite chili recipe I'd love to know about it.
Garden Chili
Makes 5 qts
3T corn or safflower oil
3 large onions, chopped
3 zucchini, sliced
1 lb fresh mushrooms, chopped
2-3 leeks, cleaned and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1T chili powder
2tsp mustard seed
1tsp cumin
¼ tsp cardamom, ground
¼ tsp cinnamon
2 (20 oz each) cans diced tomatoes
1 (16 oz) can stewed tomatoes
1 (6oz) can tomato paste
1 cup beer or water
1T vinegar
1T light brown sugar
3 cans (16oz each) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
GARNISH: Your choice
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Plain yogurt
Green onions, sliced
Salsa
Tomatoes, chopped
Lettuce, shredded
Tortilla chips, lightly crushed
Green chilies, chopped
Heat oil in large kettle over low heat. Add onions, zucchini, mushrooms, leeks, garlic, and spices. Saute for several minutes. Add diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, beer, vinegar, brown sugar and kidney beans. Cook over low heat for 45 – 60 minutes or until thickened.
Ladle chili into soup bowls. Garnish as you choose.
Makes 10-12 servings. I think I figured a serving was 1 2/3 cups- 2 cups depending on whether you base it on 10 or 12 servings. (5qts=20cups)
If you are following Weight Watchers this is 4 points per serving, without any garnishes.
Calories:262; fat5.6gram;
Monday, September 29, 2008
From the Kitchen
We got mom & dad into their new place last week. Kitties were dropped off in a safe place for a few days, the packers were there on Wed. and my hubby, brother & nephew moved them on Thurs. Kitties went to their new home on Fri after the phones & cable were turned on. Busy week. Still much to do. Now comes the unpacking and finding a place for everything. Then they still have to clean the mobile home and get it ready to sell. I think once everything is finally all out, they will just hire someone to come in and clean. Much simpler.
We celebrated Phil's sister's birthday this weekend. Phil's mom used to make a wonderful Korean Steak on the bbq. When she died, so did the recipe. But we found one that was very close. Phil's mom used to make this for E's birthday dinner. So we've picked that up. It's very easy to make. It marinates for 2-3 hours, or even overnight, so you can make it up the day before you cook it.
Korean Steak
this makes 4 servings
1 lb flank steak
6 cloves garlic,
1/2 pear, peeled, cored
2 green onions
4T soy sauce
2T granulated sugar
1T sesame oil
1T rice wine (sake)
1T sesame seeds
1tsp minced fresh ginger
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Very thinly slice (as thin as you can possibly cut it, a very sharp knife helps) flank steak across the grain into strips. Put into large resealable baggie.
In a food processor, mince pear, garlic, ginger, and the blend soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, sake, and black pepper. Pour over meat. Add green onions and sesame seeds. Mix well to cover all the meat. Refrig. at least 2-3 hours. I like to do this a day ahead.
To cook in oven: Broil about 4 min per side on a broiler pan that has been sprayed with a nonstick spray.
To cook on the BBQ: gently lay across the grate and watch carefully. Cook on medium heat. It will only take a few min to cook.
I served this with her favorite veggies: green beans and sweet potatoes. I dressed up the green beans with a sprinkling of feta cheese. Then instead of a birthday cake, we had marionberry pie. It was very good- not to sweet.
Another good recipe that I came up with this weekend is a spinach salad. I was looking for something different for lunch. This is what I came up with:
1/2 cup baby spinach
3 oz chopped or shredded cooked chicken
1/2 cinnamon pear (canned)
1T feta cheese
Layer in order. The juice from the pear will act as the dressing. Mandrin oranges would be good on this for a change instead of pears too. (This makes 1 serving)
Let me know what you think of the recipes. If you have some to share, I would love to hear them. I am always in search of new recipes.
hugs,
Cheryl
We celebrated Phil's sister's birthday this weekend. Phil's mom used to make a wonderful Korean Steak on the bbq. When she died, so did the recipe. But we found one that was very close. Phil's mom used to make this for E's birthday dinner. So we've picked that up. It's very easy to make. It marinates for 2-3 hours, or even overnight, so you can make it up the day before you cook it.
Korean Steak
this makes 4 servings
1 lb flank steak
6 cloves garlic,
1/2 pear, peeled, cored
2 green onions
4T soy sauce
2T granulated sugar
1T sesame oil
1T rice wine (sake)
1T sesame seeds
1tsp minced fresh ginger
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Very thinly slice (as thin as you can possibly cut it, a very sharp knife helps) flank steak across the grain into strips. Put into large resealable baggie.
In a food processor, mince pear, garlic, ginger, and the blend soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, sake, and black pepper. Pour over meat. Add green onions and sesame seeds. Mix well to cover all the meat. Refrig. at least 2-3 hours. I like to do this a day ahead.
To cook in oven: Broil about 4 min per side on a broiler pan that has been sprayed with a nonstick spray.
To cook on the BBQ: gently lay across the grate and watch carefully. Cook on medium heat. It will only take a few min to cook.
I served this with her favorite veggies: green beans and sweet potatoes. I dressed up the green beans with a sprinkling of feta cheese. Then instead of a birthday cake, we had marionberry pie. It was very good- not to sweet.
Another good recipe that I came up with this weekend is a spinach salad. I was looking for something different for lunch. This is what I came up with:
1/2 cup baby spinach
3 oz chopped or shredded cooked chicken
1/2 cinnamon pear (canned)
1T feta cheese
Layer in order. The juice from the pear will act as the dressing. Mandrin oranges would be good on this for a change instead of pears too. (This makes 1 serving)
Let me know what you think of the recipes. If you have some to share, I would love to hear them. I am always in search of new recipes.
hugs,
Cheryl
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sewing With the Stars '08
This last week has been a busy one. I left early last Wed and spent the day in Lacy at the Pfaff Creative Center. I helped put the finishing touches on a 12 foot banner that a friend had made- it took 5 large spools of thread to embroider. It looked big until it was hung on the wall in the room where we were sewing! Then after the store closed, we were off to the Little Creek Casino where the retreat was being held.
Thurs morning I met my "roomie", a wonderful 70 yr old lady who is originally from Holland and has been all over the world. It was fun talking to her. We then spent the day working on a pillow and learning new techniques. We embroidered the first part of the design, then felted the center and then went back and finished stitching it out. Then it was on to playing with our decorative stitches, adding cording to the outside and then adding trim and the flaps in the back to insert a pillow form.
The felting machine was lots of fun - we used it to add the color to the center of the rose and to the leaves. Great way to add shading as well. I can see the potential for many things! I just had to get one.
Then on Friday we first embroidered the stippling on the cream part of the bag and then learned how to use the new yarn couching foot for both embroidery and free motion stippling. This was lots of fun! All of the bags turned out really nice. That night "Mr Pfaff" came to talk to us on the history of sewing machines and Pfaff in particular. It was a wonderful presentation and I learned a lot. He has been with the company for 53 years and now lectures to various groups.
Sat had us up and ready to sew- but we were tired. We did a small sachet. The sachet parts were all pre-done linen. What we did was to learn how to do sequencing in our machines with scallops. We stitched them out on a length of linen, added fray check to the outside and then cut away the fabric. Then sewed it into a circle and gathered it to look like a flower. Sewed it to the center of the sachet and machine stitched a button on to the top of that. Added a lavendar sachet to it to finish. It came home and immediately went into my new dresser. (it still has that new dresser smell-more chemical than wood).
By then it was lunch and time for our Pfaff Educator- Sara, who had so patiently been teaching us, to show us her goodies. Show & Tell time brought lots of ideas as well. That's always a fun part to look forward to. I realized as I was packing that as busy as I had been this last year, I had either given or sold everything I had made, leaving nothing to take. So I just did the "Tell" part. It was lots of fun.
Now to get busy. I came home with so many new ideas. Molly was really happy to see me- the puppy kisses lasted about an hour. I have only a couple of weeks or so before I take off again and so much to do.
Will share more with you later,
Cheryl
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Busy September
Busy day. It was time to update my sewing machine and the embroidery software. Took a trip to Silverdale for help, but it got done. So everything is up and running in time for the embroidery class this weekend and "Sewing with the Stars" next week. Then late this afternoon I received a phone call that I was going to have a roommate next week. That will be fun. I enjoy meeting new people. 3 days of sewing and having fun at the casino.
My afghan is coming along nicely. I have 2/3 of the blocks completed now. All of blocks 1 & 2 are done and I've started on block 3. That took a little longer as I had to learn the new stitch. But it's getting better.
One of the things that I deal with 24/7 is back and hip pain. Sometimes the meds will help and sometimes it doesn't. This week I saw my dr again and he has done 2 things. The first was to ask my insurance to get me a tens unit and they approved it. I have to call about it tomorrow. The other is looking into vitamin deficiency. We had found before that my vitamin B12 was really low and when we got it up to where it was supposed to be, my back pain disappeared. Now, I realize that vitamins won't take care of all of the problem, since part of it is due to degeneration in my lower spine- but if we can get the nutrients back to where they are supposed to be just maybe things will smooth out. I hope so.
DH managed to secure a 4 day weekend and has Mon and Tue off next week. One of the days I think we are going out to the Point Defiance Zoo. We haven't been there in ages and it seems like it would be a fun day to spend together. I'll post more on that later. Pictures too.
Take care,
Cheryl
My afghan is coming along nicely. I have 2/3 of the blocks completed now. All of blocks 1 & 2 are done and I've started on block 3. That took a little longer as I had to learn the new stitch. But it's getting better.
One of the things that I deal with 24/7 is back and hip pain. Sometimes the meds will help and sometimes it doesn't. This week I saw my dr again and he has done 2 things. The first was to ask my insurance to get me a tens unit and they approved it. I have to call about it tomorrow. The other is looking into vitamin deficiency. We had found before that my vitamin B12 was really low and when we got it up to where it was supposed to be, my back pain disappeared. Now, I realize that vitamins won't take care of all of the problem, since part of it is due to degeneration in my lower spine- but if we can get the nutrients back to where they are supposed to be just maybe things will smooth out. I hope so.
DH managed to secure a 4 day weekend and has Mon and Tue off next week. One of the days I think we are going out to the Point Defiance Zoo. We haven't been there in ages and it seems like it would be a fun day to spend together. I'll post more on that later. Pictures too.
Take care,
Cheryl
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Crocheting
Lion Brand Yarn is having a Crochet Along and is crocheting a sampler aghan. I thought that with my limited skills, this would be fun to do. There are only 3 different blocks involved and you make 10 of each and then sew them together. After that you add a border to it. It will make a nice throw. I chose to do mine a little denser than the pattern calls for, so it will be a bit warmer. I also chose dark colors- block 1 is a "print" a varigated purple, gray & dark blue. Block 2 is dark purple and block 3 will be dark blue. The border/trim I plan to do in the print. Total of 30 blocks. I have the first set of 10 complete and 3 of block 2 done. It's going together nicely. Much easier than learning to knit.
My knitting leaves much to be desired. I am still having trouble getting my head wrapped around what my hands should be doing. Most things like this have come easy-but for some reason knitting has been difficult. We do have a brand new yarn shop opening up here in town in about another week. I may check into seeing if they are going to have beginner classes.
I have talked to my granddaughter, Cozy, several times lately. She called me the other day very excited and pleased with herself. Seems that they all have to memorize their student ID numbers as they need to know them for the cafeteria, the library and other things. Now, this is not a short 3 or 4 digit number. But she had it memorized in just a few minutes and the number ends with "enter", just like you would enter it into the computer. Her mother re-enforces it around the house to help her remember it. I think she did remarkable well for an autistic 5 year old. She is loving school and always has lots to tell me when we talk.
My mother's packing is coming along. We spent 3 whole days just packing fabric. There is still some left-but that is current stuff she's working on. We'll tackle that later. We mainly wanted to get the sewing room done. Our goal on Thurs was to find the closet door. We did. We didn't open it-but we did get there. For now all the boxes are stuffed in the livingroom. You have to peer around them to see the tv. This next week is a busy week for both of us- so I won't go back over there until the end of the week. One find was her composition book from her 6th period sewing class in Jr High. It was full of samples of sewing, embroidery and fabric. That was fun to look at. All that fabric was original then- reproductions now!
Hope you are having a good weekend,
Cheryl
My knitting leaves much to be desired. I am still having trouble getting my head wrapped around what my hands should be doing. Most things like this have come easy-but for some reason knitting has been difficult. We do have a brand new yarn shop opening up here in town in about another week. I may check into seeing if they are going to have beginner classes.
I have talked to my granddaughter, Cozy, several times lately. She called me the other day very excited and pleased with herself. Seems that they all have to memorize their student ID numbers as they need to know them for the cafeteria, the library and other things. Now, this is not a short 3 or 4 digit number. But she had it memorized in just a few minutes and the number ends with "enter", just like you would enter it into the computer. Her mother re-enforces it around the house to help her remember it. I think she did remarkable well for an autistic 5 year old. She is loving school and always has lots to tell me when we talk.
My mother's packing is coming along. We spent 3 whole days just packing fabric. There is still some left-but that is current stuff she's working on. We'll tackle that later. We mainly wanted to get the sewing room done. Our goal on Thurs was to find the closet door. We did. We didn't open it-but we did get there. For now all the boxes are stuffed in the livingroom. You have to peer around them to see the tv. This next week is a busy week for both of us- so I won't go back over there until the end of the week. One find was her composition book from her 6th period sewing class in Jr High. It was full of samples of sewing, embroidery and fabric. That was fun to look at. All that fabric was original then- reproductions now!
Hope you are having a good weekend,
Cheryl
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