Veggie Chili

Every Super Bowl our church has a Chili Cook off, along with super bowl games, food, bounce houses. It's a lot of fun to be a part of and a great opportunity to bring friends to church. This year we were talked into making some chili for the cook off. I went with this Veggie Chili that I saw in the newspaper earlier in the week. It was really good. Nice texture. Good flavor. And it won us 3rd place for Most Unique.

Veggie Chili






Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
3 1/2 cups butternut squash, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
2 cans black beans, drained, rinsed
2 cups vegetable broth
1 can tomatoes with green chilies
2 large poblano chilies, roasted, diced
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
   freshly ground pepper
6 leaves kale, sliced in ribbons
6 leaves swiss chard, sliced in ribbons
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
   fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:


Heat olive oil in a heavy, deep pot. Add onions and jalapeno; cook until softened. Add squash; cook until barely starting to soften, 8 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute. Add beans, broth, tomatoes, poblanos, cumin, oregano, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste.

Cook over low heat until squash is tender and flavors start to come together. Add greens and lime juice; cook until greens are wilted. Adjust seasoning, stir in fresh cilantro.

Photos with my side of the Family

Over Christmas Break, while my brother was in town, I really wanted to get some family pictures done. Thankfully everyone obliged and we went out to a friends property where we took as many pictures as the littles could handle. It didn't last as long as I was hoping but we did get some photos of all of us and I couldn't be more happy about that!

Forewarning, there are a lot....

And we are composting

We have finally got around to composting! Only took us like 2 years. I am so bad at finishing things. Anyways. We made our compost bins out of untreated pallets that we got from a friend. I needed to add some more boards to them so that everything wouldn't spill out of it once it was constructed. After that we joined all the pallets (4 in total) with untreated 2 x 4 pine boards and 1 x 4 cedar boards. I still need to add more cedar planks, but that can wait until the bins start to fill up.

We added a layer of leaves that we got from another friend and put some dirt on that. Then we filled it up with kitchen scraps, stirred it around and added more leaves on top. And I added a touch of water as well, but not too much because the dirt was already damp.

But I am finally glad we got it going. We've been doing it now for just three weeks and it's going to take quite some time. I realize in the meantime we are going to have to buy compost but eventually we will be able to use our own!

Pictures to come soon once Photobucket starts working...