Sweet Bean Chili to Power the Week Ahead

Good evening blog world!

How did the rest of everyone's weekends go? After wrapping up grocery shopping and my other errands the sun had gone in for the day and the rain and WIND were out so I didn't spend too much time outdoors. It was probably for the best though, I had a jam packed night of cooking ahead of me. I planned on making Sweet Bean Chili and cornbread for dinner because I knew it would give me a ton of left overs to last me through the busy week ahead.

Every year at my place of employment our Community Service Committee holds a Chili Cook Off. A bunch of employees volunteer to bring in a crock-pot of chili and at lunch everyone can go down and sample the all the different kinds. The money that is then raised goes to a predetermined charity (I believe it varies from year to year). Well I'm not usually a huge chili fan BUT I always go because it is for a good cause and I like samples. Through the Chili Cook Off I discovered this delicious dish I had for dinner tonight! :) 

All my ingredients ready to roll (minus the sweet tater)

 The recipe is as follows including my substitutions in parentheses:

Sweet Bean Chili

2-3 lbs ground beef, browned and drained (I used ground turkey instead of ground beef - I usually substitute in ground turkey because it's healthier and I don't notice a huge change in taste)

1 large can of baked beans - undrained (I use B&M - the best in my opinion!)

1 can corn - undrained (I had frozen corn on hand so I used that instead)

1 can white northern beans - undrained (I drained and rinsed them)

1 can yellow butter beans -  undrained (I drained and rinsed these too)

1 1/2 cup brown sugar (I used just a little over 1 cup and its still very sweet)

1 cup sugar

1 cup ketchup

3 Tbsp dry mustard

1 onion sliced thin (I used a large sweet white onion)

You can also add bacon (I added about half a package of turkey bacon already cooked)

Mix all the ingredients together and bring to a boil. I let it all simmer for about 45 minutes because I wanted the onions to soften and the flavors to marry. I believe the last time I made this I did it in the crock pot. I didn't have the time today for that but it still came out just as good!

All done! It tastes better than it looks I guess...

After that was all done I cleaned up in the kitchen and then moved my cleaning operation into the living room to go through my newspaper stack and weekly ads. A pretty relaxing evening to get me ready for the busy week ahead.

I'm off to go wind down and get ready for bed. I hope you all have a great Monday and I'll catch up with you tomorrow night!

As a preview of this week I am going to leave you with a teaser: Thompson Square. Any ideas how they fit in? Leave a comment ;)

Two Types of Friends

Since the downstairs bathroom is now completed, I have a renewed desire to cross things off my 'house project to do list'. I have had the trim around the windows in the living room taped since last fall and decided yesterday was the perfect day to get that done.

Through owning my home I have realized I don't like doing projects alone. I like to chat with people while I work. Unfortunately I'm flying solo today so I settled on the next best thing ...

I spent the afternoon with my good Friends Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Joey, Pheobe and Ross. :)

I LOVE this show. When it first came out I never really watched it. It was only after I graduated college that I really got into it. My friend Amanda owns the entire set of DVDs and a while back she let me borrow them and work my way through all the seasons in order. Well after that I just fell in love with the show! I went on Amazon.com and bought my own set!

Watching the show now is so great because the characters are pretty much the same age as I am and seeing them go through life's up and downs (with a comedic twist of course) provides a kind of sentimental comfort. And the show is just hilarious so the fact that I laugh out loud throughout most of each episode doesn't hurt either. ;)

So with my Season 1 Disk 5 all prepped and ready in my DVD player I tackled the trim. It's kind of sad that I have to paint it because the color of the wood is just beautiful but it was a bit banged up when I moved in so it needed to be repaired with wood putty and the paint will cover that. I have also already painted the baseboard trim in most of my house so the windows need to match.

Wood color to start with

I forgot to take a before shot of the windows - although I'm sure I have one somewhere - so after I got a little into it I figured I should probably snap a shot before it was all done.

In progress

All done! Or at least all primed...

After I finished the window I still had some primer in my little hand held bucket thing so I decided to paint the door going from the living room to the kitchen. The other side of this door is already white so I wanted this side to match. You can see the wood putty on the bottom of the door below the door knob (The white stripe along one of the wood dividers is paint - again I started before taking a picture...haha ;) )

Before

 

After being primed

By the time all of this was done - my hands were pretty much covered in paint (no idea how!) and it was time for me to go get ready for going out to spend some quality time with my real friends. It was Saturday night after all! :)

Brian and Wendy

Kevin and Amanda

Jessica (new friend to me) and Ian

And Amanda and I

We all met up at Wolff's Biergarten because a friend of ours was in town visiting and another was celebrating a birthday! Now, based on the name, you can probably assume what kind of beverage is mainly served. Well I am not a beer girl - not a huge fan of it at all but I figured since I was there I should try and give it another shot. When the waitress asked what I wanted I explained that I didn't know because I don't normally drink beer but rather cider so if she had anything that tasted similar to that I'd take it. She brought over two samples and I tried both - neither really struck me as "oooh wow! This is great!" so I just randomly picked one. I forget what kind she said, I think it began with an s and was a logger lager but here's a shot of the MASSIVE stein I received (and this isn't the biggest!).

What you see there is about all I drank of it. I think it was filled up to the line in the glass so I drank about an inch down. I was pretty pleased with myself, called it a night with the beer, and got water for the rest of the evening. In the future, I'll get a glass of wine or stick with good old H2O.

It was such a fun night and the Biergarten itself is such a fun place - you can throw the peanut shells on the floor and there's a fake tree in the back! It's especially fun in the warmer months because the front of the bar is essentially a garage door that opens out to a patio. The door wasn't open last night because it's still cold and it was raining, but I'm sure we'll head back when it's outdoor patio season :)

Now I'm off to do some grocery shopping and other errands and hopefully spend some time out in the sunshine today!

Free for all Friday

Happy Friday everyone! The work week is over and now the fun of the weekend begins! Woo hoo!

My morning started off terrifically when I came down stairs to find a rainbow across my living room!

On the carpet

I think you can see more colors in this one

I think this was reflecting off the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom onto the floor and TV. (If not then I have no clue where it came from). It put a nice little smile on my face while I ran into the kitchen to grab my breakfast and lunch for work.

Today was super sunny and, even though it wasn't really on the warm side, I still wanted to pop out of the office for a bit to soak up some Vitamin D and fresh air. I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to run to the library and pick up a few books I've wanted to check out (as if I don't already have enough of my own!) :)

And that's not all of them

When I got back I was doing a little reading on CNN to keep up with current events and I came across this article from "The Chart" blog. It's National DNA Day!!! How exciting is that! It's a day celebrating that which makes everything unique! "It's to commemorate the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in April 1953, and the completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003." April is apparently a big month for genetics! Whoowee!

I toyed with the idea of talking a bit about the genome but I would have to reference my college Biology books...and since they are in my sister's room at our parents house due to her recent obsession with the Bodies Exhibit...I have decided against it :)

On my way inside the house after work I noticed my mystery flowers are starting to bloom and grow! (That makes me think of the Sound of Music .... edelweiss, edelweiss...") :)

They're pretty but I still have no idea...

There's a bunch of these but without flowers I just can't tell

I guess I'll need to wait a little longer for the second type to do something other than sprout green leaves. I'm intrigued to see what they become so I can learn how to take care of them. I also need to figure out how to move them since the second type in particular has germinated quite far away from my house. I do believe some landscaping research is in store for me this weekend.

In the meantime I have put on my Cookie Monster socks...

C is for cookie...

Grabbed the last of my Scrabble Junior Cheez-Its and some of my yummy iced tea from last night...

Why they are Scrabble Junior, I have no idea...

And my library books...

And I'm going to settle in and do some reading. I am really psyched about having this blog and really want to make it great so I'm making sure to do my due diligence. ;)  I hope I find some interesting tips and info - I'm really looking forward to reading these! (Especially the IT Girls book...I don't know if it's because it is pink or that it has the word 'moxie' in the title.)

Have a great Friday night!