I should be in bed...

Hey All!

How's it going?

My alarm is set for 5:30 tomorrow morning and my pilates DVD is already in the DVD player so I really should be in bed, but what can I say? I'm on a roll today!

So like I said earlier, I made pear butter and a huge pot of chili tonight. I got so caught up with making the pear butter and cleaning the kitchen that I totally didn't eat lunch until 4:30 and whent he chili was ready about two hours later I was still stuffed. So I skipped it and finished some house work that needed to be done.

The pear butter turned out FANTASTIC! I am already prepared to eat some in my Sunday Saturday oats tomorrow.

I made it like this-

I had some pears that were REALLY ripe and going to be bad within a day or two So I cored them and chopped them up and dropped them into a saucepan. Here's the actual recipe I came up with...

6 ripe pears cored and chopped

3-4 T orange juice

1/8 c brown sugar

1/8 c white sugar

1 c water (which ended up being a little too much so I would 3/4 c next time)

1 tsp salt

few sprinkles cinnamon

And you get this...

Let it come to a boil, then turn the heat WAY DOWN and cover it for about 30 minutes. You can either blend it in a blender or mash it up with a potato masher. We have a stick blender which is so much easier. Then you have this...

(totally freaked out that you can see the chili splatter on my stove!)

Since it was a little runny Jason made a cornstarch slurry (about 1 T corn starch and 2 T water) to help thicken it up. After it sat on the stove with the heat turned off it began to thicken up even more.

While the pear butter AND chili were cooking and after the kitchen was cleaned I decided I needed to eat something. Of course, like I said, it was 4:30, but food had to be consumed so I finished what vegetable fried rice Jason had left for me. I added some frozen peas to it and cut up the last two pieces of fried tofu to go on top. I drizzled a little dark soy sauce and sirarchi on top and was good to go.

 

Sadly I have no photos of the chili, but Jason says it was super yummy. He made some corn bread muffins to go along with it. It's just something we have to have in this house when having chili. Don't fight it - just go with it. Tonight's chili was a little different because it was almost ALL beans. Here's THAT recipe...

6 garlic cloves chopped

1 white onion chopped

sweat those in a little olive oil then add the following...

1 can black beans drained

1 can white kidney beans drained

1 can red kidney beans drained

2 cans garbanzo beans drained

1 large can crushed tomatoes

1 reg can fire roasted tomatoes

1 can sweet kernal corn

Bring to a boil then reduce heat to the lowest and cover for 30-45 minutes stirring often.

At this point add one whole bag Morningstar Farms Veggie Crumbles and let cook another 10 minutes and then enjoy!!

Jason went to a meeting and I gave the girls a bath, got jammies on, brushed and braided hair, read a bedtime story and threw their little butts in bed! :D

Once Jason got home I decided I was a tad hungry (shocker!) so I made myself a little snack...

 

PB&J on a whole wheat Arnold sandwich thin.

Now it's off to bed before Jason decides to throw away the computer!

Good night...