Good 'ol Chili

Good ‘ol Chili

It's that time of year when you warm up with a cozy sweater and bowl of chili.  This is one of Joe's favorite chili recipes that he got from a co-worker several years back. We continue to make it a few times each fall/winter.  It makes a good amount and has lots of great flavor.

Ingredients

2 ½ lbs. ground beef (We usually use 1.5-2 lbs. only.)

28 oz. can Hunts diced tomatoes

15oz. can Bush’s chili beans

15oz. can Hunts seasoned, diced tomato for Chili (This can be difficult to find.)

20 oz. +/- Campbells Tomato Soup

15 oz. can kidney beans

1 pkg. McCormick mild chili seasoning (or hot)

½-1 bell pepper, chopped 

1 med. Onion, chopped

1 small jar jalapeno peppers (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Brown ground beef, drain, then add everything together.

Simmer on stove for 1-2 hours OR all night in crock pot. (I typically cook it in the crock pot on low for 8ish hours.)

Now, if you are an Aldi shopper, you can find most of these ingredients there, which will save you some money on ingredients.  If you don't see them in the regular canned foods aisle, check the aisle that has promotional food items.  Usually I can find the chili beans, seasoned diced tomatoes, etc. in one of those two places. 

Preschool Planning & Resources

This is a place for notes and links for our upcoming preschool year.  It's simply a resource for me (and others) to find things quickly.

Preschool Mom:  Theme based search to find lessons and ideas

Easy Peasy Homeschool:  This link takes you to the alphabet curriculum.

ABC Jesus Loves Me:  Homeschool curriculum listed by week.  Bible teaching curriculum.

Allternative Learning:  Theme listed ideas

Everything Preschool:  List of 170 Preschool Themes

Pinch of Perfect:  Preschool A-Z ideas/themes
Pinch of Perfect:  Link to ideas for teaching at home

Preschool Themes  This is an updated list by this particular blogger.



Curricular areas/ideas:
Literacy:  letter recognition, letter sounds, writing, listening, speaking, stories, library concepts/"rules", print awareness (books go from left to right, etc.)/how to use a book, rhyming, alphabet/alphabet matching, etc.

Math: Numbers/number recognition, rote counting, skip counting, shapes, patterns, money (very basic), clocks/time (very basic), measurement, calendar concepts, tally counting/tally marks, more/less & greater than/less than, etc.

Other:
Colors, Weather, Community workers and jobs, etc.


Reading Rockets  This page gives some good, basic information as to what is appropriate for preschools in regard to literacy topics.

Get Ready To Read Test  Simple 20 question quiz to see what literacy concepts your child knows.
   Activities to build skills after taking the test

Wishlist! Projects & More Projects!

This is an updated list, since I have a few projects that I'd like to attempt in the not-too-distant future.  In doing so, there are a few things I need to save up in order to complete the projects.  If you are able to help me collect any of the items below that would be great!  Here is a short list of things I'm looking for.  I figured it doesn't hurt to ask since a lot of it is stuff you might be throwing out.  I'll keep this list fluid and add/delete as needed.  Thank you, in advance, for any help you might be.

• vinyl tablecloths.  both flannel-backed and non-flanned-backed are fine. 
• flat-bottomed glass gems/gems/stones
• clay pots and drain trays (can also be plastic)
• rocks, river stones (Smooth is what I'm going for.)
• old, used metal bowls of various sizes
• golf balls
• hubcaps
• empty soda bottles, water bottles, Gatorade bottles, Powerade bottles, etc.  I'm looking for sizes 16oz-24oz.; I will take the caps, too, if have them.
• clothespins
• ribbon scraps of any kind
• fabric scraps.  Do you have small, random pieces of various fabrics you want to get rid of?  (any size, pattern, texture) I can use them.  
• Wooden blocks, Jenga games.  Any sizes, shapes, colors.
• EMPTY child-proof prescription bottles, empty film canisters, plastic Easter eggs THANK YOU, I have collected what I need with these items for now.

Chicken Spaghetti

I was given this slow cooker recipe by my friend Holly and it was simple and delicious; even our 3 year old ate it!  It smells so good while cooking and it so easy to make in the afternoon.  

Chicken Spaghetti

2 chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 bag frozen bell pepper/onion/celery blend (Her orig. recipe called for pepper/onion but I couldn't find it at the store.)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper
3 cups cheddar cheese (separated 1 cup and 2 cups)
12 oz cooked spaghetti

Cook everything except 2 cups of cheddar and the uncooked spaghetti in the crockpot on high for 4 hours. Take out the chicken and shred it. Return it to sauce and add the other 2 cups of cheddar and the cooked spaghetti. Cook for 15-20 more minutes on low. That's it!

I think this might also be good with a can of peas/cooked frozen peas mixed in during the last few minutes, too.

Sorry for the bad picture.  I didn't remember to take a picture until after we were done eating dinner.

A Spicy Mess No More!

Ok. So, yes, I'm super behind on blogging anything lately.  I have had many thoughts of "oh, I should type up something about that and post it to my blog" but alas, time gets away from me with two little ones these days.  This post is super short, so I had time to post it up quickly.

I was doing some morning reading online and when I was finished I jumped on Pinterest to look for a valentine's craft to occupy my little guy this morning.  (Don't judge the amount of pins and likes I have; I often jump on Pinterest when nursing.) Back to the topic at hand--the shelf I keep all of our kitchen spices is a total disaster. I can never find what I need quickly.  This pin spoke directly to me.  I don't know how I didn't come up with something like this sooner, since I actually do have something similar for boxed pasta and rice in my pantry, but for whatever reason it never occured to me to organize my lesser-used spices! I read this and BAM!  I now have a system for the spices I rarely use.

I took the idea one step further and typed up a quick list of what spices are actually in the basket.  This is helpful when I need something that I think I have, but in reality I probably just thought about buying it at some point.  We also have the amazing, wonderful Dekalb International Farmers Market not too far from our house where I buy some of my spices in bulk.  These containers stack great, but I have to take them all out to get what I'm looking for.  These are also on the list I created.

Here's to trying to organize my life one small step at a time! (My BIG job of cleaning and organizing our Florida room starts this weekend!  Say a prayer for me.)

Slow Cooker Zesty BBQ Chicken

You should know by now that I’m a HUGE slow cooker fan.  You can thank John Shaffer and Stephanie O’Dea for getting me hooked!  John is a guy we know from church.  While riding to a praise team practice together, Joe, John, and I got to talking about slow cooking.  In that conversation he recommended O’Dea’sbooks Make It Fast, Cook It Slow.  I quickly purchased Volumes I & II from alibris for a great price.  I’ve made countless recipes from these books.

This recipe is a mixture of O’Dea’s “Lazy Chicken” and a BBQ chicken recipe I found while doing a Pinterest search.  We were craving some Shane’s Rib Shack chicken, but I wanted to try and make something similar at home.  Behold, this had a lot of the same flavors and was super simple to prepare.  We loved this dinner (even the 3 year old) and will definitely be making it again!  I served it with baked potatoes and green beans.

As prepared, this made 4-6 sandwiches. This recipe can easily be doubled.  

Slow Cooker Zesty BBQ Chicken

3 large frozen chicken breasts

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 cup BBQ sauce of your choice, plus more to put on finished sandwich

¼ cup Italian Salad Dressing (I used Kraft Zesty Italian)

¼ cup brown sugar (unpacked)

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Place frozen chicken breasts in slow cooker.  Sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken in crock.

In medium bowl mix all other ingredients.  Wisk for a minute to make sure all brown sugar is well incorporated. Pour over chicken.

Cover.  Cook 3-4 hours in high or 6-8 hours on low.
About a half hour before serving, take chicken out and shred.  Put back in crock and stir with the sauce at bottom of crock.  Cover and let everything cook together for a half hour longer.