Snow Days and Chili

The last two days, we are covered in snow and everyone is hibernating inside. The snow is pretty, but the ice needs to go!

Last week I made a belated resolution: 

Learn one new recipe a week.

It's time to expand my go-to recipes from boiling water for pasta or pre-heating the oven for a frozen pizza. I want to learn some new recipes that I can make that will also be semi-healthy.

For week 1, I took on a big challenge of doing chili. I found the recipe on Cooking Light. See the full recipe here: Cooking Light

The biggest challenge of chili is the prep of all the veggies to throw in, but best thing about chili is there is a lot of room for customization and not too much room for error. I chopped all the veggies with the help of the great food processor that we broke open for the first time:

Then I had to cook the beef and add all the ingredients in: chicken stock, tomato paste, diced tomatoes and lots of yummy spices. I love how colorful its looking:

Then everything simmered for an hour and a half before adding more spices and some brown sugar. Next it simmered for another hour before it was all ready:

It looks watery in that picture, but it came together pretty well and just to top it off, I made sure there were some good toppings:

And a delicious cornbread side dish (it's Trader Joe's cornbread mix):

I think overall, it all turned out really well and I was very proud of the result of this new recipe. It was a success with K's friends while they watched football and its made for some great leftovers this week.

Stay warm!