Easy but Delicious!

A couple of years ago, my good friend, Molly gave me a recipe that is so easy to make, it shouldn't taste anywhere near as good as it does: White Bean Chicken Chili. I haven't made anything at home (other than sandwiches or other simple items) in quite some time, so today seemed like a great day for this easy and tasty crock pot meal.

Molly's White Bean Chicken Chili:

Ingredients:

• One whole roasted rotisserie chicken (I prefer the unseasoned variety)
• One large jar (48 oz) of Northern white beans OR "mixed beans" (personal preference)
• One jar (24 oz) of Northern white beans
• Two jars (16 oz each) of any brand salsa you like. I usually use one jar of a typical medium salsa, and one jar of "black bean and corn" salsa. I find this gives a nice, yet simple variety, but you can mix it up any way you like!
• Three 8 oz packages of shredded cheese. I use sharp and Mexican-style, mixed evenly

Procedure:

• Combine all ingredients except chicken into a large (6 Qt.) crock pot and turn on "high."
• Stir in a little water if needed, depending on desired consistency. The mixture should look like chili or thick soup.
  
• Remove all bones and skin from chicken, (my dogs LOVE this part because they get to eat the skin) placing bite-sized pieces of chicken into the crock pot as you go. This procedure is messy and a little gross, but worth the effort. I usually shred the chicken (by hand) as I'm placing it into the pot.
  
• Heat on high for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally.
  
• As with most soup/chili, we find this is better on day 2, and it also works well as a baked potato topper for left-overs.
• This makes a very large pot that we eat for several days. You can modify the recipe to make as much or as little as you want, just be sure your bean/salsa ratio stays ~ the same.

Just in time for "spring" break...

we are having another big snowfall today, 4-8" expected, which will be nowhere near the actual amount we end up with! Still, it IS only February in Michigan and the news media people are really making a big deal out of this storm, funny!

Ironically, my "spring break" began today as well. Of course, they have now conveniently changed the name of this mid-semester break to "winter recess," but it will always be spring break to me since that's what I grew up hearing. I would love to be spending my break somewhere warm without snow, but I'm also happy to just have some time to do something other than homework for a change. First on my list is catching up with family and friends, closely followed by some TLC for my poor, neglected home!

The Worms are Confused (again!)

We've had an extremely unusual warm streak here in Michigan these past few days. On Tuesday it was sunny and in the 50's. The last couple days it's been rainy but still warm, very odd for early February. Mind you, this winter has been brutal up until this point, with record snow fall and many frigid days where the temperature lingers around zero. I've enjoyed the warm streak, but last night when I left school (sometime after 9:00,) I noticed a whole bunch of earthworms crawling around on the sidewalk. Apparently they are confused and think spring is here. I feel badly for them, because many will get squished by unobservant pedestrians. I spent a minute or two rescuing a few of them and transporting them back to the grassy area (weird, I know) but then I gave up because there were too many and I was getting cold. The same thing happened last year and I also reacted similarly, but that was in April rather than February...weird!

Bella & Tara

I am in love with this video...we humans could learn something from this awesome odd couple!

A Fellow "Greenie"

I'm not normally the type to strike up conversations with random strangers, but the other day at school the lounge where I normally eat my lunch was crammed full. I contemplated leaving and going somewhere else to eat my lunch in solitude, but then I thought better if that idea. I asked someone who was sitting alone at a table if I could share her space. She was friendly and more than happy to let me sit down, but we were both engrossed in our own activities. That is...until I removed my treasured wrap-n-mat reusable sandwich bag, one of the ones I talked about in this post. Her eyes grew wide and she gasped, saying, "Oh my gosh, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" She reached out her hand and then looked at me tentatively, "Can I touch it?" she asked. I smiled and nodded and she gingerly felt the shiny plastic part of my wrap-n-mat. She asked where I got it and then examined the mat even more closely to see how it was made.

That one small encounter turned out to be the beginning of a welcome lunch break conversation. From the discussion of the wrap-n-mats, we moved on to reusable grocery bags, and the whole idea of "going green," in which we were both interested, became a frame for a broader discussion that included life at school, our chosen majors, heavy backpacks, stressful professors, and our families. For the first time in a while, I enjoyed my lunch without feeling lonely. Don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of hallway acquaintances and class buddies here at Eastern, but the truth is that while I am happy here most of the time, I also often feel somewhat isolated. Maybe isolated is the wrong word...maybe I feel different. The fact is, I am different from the vast majority of my classmates. I'm no longer the young woman whose chief concerns are men and what she should wear. I'm glad I'm no longer that girl, because my life has a richness to it now that wasn't there before, but still...this does set me apart from the majority of people with whom I attend classes, and sometimes that can be hard.

All in all, solitude...and even loneliness to a degree aren't the end of the world. I may not make any lifetime friends during my time here at school, but at least I can have meaningful and memorable conversations over a shared lunch table!

My Girl

I know you've heard of a pig in a blanket, but how about a dog in a blanket? This is our little fur-monster in a photo taken just a few minutes ago. She is nothing if not spoiled!

This past week has been a little rough for our poor puppy. On Monday she had to get six teeth pulled. It's a little annoying because when we asked about her bad breath this fall, they said we should possibly consider getting a dental done because of her age (she's 9) but not to worry about it too much. We switched over to the specialty dental food at that time and went on with life. Despite the more expensive food, the bad breath persisted. This was not only unpleasant to endure, but I could just tell Ditto wasn't feeling the best, which made me sad. We did indeed schedule the dental cleaning, as soon as we were able to come up with enough money. She went in Monday to have the procedure done. For dogs, even routine dental work is done as a surgery, so Michael and I were both a little nervous when we dropped our baby dog off Monday morning.

As it turned out, everything went fine, if you count having six teeth pulled as fine. Obviously they needed to come out...the vet apologized and explained that there really was no way to save the teeth. They had no explanation for why this happened, other than old age. It's a little hard to understand because we have always fed her dried food and taken good care of our puppy. She's been on antibiotics since she came home, but she is definitely beginning to feel better. Starting around Thursday she wanted to play again and ever since then her energy level has continued to increase. It sort of seems like we have the old Ditto back...our playful, hyperactive Jack Russell Terrier. In retrospect, I can see that she must have been in a lot of pain, which we were just chalking up to her getting older. I feel really badly about that, but I suppose hindsight is always 20/20...

A season of hope...

My blogging buddy, Sarah posted an awesome "word cloud" that she created using this web site, which, for lack of a better description word, is just plain cool. Anyway, I followed her lead and made my own word cloud from only the words I could remember off the top of my head from the inauguration ceremony today. I like the result...and I think "hope" pretty much sums up this momentous, historical day for me.

Deep Freeze

As I type this, the temperature outside is 12.2 °F, which actually seems rather like a heat wave. This past week, Michigan has been experiencing a deep freeze. Temperatures in the neighborhood of -13 °F for several days in a row, which makes the wind chill temps somewhere in the neighborhood of -23 °F depending on the day. So cold that cars won't start and 50-year-old men were found frozen to death outside their homes. Bitterly cold. We know how to handle winter here in Michigan, but this was winter like we rarely experience. We made it through the week relatively unscathed not counting the dead car battery and my husband's frozen mustache. Needless to say, he was pretty freaking cold when this image was taken. This was the morning our car wouldn't start.

It certainly could have been worse, but I'm glad the arctic front has moved past for now.

We have had a lot of snow so far this year. Many days of digging the cars out of the driveway in the freezing cold. You can really see how much snow there was in the photo below...much more and the car would have been buried.

Our most recent big snowfall was about a week ago and it was a rather beautiful one. My parents live on 4 acres of land not too far from us. I had the chance to get a few pictures while visiting with them last Sunday:


And last but not least, a haphazard image of the bird's nest in our front yard. This catches my eye every time I come and go. I love the way the nest keeps collecting snow almost like a cone.

The Smartest Boy...

...or one of them anyway!

My nephew got his ACT scores back late last week and he got 34 out of 36 possible points. That puts the kid in the 99th percentile nationally, WOW! I told him my superior influence during his infancy and young childhood made all the difference, but I don't think he believed me. He's a great kid and this is great news...he will probably be able to attend any college on which he sets his sights. I am very proud!

{Auntie}

Not Just Re-usable!

This year is bringing about some changes at our house in terms of environmental friendliness. For years now I have been sick of plastic grocery bags. Stores always give way too many of them relative to the amount of groceries, and the things seem to quickly multiply and take up too much space at my house. Still, despite my knowledge of how bad they are for the environment, I've never taken the initiative to do much about this annoyance...at least not until now. I decided to finally buy myself some re-usable bags and it was a very smart purchase! Not only are the bags re-usable, they are also practical, and adorable! The set I bought contains five bags that fold up into a tiny little carrying case. They are ~ twice the size of a regular plastic bag, AND they're cute...what more could a girl want?

Here you can see one re-usable bag with a grocery bag on top and then the four other re-usable bags and carrying case. I'm excited about my next trip to the grocery store for the first time in years! I even think our store gives a little money back if you bring your own bags, so it's a win-win situation.

This is a photo of the carrying case that holds five re-usable bags. I included the pen so you can get a sense of the scale. This is tiny and could easily fit in a glove compartment or purse. I actually think I'll remember to bring them to the store with me because they're so portable.

We've also got a new thing going in place of plastic sandwich baggies. For Christmas Michael asked for "wrap-n-mat" re-usable sandwich bags, and several of them showed up in his stocking. These little treasures are also great! They fold up into the size of a sandwich and can also be used as an eating surface. I take my lunch to Eastern every day and it's nice to have this barrier between my food and the tables in the lounge. Prior to this little addition to my lunch hour arsenal, I used to spread out paper towels, or try to hold my food the entire time (you never know what's been on those tables or how long it's been since their last bath!) so these have been really handy. Oh, and did I mention they are also easy to use as cute as a button? :)


I'm sorry but I think everyone should have at least a few of these...my only regret is that we didn't have both of these products sooner!