Yabba Dabba Doo Time

In scary news, I didn’t post a blog this weekend because we were busy and I was stressed, partly because we woke up Sunday morning to Santana’s bloody vomit all over the living room.  I was a complete wreck….called in sick to work today to take her to the vet.  Thankfully, the vet thinks it is not a huge deal since she has eaten fine and acted normal since then.  She’s now on Pepcid AC with her dinner.  What a fussy pup.

Several weekends ago, we were working on cleaning out the freezer (an endless task).  I looked over and Matt had pulled out a Flintstones-sized piece of beef.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  It was huge…I wish I had a picture of Matt holding this meat that was twice the size of his head.  It would definitely tip our car over!

I vaguely remember when we bought this.  I like to have meat handy in the freezer and can’t wait until I have lots of space and an extra freezer…I’ll be able to invest in half a cow and actually have the space to keep it in my house!  For now, I keep my eye out for great sales on bulk amounts of things like meat.  I think when I bought this particular package I couldn’t tell just how huge the pieces of meat were.  We made a roast out of one (I think) and then threw the other in the freezer for crock pot fun at some later point.

I knew that later point was finally  here when Matt pulled the hilariously large meat out of the freezer. 

I love…love…LOVE chili.  My dad has always made chili by starting with a basic seasoning mix, adding meat, about 40 different kinds of beans….and pretty much anything else he could find in the cupboard.  Sometimes we had potatoes in our chili, sometimes corn, sometimes kielbasa….it was always a crapshoot.  But usually really yummy.  My favorite was when a little bit of sweetness would find its way into the pot of chili somehow.  YUM! 

I’ve made chili myself several times…it’s a great way to use up beans, meat, spices, and sometimes I even throw corn in there with it.   This time I tried a new recipe for Chili Con Carne from Cooking Light.  Because of our schedule, I actually made the original batch overnight two days before the day we planned to eat.  This actually worked out really well because I tasted it in the morning and then adjusted, added an extra can of beans and made it perfect for us.

The meat wasn’t amazing…a little bit tough just because of the cut of it, but overall, it had a really wonderful spicy flavor.  With some shredded cheese and sour cream, and a side of cornbread, this was a great meal. Plus we have lots of leftovers in the freezer now! 

Of course, I can’t find the recipe I used, since I made this in the beginning of JULY (am I seriously that far behind!?).  It has been a whirlwind summer….It was a chili con carne recipe from Cooking Light, but I have scrounged the kitchen, my internet archives, everything, and it hasn’t turned up.  It had lots of meat, tomato-y goodness, and black beans galore.  Delicious.  Even if I tried to make it again from the same recipe, it would turn out completely different.

Honey-Topped Cornbread

I like my cornbread with pieces of corn mixed right in.  I adapted this recipe by using whole wheat flour, which gave it a nutty-ish flavor and a heartier bite.  I added 1 can of drained corn right before pouring it into the pan and then after it baked, brushed it with some honey.  This was pretty wonderful with the chili, but even better as leftovers.   Matt and I ate a couple pieces split, toasted and topped with creamy butter.  A really satisfying snack.

The rest of the cornbread got cut up and mixed with eggs, milk, breakfast sausage, cheddar and scallions to make an amazing cornbread strata that everyone in the apartment (aka. Matt) and everyone at work loved!  The cornbread made a great base and soaked up the egg and milk mixture wonderfully in the fridge overnight.   

So this recipe was quite a while ago, and proofreading it now and seeing the pictures again makes me want chili and leftover cornbread! Maybe we’ll heat some up from the freezer this week!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Family, Leftovers, Life, Matthew, Puppy, Yum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.