Overnight Crockpot Chili

Hi Friends!

To begin, I would like to share with you an email that I got from a teacher last night. We took a quiz online last week and one of the questions was fill in the blank. The question was:

"A Bronsted-Lowry acid is defined as a proton ________, while a Bronsted-Lowry base is defined as a proton _______."

Smart people like me correctly filled in the blanks with the words donor and acceptor. Apparently much of my class had some trouble with this question and complained about it to the teacher. He sent us this email last night:

Dear Students,
Many of you complained that I didn’t give credit for the answer(s) to question number 5 if they were different from donor or acceptor. The argument was that you did know the answer but made typing errors or inserted something that did not make the statements meaningful.
I decided that I will give full credit to all those students who did not receive full credit on question number 5 who will write by hand on a separate sheet of paper 25 times the correct statement, which is:

The Bronsted-Lowry acid is defined as a proton donor, while a Bronsted-Lowry base is defined as a proton acceptor.

and give it to me by 2:30 PM on October 8.
Dr. Vaghy

Who does that?! What are we in second grade? I'm just glad I got it right :) Just thought I'd share that for a chuckle.

Anyways, last night I decided we would have chili for dinner tonight. There are several things I like about chili:
1) There are no rules...you can pretty much throw anything you want into a pot with some chili powder and call it chili
2) It's better the second day.
3) Making it is quite a mindless task

Keeping all of this in mind, I decided to throw some chili in the crockpot last night and let it cook overnight. That way I could put it in in the fridge when I woke up, it could sit and meld all day and all I'd have to do is reheat it at dinner time.

So here's what went into my chili:
1 sweet potato
1/2 of a zucchini
1/2 of a white onion
1/2 of a red onion
some mushrooms
2 cans of no salt added diced tomatoes
1 can pinto beans
2 cups frozen black beans
1 cup frozen red peppers
1/2 of a green pepper
1 lb ground turkey
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
black pepper


whoa! that's a lot of stuff!

Start by browning the onion, garlic and turkey in a pan. While that's cooking, put the rest of the stuff in the crockpot:

Add the seasoning:

 

Add the meat and onions and stir to combine:

 

Cook on low for 8 hours. All done. Now either reheat it from the fridge like me or serve it straight out of the pot!

Chili is not the  most photogenic dish :)

Side note: I've learned the hard way to always start by under-spicing because you can always add more. Even with all that chili powder, it still wasn't very spice, so I think I'll add another Tablespoon next time...and maybe a bit more cumin.


Today in Lindsay's Lunchbox:

We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel in the food department around here...so when I was looking for something to pack in my lunch I came across a can of tuna. One of my favorite snacks that my mom used to make for me was chicken salad. I use the term salad lightly because in this situation that generally implies a lot of mayo...which is not the case here. I've pretty much stopped eating canned chicken because of the sodium content but I decided it would probably be pretty similar with tuna. I was correct!

All you need is 5 ingredients:
tuna
green onions
mayo
curry powder
cayenne pepper

To make it I just drain the tuna, put about 1/2 the can (2 oz) in my tupperware container, add about 3/4 tsp of mayo (you can add more if you prefer), chop up some green onions and throw those in, then add curry powder and cayenne pepper to taste (I like mine to have a little kick!) Stir to combine and eat with crackers (I prefer Kashi TLC 7 grain).

Do you just love my new snack bags? That's pretty much the only reason I took these pics :)

I added some zucchini bread, some yogurt and a bottle of water and I was all set!

Enjoy!
--Lindsay--