Thursday 13: Cats, Finally Some Good News, and Leftovers

This week’s Thursday 13 is another one without a theme.

1.    Mortimer and Theodore don’t typically cuddle together, but Nick got this cute picture of them hanging out together.

2.    Theodore is at that very active kitten stage where most of the pictures we get of him are blurry or when he’s sleepy.  Here’s one of him napping.

3.    We finally got some good FEMA news! 

4.    As I said last week, we were notified that we needed to submit paperwork from a company detailing the damages and the cost of repairs.  Even though we had already submitted all of that before, we submitted it again.  We heard back fairly quickly that we were approved for aid.  Finally! 

5.    The total amount ended up being just under half of what all of the repairs have/will cost.  After pretty much giving up on getting any FEMA aid, we were thrilled.  It makes sense that they can’t fully pay for everything for everyone, but getting significant aid is a huge help.

6.    Ironically, about half of the aid we received was for “immediate” needs, such as temporary housing.   I wouldn’t call February immediate for something that happened in September, but we’re still very grateful to have gotten aid. 

7.    This is what the backyard looks like right now. 

8.    Remember, once upon a time, it was kind of pretty?

9.    We’re still working on fixing the drainage problems.  Funding and weather have been the holdups.  We’ve mapped out the plan for catch basins, pipes, and dry wells.  The red yarn represents pipes and the orange plates represent catch basins/dry wells.  I know it’s kind of weird, but we don’t always picture things the same way, so something like this works to make sure we’re actually talking about the same thing.

10. We’re still waiting for a decent stretch of time when it’s not raining/snowing and the ground isn’t frozen to be able to start on the drainage work, so we don’t have a firm plan yet.  We’re tossing around the idea of hiring someone with equipment to do the digging, and then doing the pipes, gravel, and catch basin/dry well installation ourselves.  We’re hoping to find a good middle ground between saving money and being realistic about how much digging by hand we can handle.

11. Even though I love to cook, we like leftovers a lot, and it’s nice to have a break from cooking (especially during the week) without going out or getting takeout.  Monday was a perfect leftovers night.  I made tacos over the weekend, and we had leftover taco meat.  So, when I got home from work Monday afternoon, I turned the leftover taco meat into crock pot chili.  I added beans, tomato sauce, and seasoning.  Like this.

12. A few hours later, it turned into this, which was a delicious, almost zero-effort dinner.  I can’t really explain it, but it absolutely delights me when leftovers work out that well.

13. Another cat picture seems like the perfect way to end this Thursday 13, so here’s one more of Theodore.

Catching Up

Thank you all for your kind comments about Howard.  I love that people who never met him enjoyed his pictures and personality.  He really was a very special cat.

Since I didn’t blog at all in October or November, I’ll share some highlights to catch you up.

Our neighbors did tons of great Halloween decorations, including a miniature cemetery in their front yard.  There were “tombstones” for everyone on our section of the street.

Here’s mine:

Caroline is definitely our most temperamental cat and takes tortitude to a whole new level.

And here’s Nick’s:

We also did a neighborhood Halloween event on the last Sunday in October.  It was surprisingly warm that day, so we sat outside by one of the neighbor’s fire pits.  I made a huge batch of chili, and our neighbor Lori made jalapeno popper bread and desserts. 

Three of the adults (including Nick) and two of the older kids went to a haunted farm.  The other three adults (including me), one of the older kids who wasn’t feeling well, and the two younger kids stayed behind to watch Hocus Pocus. 

Everyone had a great time, and it worked out well that some people wanted to do the haunted farm while some of us weren’t into that kind of thing at all.  We’re talking about making it an annual thing. 

I’ve struggled some with getting into the holiday spirit since we lost Howard, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy skipping Thanksgiving, so we had our usual huge Thanksgiving.

Since our fridge is a little bit smaller than the old one, I had Thanksgiving food stashed in four different mini-fridges at work the week before.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I took several things we wouldn’t need over the holiday weekend and left them at work to make sure we had room for all of the Thanksgiving stuff. 

I took the day before Thanksgiving off to do all of the baking.  I couldn’t fit all of the desserts and sweet potato bread on the table, so there are two pictures. 

As usual, Nick did a lot of cleaning.  I’m a very messy cook, so helping clean up when I do that much cooking is a massive job.  At one point, he was dashing into the kitchen with the vacuum or Swiffer every time I left it.  And one of the neighbor kids very sweetly came over and helped out with some food prep and cleaning on Wednesday night. 

The day before Thanksgiving is always my highest step count for the year!

We took Thanksgiving dinner to the hospice house for lunch.  As always, they were so kind and made me cry.  There’s a nurse we’ve seen for the past several years, and she hugged both of us and was just incredibly nice.

After we dropped the food off there, we went home and finished getting ready for our Thanksgiving dinner that evening.  I almost forgot to get any pictures of the food until someone else mentioned taking pictures, so I only got two not-so-great pictures of the food.  We had food and desserts on nearly every available surface.

We had a total of 14 people: all of the neighbors on our end of the street and some friends from Nick’s job.  Everyone ate, talked, and played games.  It was everything I love about Thanksgiving.  As usual, we had tons of leftovers, so no one had to cook for the next couple of days.  After everyone left, Nick and I were talking about how you can always tell whether or not it’s someone’s first Thanksgiving at our house by whether or not they bring storage containers for leftovers.  No one does the first time, but everyone does the next time. 

We also had an inflatable Thanksgiving decoration this year.  I bought him on sale after Thanksgiving last year.  His name is Gregory.  Good for you if you get the reference to the Doris Day movie, “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.”  I’m hoping to add more Thanksgiving decorations every year. 

Frankie absolutely loves the box that Gregory came in.

I’m not sure how he managed to stuff himself inside the box, but he happily hung out in it for hours at a time. 

So what about you?  How were your October and November?  And how were your fall holidays?  

Chili - With A Few Modifications For Social Distancing/Quarantine

We’ve had colder weather this week than we did last week.  Fortunately, it hasn’t dropped down to freezing, so all of the blooming flowers and bushes are doing just fine.  It has, however, been cold enough to warrant making some soups and general comfort foods.

Chili is one of Nick’s absolute favorite foods, so it seemed like a good time to make a batch of chili. This recipe is based mostly on my usual recipe, which you can find here.  On a side note, I posted the original recipe over six years ago.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long.  Some of you have been visiting that entire time, or very close to it.  Thank you to all of you who visit and comment.  I enjoy your online company.

Anyway, back to the recipe. 

The biggest modification I made to this recipe was with the meat.  I’m not sure about where you are, but meat seems to be in very short supply here.  We’re in the western part of the state, and my sister is in kind of the middle of the state, and she said it’s the same there.  We have a chest freezer, and I tend to shop sales and stock up anyway, so we were actually in pretty good shape going into this, without panic buying.  However, it does seem prudent to try and stretch things a bit more now.  It seems like every time a new restriction goes into place there’s another round of panic buying, and I just don’t think we’ve reached the height of our social distancing yet.  So, again, I think it’s prudent to go ahead and get a little creative now instead of being forced to get super creative later.

We had three leftover grilled hamburgers in the freezer, so I decided to use them instead of a package of ground beef.

I defrosted them and chopped them up into very small pieces, and used them in place of the usual ground beef.

I browned the onion (half a yellow onion and half a red onion that were in the fridge leftover from other meals) and pepper (from the freezer) in a small amount of avocado oil.  We happen to have a large bottle of avocado oil at the moment, so that’s why I chose it.  I really think whatever your usual oil of choice is will be perfectly fine. 

I added everything to the Crock Pot, and just stirred in the taco seasoning, chili powder, and cumin since they weren’t cooked with the meat.  I left it on low, and it was ready for dinner.

We ate it over macaroni noodles and topped it with shredded cheese and sour cream.

It was delicious!   This turned out to be a very good recipe modification.  The grilled meat really added a depth of flavor to the chili.  Nick said it was the best chili he has ever had.  I think I may try to keep some grilled hamburgers in the freezer for chili in the future. 

I highly recommend giving this a try if you happen to have any grilled hamburgers on hand.

So what about you?  Do you enjoy chili?  Are you modifying any recipes due to lack of availability of certain items?

Easy (Lazy) Slow Cooker Chili

This isn’t a made from scratch recipe, but it is delicious.  I’m all in favor of made from scratch recipes, but sometimes the reality is that they’re just not possible. 

Does it seem to you that your obligations, appointments, social engagements, etc. are never spread evenly throughout the month, but instead are all in the same week or three to four day period?  This certainly seems to happen around our house!  Last week was our super busy, this is when everything is happening week.  Some of what we had going on was fun stuff (pumpkin carving!) so I’m definitely not complaining, but it still made for a busy week.

Busy weeks call for fast, easy dinners and this one definitely fits the bill.  My friend Crystal and I carved pumpkins Wednesday night, so I wanted a dinner that wouldn’t require me standing over the stove.  It was also very cold Wednesday, so chili just seemed perfect.  Here’s the recipe:

½ pound ground beef

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 banana pepper, chopped (optional)

1 packet taco seasoning

2/3 cup water

chili powder and cumin to taste

2 jars (24 oz. each) pasta or marinara sauce

2 cans (15.5 oz. each) pinto beans, drained

2 cans (15.5 oz. each) kidney beans, drained

1 can (14.5 oz) tomatoes with jalapenos, drained (any type of canned tomatoes will do, this is just what I had on hand)

1 can (15.5 oz.) garbanzo beans, drained

1 cup water

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

A few sprinkles of black pepper

¼ - ½ tsp red pepper flakes

Brown ground beef with pepper(s), onion, and chili and powder and cumin to taste.  Add taco seasoning and water.  Simmer for about five minutes.

(Make ahead tip:  do this part the night before, and you can just put everything in the slow cooker in the morning.  Or make a double batch of this and freeze half of it until you’re ready for chili again.)

Place beef mixture and all remaining ingredients in a large slow cooker.  Cover and cook on Low for 4 – 6 hours.

Sometimes we serve this over rice or macaroni noodles, and usually top it with cheese, sour cream, onions, etc.  We opted to forgo the rice or noodles in favor of saving time, but we topped it with cheese, sour cream, chopped onion, and diced avocado.  It was delicious!  This chili re-heats well, so the leftovers are great for lunch the next day.