So I have an unnatural love for bananas.  I’m not really quite sure where this came from.  It’s possibly a combination of my father’s love of banana pudding, or my mother’s uncanny ability to make incredible banana bread.  Either way, I eat bananas in everything, banana protein smoothies, bananas and peanut butter, bananas frozen as popsicles, and banana flavored laffy taffies.  

I also love pudding.  Be it’s gelatinous form or its smooth transition from my mouth to my stomach (chewing is just hard work at the end of a long day), it makes my day go from a 6 to a 10 in less than 5 seconds.  

This is also *attention gluten free cousins and friends* GLUTEN FREE!  I just replaced the regular grahams that the recipe calls for with gluten free sandwich cookies, which turned out to be a great call.  Vanilla oreo-like cookies go great with pudding. 

• Ingredients 

• 1 cup 2 percent milk
• 1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• Pinch of kosher salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large bananas
• Gluten free vanilla sandwich cookies, or regular grahams if you roll like us normals most of the time.  
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (sweetened or unsweetened)
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

I’m a serious advocate of cheese.  If cheese were running for President, I would vote for it, not only because I love it dearly and dream cheese platters, but because I partially believe it could run our country better than the current government.  But that’s neither here nor there, we’re here to talk about cheese, not American inadequacy and greed.  Cheese is simpler and brings much more joy.  

It’s also almost Christmas!  I’m so glad that I’ve had Christmas parties to bake for, but I’ll take any excuse to buy some raw ingredients and hide in the kitchen for hours like a mad scientist.  

I made this for my girl’s Bible study Christmas party, and it took approximately 10 minutes to do, which is fast even for us lazy bakers  

Ingredients:

• One tube of Crescent rolls, this is one thing I wish I could eat every day, a warm crescent roll with butter, and honey, and maybe some apple butter.  
• An 8oz round of Brie.  Don’t take the wax off. 
• 3 Tbsp of raspberry jam
• 1 Tbsp of apricot jam  

• Cut the brie in half horizontally, and separate it wax sides down.  These are like two cute little wheels that you really want to eat, but just wait, because the end result is way better than the raw ingredients, which is something I rarely say.  Who wants cookies when you can eat cookie dough? 

• Spread your jam and mix it up well, then stack the cheese wheels together and make a cheese and jam sandwich.  

• Unroll the crescent dough and divide it in half along the dotted line.  Using a small section, cut out some pieces that look like small leaves, and roll some dough balls to be berries.  This is just seasonal presentation really, it’s all about being jazzy. 
• Bake it for 8-11 minutes at 350 

Then your crescent flower is lovely.  

• Wrap your brie in the rest of the crescent dough, and make sure it’s sealed, otherwise you’ll end up with a bubbly jammy mess all over your pan, the oven, and the world.  It might get that out of control.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350

• Bring it out when it’s nice and brown, and carefully transfer it onto a plate, then bedazzle it with your little pastry flower, you’ll feel like a pastry artist.  

And it was delicious, and easy, and very holiday oriented.  I think we should have a holiday called “easy appetizer day,” and everyone has to bring something that took about 10 minutes to make.  This could really go somewhere.

Merry Christmas week! 

This was my first attempt at gingerbread house building this year, it’s a prototype and very rough, and possibly a little structurally unsound.  Note the glass acting as a buttress.  

Oh, the smell of sweet, plump, ripe-for-the-picking cranberries.  Their bright, red color invites you to sneak individual berries as you prepare the dessert.  Their tart, tangy allure is best matched by the tiny, chopped, oh-so-sweet dates.  Every molecule of the two seemed to be calling for me to eat them.  And so I did.  I gladly accepted every invitation from every bright and happy cranberry, and ever sweetened, shriveled date.  

And so, I ran out of dates.  I was missing about 3 of the 8oz of dates that I needed for the recipe, so I had to substitute.  Therefore, this recipe is not exactly like the one my beautiful mother brews up at the beginning of every holiday season, but I liked it just the same.  

Ingredient list: 

• 1 bag (12oz) of fresh cranberries.  The ‘fresh’ part is imperative.  Somehow, between several phone conversations with my mother, I missed the words ‘fresh, not dried.’  Because of this ‘selective listening’ as my mother calls it, I had to take several trips to the grocery store to replace my giant bag of dried cranberries with fresh ones.  So get fresh ones the first time.  I promise to listen better next time Becks.  
• 8oz of chopped dates
• 2 Tbsp of water
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups of old fashioned oatmeal
• 1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 2 sticks of melted butter

And, for the orange glaze (hello delicious)

• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 2/3 Tbsp of orange juice (I just used OJ concentrate and guessed)
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla

• These, dear friends, are the pitted plums.  You might say “but it didn’t say pitted plums in the directions, it said dates.”  You would be right dear friend.  Because I ate a lot of the dates, I had to come up with some sort of substitute, and these were in my pantry!  They filled in quite nicely.  Great supporting actors.  So I used about 3oz of chopped plums.  

• Place your dried fruit, your fresh cranberries, and 2 Tbsp of water into a sauce pan.  Simmer over low-medium heat until the cranberries pop (about 15 min) and smash them into little tiny pieces.  

• Meanwhile, back at the ranch, combine your dry ingredients.  When your bowl is shiny the reflection looks a little psychedelic.  

• Add your two sticks of melted butter.  

• Stir, like all the great chefs do.  
• Eat, like all the great chefs do.  But seriously, just eat a spoonful of the mix like this.  I ate approximately….17 spoonfuls.  It sort of made up for the missing dates though.  

• Pack half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Pack it down like a woman going on a 4 week vacation to Aruba packs her overstuffed suitcase. 
• Bake THIS half of the crust for 8 minutes at 350 degrees 

• On the other side of the countertop, go back to your now cooling berries.  Don’t they look beautiful?  Tell them yes, they’re very sensitive.  

• Add 1 tsp of vanilla to the berries and stir.  

• Once your first crust is out of the 8 minute cooking cycle, gently (very very gently) spread the mixture over the packed crust.  

• This was about as good as it got without breaking the bars to smithereens.  

• Pack the second half of your granola looking mixture on top of the berries.
• Pat gently.  Lovingly really.    
• Pop it into the oven again for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.  

• And now, we must prepare the glaze.  Add the OJ concentrate (or Orange juice if you have it), the vanilla, and the powdered sugar and mix it.  Rocket science.  

• Throw it carelessly over the bars when they come out of the oven, the more haphazard the better, and let them cool completely.  

• Slice them into rectangles, triangles, squares, circles, octagons, or little baby dinosaurs.  Whatever tickles your fancy.  

TADA!  That’s it, and they’re incredible.  My mom really does make them yearly for her coworkers, for us, and for friends and extended family.  I gave them away as a present this time too!  I also gifted some to myself.  

Oh, and these are the flowers that my sweet beat brought home for me last Sunday.  I think he likes me ;-)

And I am.  

It all started with the Pumpkin Spice Latte.  My love of pumpkin is no secret to those close to me.  My beautiful mother in law began to call me P.G. (pumpkin girl) after the 3rd or 4th time I brought baked pumpkin goods to their house.  So the day the Pumpkin Spice Latte came out at Starbucks, I went completely mental.  I drank it all the time, I made pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin muffins.  So naturally anytime any PF’s (pumpkin fanatics) like myself came to Starbucks with loaded enthusiasm, I shared a moment with them.  I could see the desire in their eyes and the undying devotion in their hearts.  We bonded.  

One day, as I was expressing my love of all things pumpkin to Kathi, a fellow lover of baked fall goods, she told me she had something for me: a recipe (my favorite kind of gift).  The result was a delicious baked good called Harvest Bread.  Now, harvest bread has no pumpkin in it, but the spices and texture resemble that of pumpkin bread, and the taste is exquisite.  

So, Kathi, this is dedicated to you.  

Ingredients: 

• 3 cups sugar
• ¾ cups oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups mashed yams
• 1 6-oz can frozen orange juice
• 3 ½ cups self-rising flour
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ½ tsp all spice
• 1 cup chopped nuts

• Mix your sugar and oil in a mixer and blend it up good. I mean really good.  We’re talking homogenous mixture here. 

• Add your little egglets one at a time.  These guys deserved family photo before they were split apart, taken from their home one by one, and broken while their guts spilled out.  They never had a chance.  

• Add yer yams and orange juice concentrate.  The orange adds such a nice touch. 

• Mix your dry ingredients in a bowl.  The good part about the dry ingredient bowl is that it’s so easy to wash.  Simple cleanliness.  Such joy.  
• Mix the wet and dry ingredients, and pour them into small loaf pans, muffin tins, or large loaf pans.  I did some small and large loaves just to be versatile.  
• Bake at 350 for 45 minutes for the larger loaves (sometimes longer depending on how large), and about 35-40 minutes for the smaller guys.  

Just a note.  These Tbsp/tsp measurements are one of the best things in my kitchen (besides the owls), one of my best friends Emily gave them to me as a wedding gift.  Shell done emily, shell done. 

Voila! 

The Great Pumpkin Party that soon followed the Great Harvest Bread.  We carved pumpkins, watched The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and ate said bread.  

Phil, carefully and quietly working on his pumpkin.  Since he had never done one before, he dedicated himself like a master sculptor would have.  

Taylor, and her stick figure pumpkin man.  

Notice the heater beside Daisy.  We do it big on the Works porch.  

We made a small mess on our front porch.  It may or may not be permanently stained.  

My robot with his heart.  The tin man would’ve been proud.  

Tay’s Pearl Jam album cover. 

Josh’s cross pumpkin.  

Daisy’s mushroom.  1up

Phil’s masterpiece.  Mr. ‘I’ve never carved a pumpkin before.’ 

The beast’s pumpkin.  He knows I love owls.  

Daisy ‘owl’ing.  I greatly prefer this to planking.  

If your kids hate vegetables, they will eat this.  If your husbands hate vegetables, they’ll probably pretend not to like it just to keep with tradition, but they’ll secretly like it too.  I theorize that even those with ovaphobia (yes, a fear of eggs exists) would like them because when it’s all mixed together it doesn’t look or act like an egg dish.  It just basically tastes like spicy, flavorful zucchini covered in a creamy cheese like mixture.  

All this to say that this is one of my new favorite side dishes.  

Ingredients: 

• 6 eggs
• 5-6 zucchinis  
• 1 bunch of green onions
• 1 jalapeno
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1 Tbsp of butter or yogurt butter (Yogurt butter is so good I eat it plain.  It’s like tub butter but more flavorful, and I don’t feel so bad eating random spoonfuls.  Don’t tell my husband…)
• 1/4 tsp of Nutmeg
• Fresh ground pepper
• Salt
• 3 Tbsp of Parsley 
• 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese or pepper jack cheese

• Grate the zucchini!  This was the first time my poor cheese grater had seen something besides cheese and carrots, and the little guy got confused. 
• Add about 1 tbsp of salt to the mix while it drains 
• Squeeze the water out of the zucchini and leave it in the strainer for 45 minutes or so.  If you don’t have the time just make sure you squeeze it out really well and pat it dry with a paper towel.  

• Simmer your green onions and jalapenos in olive oil for about 5.433 minutes.  The timing is very (un)important.  Just get them soft and a little toasted.  

• Then, add your grated zucchini to the lot and to the pot.  Cook for about 7.824 minutes.  

• Add the parsley, nutmeg, and ground pepper.  If you want a little more, add a little more.  Taste and see that it can be whatever you want it to be.  I added more pepper I believe.  
• Cook the mixture until it dries out a little bit.  Not so mushy.  

• Turn down the heat, and hollow out 6 little indentations for your eggs to live in.  This is their new home so take your time.  
• Put a small dollop of margarine/yogurt butter/regular butter into each new home.  

• Crack your 6 eggs into each home, and top with a little cheese, salt, and more black pepper if you like pepper.  If you don’t then never use any.  
• Put it into the oven in the same skillet (assuming an oven safe skillet) at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  

• Once your whites have turned opaque (don’t you love that word?) and your yolks are at the desired consistency (I like mine a little runny still, they taste more like cheese that way, and oh how I love cheese), take them out and top them with a few more green onions!  
• One thing I have to mention while on the subject of scallions, i.e. green onions.  I hate, and I mean hate, that green onions are also called 1. scallions, 2. green scallions, 3. spring onions, 4. onion sticks, and in some random places, 5. syboes.  This is why English is such a confusing language for foreigners.  I’m always going to call them green onions, and I will use permanent marker to cross out ‘scallion’ anywhere I see it and rewrite it properly.  Whoever had the idea to name them 5 different things was a nut.  And there are lots of different kinds of nuts.  

The moral of the story is….the skillet eggs with zucchini were DELICIOUS.  I’m going to make them as a regular side dish now because I loved them so much.  I ate the leftovers for breakfast too, that’s the beauty of the egg.  It’s a breakfast that you have to work for, and a dinner that’s easy.  Funny how preparation for dinner seems normal but for breakfast we’re too lazy to pan fry an egg.  ”I’ll just have something I can eat in the car.” Lazy America, lazy.  Warm breakfasts are your friends.  

On another note, this was my halloween costume!  I tried to get Beast to be a Jellyfisher, but he refused, so I was just a lone jellyfish in a big ocean.  But I loved it.  

The day Steve Jobs died, something else horrific happened.  My computer decided to die in solidarity.  Sympathy runs deep in apple products.  Ergo, I’m sitting outside with an extension cord running from inside to our porch so I can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful Halloween weather.  

I love Halloween for many reasons, most of them revolving around the insane amount of candied treats that are so ample all of a sudden.  The receptionists at every office seem to be under obligation to go out and buy massive amounts of candy to feed their “clientele,” and you won’t be hearing a single protest from me.  The Bit-O-Honey candy has really stolen my heart this year. 

On top of that though, I just happened to marry a man whose birthday is so close to Halloween, that his birthday parties are usually inevitably Halloween themed (poor guy).  So I decided to be anti-Halloween beast birthday this year, so I made buttermilk pies (one of his favorite desserts) rather than a giant cake in the shape of a candy corn, and I surprised him with a dinner at Casa Rodriguez (home of the ultimate green sauce) instead of a giant costumed halloween shindig.  

However, I had never made buttermilk pies before and the task seemed quite daunting.  It’s probably just the idea of a pie that gets me, it seems like there are too many parts for it to be easy.  I mean, I have to make crust AND an inside?  This usually seems like too much work to me, but I persevered and did it anyway.  

And by persevering, I mean I roped my culinary-savvy little sister Cara into making the crust for me.  If you’d like a recipe for a couple of delicious, flaky, buttery pie crusts, see this website: <http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/butter-flaky-pie-crust/detail.aspx>

Ingredients: 

• 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of buttermilk
• 1/2 cup of bisquick!  Yay this stuff is so good.  And you’ll have plenty leftover for pancakes the next morning
• 1/3 cup of butter
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 3 eggs

• This is the amazingly, happily easy part.  I think I giggled with glee when I wasn’t told to seaparate my dry and wet ingredients into separate bowls.  I hate doing extra dishes, I’ll even eat our of containers with spoons to avoid washing a dish.  
• Put ALL your ingredients into a bowl, and beat with an electric mixer for 1 minute.  Just mix it with a spatula a little bit first, otherwise it literally spills everywhere with all that liquid and such.  I had to clean up quite a bit of counter space.  

• Prepare your pie dough!  My recipe had me chill it, and then roll it out onto a floured surface.  I won’t tell anyone if you use frozen pie crust.  
• Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes, until your toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean! 

And here they are!  Due to the bubbly appearance at the top, I deduced that I probably over-aerated it in the mixer.  Maybe less than a minute will do for yours, just make sure it’s nice and mixed up.  It tasted SO good though!  The beast approved.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….

• And, since I had a little pie dough leftover, I made an apple tart!  It’s 3 ingredients included: Remaining dough, 1 apple, cinnamon sugar.  

• I flattened the dough with my hand, cut the apple into thin slices, and sprinkled on some cinnamon sugar! 

• Then I rolled up the edges of the dough around the apples to create the ‘tart’ look.  So edgy, so unique.  

And here’s our little guy after about 25 minutes in the oven!  I just went by how soft the apples were.  And this was our after dinner treat that night.  

I had to hide the pies from the beast because they were for his birthday the next day, so I covered them up with foil, and wrapped them in a towel, and then I put them in our spare bathroom corner cabinet.  The smell was the only thing that was giving me away, so I cooked something with a lot of garlic in it that night to mask the smell.  So sneaky I am.  

Needless to say, my beast turned 27, and hopefully has at least another good year or two in that body ;-)

Oooooo doggie there ain’t nothin more Texas than pork n’ peaches!  We got some of them big, juicy, Texas peaches, and killed us some wild hog and went to town on his hide.  He ain’t never had no chance with us, that hog, cause my man can chase down any deer, duck, antelope, hog, or water buffalo this side of the Mississip.  

And by that I meant we got the pork and the peaches at our friendly neighborhood grocery store.  ON SALE might I add.  I can hunt for those sale prices.  

This is going on my top 5 list of things I’ve cooked because it was as easy as killing deer after you feed them all year, then hide and shoot them from a deer stand when they come to eat to the only place they’ve been eating from all year.  Cheaters.  And it was delicious. 

Ingredients: 

• The pork.  I used round about 3 pounds, because I have to feed someone huge.  
• 2 chopped onions
• 2 whole peaches
• 3 Tbsp of dark brown sugar.  Dark brown.  None of that light brown junk.   
• 3 tsp of black pepper
• 3 tsp of salt
• 3 cups of pecans (optional)  
• 6 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
• A dash of cinnamon
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• 3 Tbsp of honey
• A cup or two of water, depending on how soupy you like your dinner 

• Trim your pork of all the fat.  Unless you’re into that kind of thing.  

• Chop up your plump, persnickety peaches. 

• Chop your onions and press your garlic

• Throw them in the pot with your honey, dark brown sugar, salt, pepper, cup of water (or more), olive oil, red wine vinegar, a dash of thyme and rosemary, and cinnamon.  
• Let it cook on high for 4-5 hours, or on low for 6-8 hours.  I was in a hurry to finish before dinner and mine cooked in about 5 on high.  

This is about how it looked after we demolished most of it.  We had Taylor and Brittany over to join our pork and peach festivities.  Food is always better with friends, especially when they bring dessert!  

God has blessed the beast and I so much in College Station.  We’ve been surrounded by gospel driven community, and He is showing Himself to us in ways we’ve never experienced.  I’m so grateful for my handsome husband, and he shows me the love of Christ daily with his patience, his gentle, loving nature, and in his ability to lead us both in a more genuine walk with our Savior.  God is just rocking our socks off.  If you don’t know him, you should get to.  

And they enjoyed it just as much as they look like they were enjoying it.  They’re doing my next commercial.  

In other news, I’ve been fall crafting lately!  This was inspired by my friend Jamie, who also wanted to spend an afternoon sewing and glueing stuff to other stuff, so we happily glued, pinned, wrapped, and stuck all the live long day.  

Burlap is my new buddy.  It does, however, smell a little like a barn.  Happy new week everyone! 

Now that you can go outside without bringing a gallon of water, gatorade, a change of clothes, a portable fan, and a sweat towel, I’ve decided to start having meals alfresco.  Dining alfresco sounds like you’re eating dinner with an mustached Italian man.  Alfresco was also one of my vocabulary words in 9th grade and I liked it so much I’ve used it in sentences whenever possible since.  

In Spanish, ‘outside’ is translated to ‘a fuera’ which is nearly as much fun to say.  

So we ate a fuera, in honor of Mother Nature losing her hot flashes.  

I also got a ton of avocados for 2$ at the Farm Patch, my favorite little fruit stand in College Station.  They sell a ton of locally grown goodies, and they always have fresh canned fruits, jellies, and my favorite, fig preserves.  I also bought pumpkins from them.  

They also have pretty baskets and signs everywhere.  I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that I go there for fun.  

But let’s get to the good stuff.  Here’s the Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe, it was easy and such a great dish.  I ate it for dinner, the beast, however, needing more protein, was given pesto chicken to meet his protein needs.  Oh the needs.  

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup of cooked, shredded chicken.  If you’re feeling lazy, rotisserie chicken would be delish, if you’re not, or if you’re poor, you can make your own.  
• 1/4 cup of frozen corn
• 1/4 cup of black beans, drained
• 1/4 cup of green onions
• 1/4 cup of diced baby tomatoes
• 1/4 cup of cilantro (are you sensing a pattern?)
• 2 Tbsp of white vinegar
• 4 Tbsp of fat free mayonnaise 
• Salt
• 2-4 avocados!  Yay for beta-sistoserol, mono-unsaturated fats and vitamin E!  

• I just cooked some chicken in Italian spices.  

• Then I shredded it and cooled it in the fridge.  

• Add your thawed frozen corn, drained beans, cilantro, green onions, and tomatoes.  Mix it up baby.  

• Mix in your avocados right before you’re ready to serve, otherwise they’ll brown.  They still taste good but other, less knowledgable people, might have an unprecedented aversion to it.  The fools.  
• Then add the mayo, the salt, and your vinegar.  
• Also, when you slice your avocados, keep the halves in tact so you can serve the salad IN them.  It’s like a bowl with no clean up.  It’s eco-friendly disposable dinnerware.  Don’t waste.  Be green.  Be an avocado.  That may have gone too far.  

• Now stiiiiirrrr it all together.  If you’d like to do this with your hands, be free.  I encourage freedom of expression, but it will turn your nail beds green, and it takes a long time to get it all out.  The moral of the story is, making guacamole with your hands is not like molding burger patties with your hands. 

• Spoon your mixed chicken avocado salad into the empty avocado shells (shells?  skin? overcoat?), and put a pretty little cherub tomato on top for presentation sake.  Just don’t put two of them too close together, it could look awkward.  You could also slice the tomatoes up to avoid looking awkward.  

Here they are.  So pretty.  I served them with other pretty things, like wine, cheese, and crackers.  I also got funky with the outside decor. 

The beautiful day warranted some decoration.  And the meal was way better out in the midst of it.  

Happy October everyone!  

Welcome to AUTUMN SOUPS!  Football started, so I thought it was high time chili should too.  

One thing I’ve learned about being married to a football man thus far, is that the more food present during a football game, the less disheartening it is if they lose (or when they lose if you support the Cowboys), and the better it is when they win.  It’s an exponential multiplier of all happy emotions, and it satiates all sadness.  It’s like God designed us for the two to be combined.  

Honestly, I’d watch the cowboys if it still looked like this when they played

But it doesn’t, and they’re not that good.  I guess there’s always next year.  

But until then, there’s this!  

Food and football.  The ever classic, and healthy combination.  Gall bladders all over the world, unite.

It’s time for Turkey chili!   

Ingredients: 

• 3 Tbsp of olive oil.  
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 green bell pepper, essentially because the color is pretty.  You can leave it out if you like.  
• 2 whole roma tomatoes 
• 5 cloves of garlic (I used more, we like to keep away the vampires and smell like  fat Italians for 2 weeks)
• 1 small can of diced green chiles
• 1 Tbsp of kosher salt
• 2 tsp of chili powder 
• 1 tsp of oregano
• 1 lb of ground turkey 
• 12oz of beer
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can black beans
• Serve with avocado, sour cream, cheese, corn chips, or french macaroons if you’re feeling unique.  

And if you haven’t already, get in the fall mood.  Light some pumpkin candles, drink some apple cider, eat a caramel covered apple, or go roll in the leaves.  It makes the whole process of cooking this exponentially more entertaining.  

• Now it’s time to make the house smell good! 
• Put your olive oil, onions, and peppers in a stew pot until the onions and bell pepper are tender.  

• After the onions are über tender, use your garlic press to add the garlic.  I believe this is the best way to get the full effects of the flavor.  
• Then, add the chili powder, oregano, and salt. 

• Then add your roma tomatoes into the pot.  Stir the pot for about 3 minutes and get everything nice and soupy like.  No one wants weird crunchy things in their soup unless it’s a corn chip.  

• And now, add some green chiles.  I’m not endorsing Kroger, but they are going out of business here so we stocked up on pantry usuals. You may see ‘mild’ on the can and be slightly disheartened.  Don’t worry, what I lacked in green chili spice, I made up for in chili powder.   

• It’s time.  This is where all the men will drool while simultaneously yelling at the television for some an obvious face mask or pass interference that wasn’t noted by any of the vision impaired referees.  
• Add the meat.  

• Stir the pot until the meat is brown.  You can use this time to interject certain football-related comments.  May I suggest the following:  
• “That freaking Tony Romo….”
• “He should’ve lost 5 yards for that sack dance”
• “Run the blitz!”
• “Bring in the secondary, maybe they’ll at least try.” 
• Feel free to be creative, always compare the other team to women, little children, or old men, and attacking their hometown is a little sad, but can be effective in certain scenarios.  

• Now add your beer.  If you happen to accidentally buy a can that’s larger than 12oz, then you can drink the rest.  I hate when I make mistakes. 
• Simmer until the volume is reduced by half (about 10 min)

• Add your kidney beans

• Add your black beans

• Simmer this mixture until it’s all homogenous in it’s heterogenous-ness. Stir it until it’s thick and soup-like.  I suppose now would also be a good time to dictate your own personal desires to the soup.  If you like it think, add stock or more beer.  If you like it thick and hearty, cook it a little longer.  

Make sure and serve this after half time.  It’s better that way.  Build some anticipation. 

And this is my new fall decoration, quentin.  He’s the guardian of the canned pumpkin.