"Basic" Chili

A couple months ago I decided it was time to branch out in my cooking and try a new red chili recipe. Up to this point, when I wanted to do a red one I threw a few cans of beans into the crock pot along with sauteed ground beef (or turkey) and onion, a can of diced tomatoes, taco seasoning and maybe some garlic. It was good, and it worked, particularly with babies on hand. But the babies are growing, and I have a little extra time to try more elaborate recipes. In addition to that, a friend of mine keeps including amazing crock pot recipes in our REAL moms newsletter, all of which originate at the blog A Year of Slow Cooking, by Stephanie O'Dea. Another friend handed me one of O'Dea's cookbooks, and I fell completely in love and have been trying recipes right and left since. Of all of them, though, I think the supreme find has been her "Basic Chili," which, while easy, is anything but basic when it comes to flavor.

I'd say that if you wanted to try this you could just go to O'Dea's site and follow her recipe (and it would be amazing), but since I did a little tweaking, I decided to post the whole recipe here, the way I made it. I'll leave you to determine your own results!

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
1 diced onion
4 15 oz. cans beans, rinsed & drained (I usually use dark red kidney beans & some black beans)
8 garlic cloves, minced
2 15 oz. cans diced tomatoes (these can be drained)
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
3 T chili powder*
2 t cumin
1 t black pepper
salt to taste
1 T Frank's Hot Sauce
jalepeno pepper slices (you decide how much!)

Directions:
Saute the onion and ground turkey till the turkey is browned. Dump into a large crock pot with all other ingredients. Stir contents and set to cook: Low heat for a good six hours (you can go longer--it doesn't hurt) or high for four.

* The second time I went to make this I realized I was all out of chili powder. I've been wondering what goes into chili powder, and had a suspicion I had all of the necessary spices. So I googled "chili powder" and came up with a lovely assortment of recipes, ranging from a simple mix of spices to ones made completely from scratch. Someday when the kids are grown I might try it from scratch. For now, I'll stick with mixing store-bought spices!

All that to say, though, I love the homemade chili powder. I think it adds great taste to the chili. The whole this is what Kraig describes as "bright." Here's the chili powder mix if you'd like to try it:

Mix the following:
2 T smoked paprika
2 t oregano
1 1/4 t cumin
1 1/4 t garlic powder
1 1/4 t cayenne pepper
3/4 t onion powder

This makes a little over the 3 tablespoons needed for the chili. You could probably dump the whole batch into the chili and it would just improve it. I think I might try that next time!

So there you have it. Basic chili at its finest. And to be even more basic, I have no photo to go along with this. I obviously am not used to food-blogging :) .

The Hardest Choice

My dear daughter Clare is a little--um--strong-willed. In many ways this is a blessing. I know where she stands on things, and she knows what she believes and isn't interested in following the latest trends. She's bright and boisterous, golden-haired and glorious. I never dreamed how she would so truly live up to the meaning of her name: "Brilliant light." There are many times I'm blinded by her (or sideswiped, befuddled, flabbergasted--those are other good descriptors).

So, yes, strong-willed. Unfortunately, a strong will out of control can be like a bolt of lightning, burning everything it touches. And while Clare has rained down her bolts off and on over the years, we've lately had an increase in them, and as a result she makes herself and everyone around her miserable. We think we've hit on a way to work with this, but it's one of those tricky discipline things. On the one hand, the behavior must stop--it's not acceptable--and Clare needs to be given the tools and structure to help it stop. On the other hand, we don't want a behavior change to be merely external. If her heart hasn't changed, no outward appearance is going to be worth beans down the road. We don't want our daughter to appear to be a "good little Christian" who has a heart full of rebellion. So that change is not something we can force on her. It has to be a decision made between her and the God she loves with all of her fiery heart.

That's what makes our ongoing conversations so frustrating every time we see a potential lightning storm. They often sound like this: 

"Clare, you have a choice. You can choose to throw a tantrum about this, or you can choose to accept it." 

"Urggh!!! You're making me angry!" 

"No Clare, you're choosing to be angry. I don't have control over that, you do." 

(Groan, mumble, complain.) 

"Clare, you can ask Jesus to help you make the right choice. He wants to help you, but he can't unless you ask him." 

(More stomping of feet and gnashing of teeth.)

To tell the truth, I just want to shake her or hold her tightly or something and yell, "Why are you making this so difficult??? Don't you know you would be so much happier if you would just accept this with grace and move on? Why are you trying to be miserable and drag everyone down with you?"

Inevitably at this point, though, a still small Voice nudges me and asks kindly, but wryly, "Sounds kind of familiar, huh?"

In John 14:15 Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." He's not laying down the law in a high-and-mighty "I'm God and you had better obey me" way. He's stating a simple fact that is one of the hardest of all things for me to internalize. When you truly love someone who is put in authority over you (like God, or parents) you want to be like them. The way to be like them is to do what they instruct as the way to live.

I want to be like Christ. Really. I can't imagine anything more amazing than loving like him, having his wisdom, and kindness, and compassion. I want to live in complete obedience to God like Christ did, to the point where he was willing to lay down his own life because he knew it was the only way to save us. He faced the biggest fears anyone could face, the fears of persecution and death, with grace and humility. And God was glorified. I want my life to be like that!!!

But when I dive into my daily routine I find that I'm not faced with dramatic choices of life or death. I don't have opportunities to exhibit epic heroism for Christ. Instead, I have to get three children out the door so we get to school on time. I have to make sure that they are fed and hopefully dressed by then, and that their hair is at least brushed (forget fancy hairdos). I need to be sure that my family is fed, so there are grocery runs and meals to make. I want my husband to feel somewhat relaxed when he arrives home from an exhausting work day, so it's helpful if the house looks slightly picked-up. These are just a few parts of the routine. Add to that the non-stop interactions with the kids which range from the joyful and hilarious to the grating, frustrating and angering.

When the frustration starts to boil I know I'm walking a line and I have a choice to make. I can go my way and let the temper overflow. Doesn't it feel great to blow up now and then? And after all, the kids have deliberately pushed my buttons. They made me angry, right? So in a way they deserve my anger that can spew and roll over them like lava. We'll all just wash it off later. No lingering effects. Right....

 

My other choice is to step back and pray. To take my hands off and say, "Lord, I can't do this. My attitude sucks right now and any love, patience, kindness, and self-control here is going to have to come from you. I choose to obey you and let you work."

How does this play out? The few times when I've truly done this, the results have been shocking, but not because they were supernaturally miraculous. Rather, they seemed completely natural. I was still in the midst of the situation with my kids, but my perspective changed and I wasn't boiling with anger any more. I hadn't done anything to change my attitude, and so it wasn't till later that I realized there had been a change...and that change could only have happened supernaturally.

It seems so simple and obvious that the best choice is to obey. And yet over and over again I am fighting it. And the reason I am is because if I step back and let God take the reins I am giving up control and I don't know what the result will be. If I hold onto my anger, I can guarantee the result: the kids will be upset and I'll be kicking myself for the day with my guilty conscience. But hey! I got to keep control over that situation!

So as we talk with Clare about making the right choice, I find I'm talking to myself over and over again. And I'm praying more that my words will not just be for show, and that my desire for her obedience won't be so that I'll be the great Mom-in-control. I'm praying that she'll learn how to make this difficult choice now when she's young so she isn't fighting it so hard when she gets to be my age. Who knows how many marvelous things God will be able to do in her life as a result!