paleo chili

It’s March. It should be warmish and sunny. Instead it’s been cold and cloudy. We actually had snow on Monday. Ridiculous. To counteract the dreariness of this month, I tried out a new recipe: Paleo Crockpot Chili. It’s AMAZING!! I think this is one of my favorite crockpot recipes ever. The chili is super thick and very spicy. I didn’t have any tomato paste or stewed tomatoes, so I used 3 14 ounce cans of diced tomatoes. Also instead of a fresh jalapeño, I used the jalapeño slices that Tim fermented last summer. Muy bueno. Make this chili post haste.

I also tried another new recipe this week: Almost 5 Ingredient Pizza Spaghetti Pie. This one was pretty tasty as well. My only complaint with this recipe is that is takes a loooong time to make. You have to bake the spaghetti squash, and then you have to mix the spaghetti squash with the meat and veggies and bake it for another hour. So next time I make this, I would cook the spaghetti squash the night before. I would also add more spices, as my version turned out a little bland. Overall this recipe is a keeper though.

So why I am cooking so much, you ask? Well, I will answer you. Tim and I went to Denver and Boulder last week, so we ate out 3 meals a day for 6 days. We ate a lot of super delicious food, but I was really looking forward to eating at home again – so much cheaper, and you actually know what you are eating.

So, Colorado. I love her. I want to move there. It was so beautiful. Everywhere you turn there are nice people, gorgeous mountains, paleo restaurants, and excellent breweries. Denver and Boulder are both super bike friendly too. It’s like Tim and Heather heaven.

So, what did we do? We rode the Cog Railway to the (almost) top of Pikes Peak. We couldn’t go all the way to the top because it was blocked by a 75 foot wall of ice. The views at 12K feet were super beautiful though. We also met some really interesting guys who work for the US Wheelchair Basketball Team. Let’s see. We did 2 trail runs, hiked the Flat Irons, rode our bikes up a mountain 2,000 feet and froze our faces off on the coast down, hiked on Mt. Falcon and saw the ruins of an old mansion on the mountain top, took advantage of the local breweries (Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Avery), and got some amazing paleo food at Blooming Beets and Cuban food at Cuba Cuba. And we watched cable in the hotel room. We don’t have cable at home, so whenever we travel we take advantage – Jaws and Seinfeld re-runs filled our sleepy evenings. Even when we are on vacation we tend to wake up insanely early, so we are pretty beat by 8PM. We are some wild and crazy folk.

And that’s our trip in a paragraph. It was totally awesome. We’ll definitely go back for another visit.

And that’s my update. I know it’s been a super long time since I’ve written, but my excuse is the same as always – busy busy busy. I had YTT again last weekend. I absolutely love it. I’m still not 100% sure I will ever teach, but the YTT program is totally worth the time and money investment. I am learning so much. We learned about pre-natal yoga and yin yoga on Saturday. Yin yoga, if you don’t know, is a form of yoga where you hold certain poses for 3-5 minutes each. They get pretty intense in that time period. I was wicked sore on Sunday. I found it very calming though. There is a yin class at Indigo on Sundays, and I think I’m going to go. It’s a great way to get your ligaments and tendons stretched out.

Sunday we did A LOT of yoga. I learned 2 new arm balances – firefly and side crow. I really like arm balances although they scare me. I’m afraid of landing on my face and knocking all my teeth out. We also had some more beginners come to class on Sunday so we could teach them poses. Timmy Tee came and did awesomely!! I taught the class wide legged forward bend. Tim said I did good. It was definitely less scary than the first time we taught a pose. We don’t have class again for month, but I have a TON of practicing and reading and practice teaching to do! If anyone wants some one-on-one lessons, let me know!! And you have to give me constructive criticism back.

Speaking of being busy, I really need to take a sabbatical from watching TV! I have too many books to read, walks to take, yoga to do. I don’t have TIME to watch TV, but when I get home from work in the evenings, it’s so much easier to sit down and watch a hilarious Archer than to pull out my mat and start practicing. I just need to form the new habit.

Ok. I’m done for real this time. Hope you are having a great evening and are being more productive than me tonight. 🙂

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything – sorry about that. I was in NYC with my bros weekend before last, and then after that I got obsessed with finding a new home and couldn’t really focus on anything productive. Our current home is a cute little number, almost perfect for Tim, Lucent, and me. It has tons of character, nice bones, and beautiful hard-wood floors. However, as you know if you read this blog, I kind of like to cook. And I rather like having people over to eat my cooking. Our 791 sq foot house is not very conducive to this, however. We have a galley kitchen that is a tight fit for Tim and me, much less any company. We only have 2 bedrooms and one bathroom, which works out fine except for the fact that ALL of our relatives live elsewhere – anywhere from Monticello 1.5 hours away to New York City to Phoenix, AZ. As a result of our dispersed family, we have visitors staying with us at least 4-6 times per year. Within about 2 days, it gets to be quite cozy (aka overwhelming).

I added up all these thoughts, tossed in my life-long desire to build my dream home, and decided to meet with a local builder who builds quality, well-built houses. I’m still not sure if it was a good idea to meet with him or not. We discovered that we can, in fact, build exactly what we want. However, it will cost us at least $50,000 more than we really want to spend, and we will have to sacrifice our excellent location in central Davenport (close to the bike path and within walking distance of the grocery store, parks, and restaurants). So now I’m even more confused about what to do. Options are my bane.

To further complicate the issue, Tim and I looked at existing houses for sale over the weekend. In the neighborhoods we like (central or east D, close to the River Drive bike path or Duck Creek bike path), the houses are all either super expensive ($190K for a house from the 1950s that needs new windows, siding, etc.), or smelly (cat pee, anyone??), or oddly put together.

So we are back to square one – spend $50K more than we want (but can technically afford) or stay in our little house that is perfect for us pretty much 80% of the time. My www.mrmoneymustache.com-reading self says this is a no brainer. Stay here, pay off this house in 7-10 years and enjoy decades of NO HOUSE PAYMENTS. My recent philosophical readings of The Power of Now and A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy both dictate that instead of focusing on how nice it would be to have a bigger, better, more functional house, I focus on how much I love our current house, how cute it is, what a great location it is, how comfy it is. I recognize this with my brain, but my stupid heart still wants its 3 bedroom, 2 bath, open floor plan house painted in lovely shades of chocolate and grey with cedar shake siding. It would be all kinds of adorable and awesome. So, which Heather will win?? I’m thinking the brainy one, because Tim is more on her side. Maybe some day a long-lost relative will leave me a bazillion dollars, and then I can have my perfect little house. If there’s one thing Stoicism has taught me, it’s if you just get the one, last perfect thing that you really, really want, you will be happy. 😉

In between looking at janky expensive houses and trying to figure out how frugal I could really be if it meant Hlo getting a new house, I tried a couple of new recipes.

Buffalo chicken egg muffins: These little bastards were all sorts of delicious and easy. Make them post haste. This recipe will definitely stay in my repertoire. My only note on this recipe – I added 2 full chicken breasts, and I ended up with 10 muffins instead of 6. So be prepared.

Everyday Paleo Chile Verde: I made this yesterday, and Tim was a huge fan! He really liked the flavor. It was very limey. I thought it was good, but it didn’t blow me away. It seemed to be a lot of work too! The kitchen (the small, galley kitchen with very little work space, remember??) was a disaster, and I literally got a blister on my finger from cutting up the pork. I think I need sharper knives. It also gave us verde poop. All in all, though, I would make this again. I’ll just make Tim cut up the pork next time.

And that’s been our past week or two. Exciting stuff, eh?? Well, I better sign off so I can start doing some internet research about how to start making money on the internet in my spare time. 🙂

Tag: paleo chili

Final Chili of the Season

Cookin’ and home shoppin’