My first recipe: Chili

I love cooking. Cooking relaxes me. When I used to work 10-12 hours a day I could still come home and cook dinner for my family. If I get really stressed out I'll look for a new recipe to try-that's usually baking. It helps me focus, think, unwind. For me, working in the kitchen is the easiest part of my life. Even if it takes all day to make, I still look at it as easy and fun. Just as I derive pleasure from going to Disneyland, cooking is another pleasing activity for me. 

So, for the first time ever, I made chili for 30 people. I had a blast! A few people asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd blog it and send it out while it's still fresh in my memory. See, when I cook, I usually start with a recipe, but I have a tendency to stray from the recipe and wing it and that's what happened this time.

Here you go:

3 lbs. ground turkey

3 lbs. ground italian sausage

3-4 tablespoons of olive oil

4 onions, chopped

5-6 stalks of celery with leaves, chopped (I used the middle stalks so they were kinda small, and they had all the leaves-keep the leaves! They render a beautiful aroma when you're sautéing the vegetables-trust me!)

3 green bell peppers, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped

lots of garlic (ok, I used garlic from a jar-it was a squeeze jar so I put in 2 squirts in each batch)

1 can diced jalapeño

1 can diced green chiles

6-7 tablespoons of chili powder (note that I approximate because you'll want to season to your taste, and I added a little bit more at the end of cooking)

4-6 tablespoons of cumin

1-2 tablespoons seasoning salt (I used Tony's Original Creole Seasoning salt)

4 teaspoons of cayenne (less if you don't want it too spicy)

4 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes (I accidentally bought crushed instead of diced, but it worked pretty good)

12-14 cups of pre-soaked dried beans (about 3 lbs of beans. I used red kidney and white beans, soak in water over night, then rinse.)

2 cubes of beef bullion (enough to add 4 cups of water to when making broth, but you're just dropping the cubes in the bubbling chili)

I divided all ingredients in half and worked in batches. 

Combine ground turkey and italian sausage in skillet, crumble and fry until cooked through (trust me, cooking 1/2 the meat is a lot easier!) In your large cooking pot, heat up olive oil and sauté half of the onions, celery, bell pepper and garlic until onions are translucent and celery leaves smell awesome! Add 1/2 the cans of jalapeño and green chiles and cook for a few minutes more. Add half of the seasonings, stirring and coating vegetables. Add meat, 6-7 cups of beans, then 2 cans of tomatoes to each batch. Rinse 1 tomato can with water, keeping water to rinse other can, filling with water to get the tomato bits. Add that water to the chili mixture. Add another 1/2 can of water, if more liquid is needed. Toss in the beef bullion cubes. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Turn stove to simmer and cover pot. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. 

Olga let me borrow her mom's tamale pot so when I finished combining the batches, I put all of it in the huge pot for the long simmer. 

By the way, I made this day before-wise choice! 

How's that for my first recipe?

May I have your attention please?

We are right in the middle of tax season. You know what that means: On every main street corner you will see a person dressed up in a Statue of Liberty costume holding a sign that reads something like "tax returns completed here!" or "Free e-file tax return here!" The sign is long, and the person has to hold it and dance with it, just like Lady Liberty would, or I assume she would if she was holding that sign. (I have a feeling that she would have nothing to do with it). Mr. or Miss Liberty's job is to get your attention and get you to think about going to where ever that arrow sign is pointing to get your taxes done there.

As I was driving in my car today, I think I counted six of them on various corners throughout town and I began thinking about what God does to get our attention.  How many wake up calls have you had in your life? I know I've had quite a few and I could go on about what God does to get our attention. But that's just way too easy.

You know that theory about people doing whatever it takes to get other people's attention? You know, that "bad attention is better than no attention"? I remember falling into that trap while raising my children. Privileges constantly get taken away because homework isn't done, or the same misbehavior happens so the same consequences are given. At one point, I changed the way I gave attention, finding ways to give praise. Even saying please and thank you to my kids seemed to make a difference. Telling them I love them more, hugging, kissing and forgiving them made a difference. Sure, there were still consequences, but my attitude was different about those consequences.

Here's another thought: What if we were the sign holder and had to act silly to get God's attention? Think about it. What if we had to do whatever it takes, act out, misbehave, yell and scream (or dance silly for that matter) to get God's attention?

Guess what: We have God's attention all the the time. Forever. He is paying attention. When we feel like we don't matter to anyone, we matter to Him. When we don't feel loved, He loves us. He is there for us 24/7. When we screw up, we still pay the consequences, but He's still watching over us. What do we have to do to get God's attention? Absolutely nothing. We already have it. We will always have God's attention.

And I think He enjoys it when I dance silly. (But I'm not putting the Statue of Liberty costume on!)