Chili con Crock-pot

I have a new roommate, purchased on sale for $20 at the grocery store:

And they say you can't buy love! Sheesh.

Emotional attachments aside, you can buy a Crock-pot and a lot of things in cans to make a really easy vegetarian chili on a Sunday afternoon.

All of the above were opened or chopped and added to the Crock-pot. Cooked on Low for 5 hours (recipe here)

When it starts to smell really good and your stomach can't take it anymore, prepare some cornbread and shred some cheese.

Spoon into bowl, top with bread and cheese (I like to mix mine all together,) eat and repeat as necessary.

That's serving #2 above, please ignore the crusty remains of #1 around the edges.

Sophisticated Tastes

Outside of my apartment when I got home yesterday:

Grey and damp. Guess I won't be eating on the patio:

But I will gladly have one of these:

To sip while I work on my tres elegante dinner of convenience with a side of comfort.

There's the convenience, made a bit fancier with tuna and some frozen veggies stirred in.

The comfort started with these guys, spoils from last Saturday's trip to the Graves Mountain Harvest Festival.

First sliced...

...then diced and thrown into a big pot.

With 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.

Then boiled 20-25 minutes, until resembling beef stew! (The result of some apples cooking faster than others.)

Thankfully, my home-made apple sauce didn't smell like beef stew, and tasted wonderful, all spiced and warm.

Two sublime antidotes to the weather outside.

Fall Break

Greetings from my apartment on a Monday afternoon. I usually have class until 5 PM, but today and tomorrow are "reading days" aka "Fall Break" so there are no classes. Some of my classmates have hopped planes and trains to go elsewhere, but I am using my time to relax and do the things I enjoy. Still, fall break is unbelievably awesome. I want one every month.

I woke up at 8:30 this morning, re-heated some leftover omelet from the other night and poured myself a big cup of coffee. Then I talked to Keizo on Skype for almost 2 hours (he's doing fine), made a list and went to the store. My frequent shopper card actually saved me $7.49 today, which more than covered my impromptu fashion magazine purchase. A quick lunch was eaten and I attacked one of the big items on my fall break to-do list: Apple Coffee Cake.

I found the recipe on Allrecipes, and followed it almost to the letter. I substituted Greek yogurt for the sour cream and my old, need-to-be-used-up apples (the inspiration for the whole endeavor) were over 2 cups when diced.

Apples were sliced and diced.

Don't be fooled by the healthy stuff on the top; there's a half cup of butter and whole cup of sugar under there.

And I am going to put even more sugar on the top!

Assembled and ready to bake!

The topping turned out more puddle-ly than crumbly, but I am certainly not complaining.

The whole thing cooled off just in time for my afternoon snack!

Much better than a mealy apple and the perfect grab-n-go breakfast for when classes resume Wednesday at 9 AM.

Drum Roll please!

You are now reading Two Betsu Bara's 100th post! [Cue marching band and confetti!] Yay!

I have been wanting to do a special post on a few occasions--like reaching 1,500 and 2,000 page views and now for this, nice round 100th post--but haven't gotten any further than thinking about it. Maybe at 3,000 page views I will get it together and do something spectacular (hint, hint, tell all your friends,) but for now all you get is a lovely fall themed meal.

Changing leaves are pretty exciting for a girl who grew up in a desert and I am really trying to embrace the season and all of its colorful, sweater-wearing, cider-sipping glory. The back to back to back string of rainy days the past 2+ weeks hasn't really been helping though, leaving me to celebrate in the kitchen much more than I am while trying to avoid puddles on the way to class.

Dedicated readers may remember this recipe, which I wrote about back in January. I did pretty much the same things this time around, but also added some carrots,

and two kinds of onion.

Both are sauteed in olive oil and smothered in chickpeas, canned tomatoes and spices. I stirred in spinach and Craisins at the end. What lovely fall colors :-)

No fall meal is complete without a fall beer.

The Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale is the second pumpkin beer I've tried this season, and it is not nearly as good as the Samuel Adams one by the same name, which was much spicier. I should have a pretty thorough ranking by the time winter rolls around; pumpkin season started about a week ago when Starbucks brought back the pumpkin spice latte and won't end until after the last pumpkin pie is served for the holidays.

I even have fall placemats now! Now I just need some fall footwear. The ballet flats and sandals aren't going to cut it much longer.