Food

Nothing to do with anything serious, but I thought I would post the recipe for Total Cheat Chili--I think it may be one of my favorite discoveries of all time, and it was an absolute accident to happen across this short-cut, but a happy accident, indeed.  I used to make Tomatillo Chicken Chili, which involved lots of dicing and cooking and washing of vegetables, stirring, etc, and I still love that, but this a very close version of the same thing that takes less than 20 minutes.  (Less than 15 minutes if you're doing the vegetarian version...) In my household of three people, this is enough for everybody to have seconds.

Total Cheat Chili (vegetarian version) 

1 Jar Salsa Verde (the green stuff) However hot the salsa is, that's how hot the chili will be.

Vegetable broth

2 cans white beans, drained (lightly rinsed)  Use whatever kind you like.

1/2 tsp chili powder

1 heaping tsp cumin

Dump the salsa in the soup pot, then fill the salsa jar with vegetable broth and dump that in the soup pot.  Add the rest of the ingredients and heat.  Taste to check seasonings, and adjust if necessary--it probably won't be necessary.  Enjoy.

Meat version

Same as above, but use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth, and add cooked chicken meat--as much as you want.  Since I have both vegetarian and non-vegetarian people in my house, I just cook one or two boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs (the kind that come in a big bag, frozen) separately while I'm heating the vegetarian chili, cut up the meat and serve it on the side--that way the meaties can throw some chicken in their bowl, top it with the chili, and have chili with meat.

If you want to double or triple it, go for it, but don't double or triple the spices--add original recipe amount, taste it, and adjust to your taste.  I'm a big fan of cumin, which is why there is so much in the recipe to begin with...

There, now wasn't that easy?