Cornbread and Chili

Just thought I'd type a quickie while the angel food cake for dh's bday ( Happy bday, Ken! :)) cools- since I'm not at boot camp. *sigh* I should have made the cake last night, but I was tired after all the chili, cornbread making... or something like that. Anyway, the cake takes 55 mins in the oven, so I couldn't get back to boot camp- which is downtown and 20 minutes away. If only one could teleport.

Anyway, I've promised myself I'm going down to the basement to run on the treadmill and then do something else- wii fit? ddr? the workout video which slayed me last time? (maybe cause I had the start of the flu?) I'm going to surprise myself.

The chili turned out to be very delicious- as did the corn bread on the side. I heart my slow cooker: loved coming in from skating to the smell of chili cooking. mmmmm... We'll see if I can keep it up- occasionally at least. (Thanks Seashore for the link to that crock pot lady who did a crock pot recipe every day for a year! I'm so impressed by that!)

The Smoky Slow Cooker Chili (7 points for 1 and 1/3 cup) was the cover recipe from this month's CL. I guess for a slow cooker recipe it has a lot of steps ( learned from reading the recipe reviews). I also picked up meat I've never purchased before- frightening looking ham hock, I'm calling your name. It was super tasty though. dh really liked it, too. The girls, not as much- though they liked the meat in it. They still aren't really "saucy" girls (well, in one way they are- if you kwim. ;))

The changes I made to the chili: I realized in my rush to make it (and get to the skating rink) that I didn't have beer. I added beer later, so in the meantime, being afraid that there wouldn't be enough liquid, I added 1/2 cup of water. So...mine probably was runnier than it should have been. oops. I also, yet again, couldn't find tomatillos. (Must be an American store find. The grocer said he gets asked for them once in awhile, but Fortinos has never carried them.) Anyway, I used other tomatoes. On my next trip to Buffalo, I'm looking for tomatillos!

I also couldn't find pinto beans. I google it and used kidney beans instead. (I now have a large stash of a variety of beans cause I didn't google it BEFORE I went to the store!) I also couldn't find queso fresco- but having searched for that before, I knew to pre-store-google and I bought light feta instead. The descriptions of questo fresco sound REALLY good though. (Another thing going on my Buffalo shopping list.)

A recipe side suggested was corn bread, so I made the one also in this issue: Almond-Cranberry Corn Bread. I really loved it. I had to hold myself back from eating the whole pan. (as it was, I cut the pieces into 8, rather than 12) I made my almond meal in my coffee grinder (like I did with the oats for oat flour). It works "pretty well", though the almond meal really gets sticky and clogs the sides of the grinder. It didn't burn out the motor or anything, but I'm just saying...(in case anyone else tries it). I didn't save extra almonds for the top- since they suggested it would take a cup of almonds (it didn't), so mine doesn't have any on the top. I really liked the cranberries in it, my children did not- as I should have known and skipped. I had leftover cranberries though and wanted to use them.

Anyway, I think corn bread is a pretty personal taste anyway. If you like corn bread, try this one. It's really good! (3 points a slice- cut for 12 servings)