Mouth Watering Monday (and a sweet potato allergy update)

So I am getting a jump on my mouth watering Monday here, but we just had this for dinner tonight and it was YUMMMM-AY. Plus I really don’t want to be on tomorrow very much.
My mother in law gave me a recipe several years ago for her chili. She made it when she came to visit us in Missouri and I later called her and asked for the recipe. I was slightly frustrated b/c her “recipe” was in her head and she tweaked it every time she made it. For a new “cook” like me, that was hard to do. But over the years I have learned to tweak it myself and I no longer use a referrence for it. It’s so simple and easy, and tweaking it to fit your cooking mood is fun! Enjoy!

1-2lbs of hamburger

packet of taco seasoning

two cans of petite diced tomatoes (sometimes I use the cans with onions and peppers in them)

one can of black beans

one can of kidney beans

one can of a white bean (garbanzo, navy, great northern…take your pic)

*sometimes I put in a can of corn or green chilies too, depends on my mood

two small cans of tomato sauce

one small diced onion

one tablespoon chopped garlic (or garlic seasoning, but real is better)

Seasonings: cumin, paprika, onion (if you don’t use real), garlic (if you don’t use real), cayenne pepper. Just season to taste. Jake likes spicy and so do I so if it’s just us I use a lot of cayenne. For parties I make two crocks, one mild, one hot.

In a skillet brown the hamburger meat, onions, and garlic. When thoroughly cooked, add in taco seasoning DRY (do not add water). Mix around and once fully cooked, add meat to crock pot. Add in beans and tomatoes and tomato sauce. If you want thicker chili, use tomato paste instead of sauce. Cook in crockpot on high for 3-4 hours. If you want it to simmer all day, just put it on low. Makes the house yummy smelly too!

To eat with dinner I either make cornbread or quesadillas. I know, totally opposite side dishes. With the cornbread I put the cornbread in a bowl and pour chili over it. With the quesadillas I put the chili in a bowl, top with sour cream and cheese, and dip quesadilla triangles in it. Soooo gooooooood.

Ya gotta try this dinner! It’s so yummy! And if you have more hamburger meat than you need for the chili, since it is already seasoned, you can save it for tacos another night. Let me know if you try it!

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So I said I would update about finding out about Owen’s allergy to sweet potatoes. Now mind you, a doctor didn’t tell me this. In fact, they weren’t too interested in the fact that I had JUST fed him sweet potatoes an hour before his episode. I googled “infant allergy to sweet potatoes” and came up with a lot of the same scenarios. Check them out for yourself. From now on, I am going to play it safe and NOT give Owen any sweet potatoes. Poor kid, won’t ever know of the yummy goodness of sweet potato pie! Here are the sites:

Click Here (scroll down a bit on this one)

and here

and here too

and don’t forget this one (more for allergy resource)

Okay that’s enough for now. If you google other combinations of “sweet potatoes, allergy, vomitting, infant” stuff like that, you get more sites. One site I found (I’ll have to find it again) showed a controlled study in a small group of infants that had a sweet potato allergy. So, I think we’ll go with “sweet potato allergy” just to be safe.

Now go make some chili!