Thirty Days of Thankfulness

I was about to call this post something really sarcastic, like "Thirty Days... are we done yet?" but I'm trying to be less sarcastic and more thankful. It's my New Year's resolution.

Today I am thankful for:

• Time to read the newspaper


• Pumpkin muffins in the oven making the house smell so nice
  
• A clean house!


• Our home warranty, which covers our washing machine (thank goodness!)
  
• An extremely delicious weekend. Last night, Karl got out the Griddler, Jr. We got the GJ as a wedding gift, and it rules. My sweetheart grilled up some perfect yellowfin tuna steaks on it last night, and I made a warm spinach and squash salad. Mmmm. Then for lunch today, we made the leftover fish into avocado tuna melts, again in the GJ. So good.

And as if that weren't enough, I made my favorite vegetarian chili tonight. Look at these adorable cans of tomatoes. Could they be any cuter?


Here is the recipe. It's from Monty's Blue Plate Diner. They ran it in the newspaper about 10 years ago, and I cut it out and glued it into my cookbook.

In a 6-quart pot, saute the following in 2T olive oil for about 10 minutes, until tender:
2 stalks celery, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 medium zucchini, diced
1 c. sliced mushrooms
1 c. sliced black olives
1 jalapeno pepper, finely diced

Add the following and continue to saute for 5 more minutes:
1 T chili powder
1 T cumin
1 t salt
1 T black pepper
1/2 t cayenne (I skip this)
6 dashes Tabasco sauce
Juice from one lemon

Add 28 oz. tomato sauce, 28 oz. diced tomatoes, 14 oz. kidney beans, 14 oz. great northern beans, and 14 oz. garbanzo beans. You can switch up the types of beans depending on what you like or what you have on hand. Simmer the whole shebang for an hour; add water if you need to. Scrumptious!

A big congratulations to this month's blog give-away winner, ANNA! Anna, you can expect your apron and cookie cutters in 4-6 months. Just kidding, I mean 4-6 weeks. No actually, I mean 4-6 days. Wait! I mean 4-6 hours... I'm going to walk over to your house right now. I take that back... it's 4-6 minutes. I'm in the car and we're heading over. And we're almost there... make that 4-6 seconds!