Corn Chili

My kids love this chili and it has a few more vegetables in it than more traditional chili.

1 lb.ground beef (or turkey)
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped green peppers
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/8 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Dried thyme
14 1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes with Italian herbs
6 oz. can tomato paste, diluted with one can water
2 cups frozen whole kernel corn
16 oz. can kidney beans
1 tbsp. Chili powder
1/3 cup brown sugar
Saute beef, onions, and peppers in a deep saucepan.  Drain and season with salt, proper, and thyme.  Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste and corn.   Heat until corn is thawed. Add kidney beans, chili powder and brown sugar. Pour into slow cooker. Cover and cook on low 5-6 hours.

Try this with Corn Muffins!

Hearty Pork Soup

I initially found this on allrecipes.com and adjusted it a bit to fit our tastes. It's not every day that you can find a good soup recipe that uses pork. I went searching for this recipe because I had leftover kidney beans but I will also use this recipe when I have left over pork chops or pork roast. After one try, it's a new favorite at our house!

Ingredients
3 pork chops, cooked and shredded
4 carrots, sliced
4 celery ribs, chopped
1 cup canned whole tomatoes, chopped ( I made w/o tomatoes because I forgot!)
1 onion, chopped
1 can kidney beans
3 potatoes, cubed
2 cubes beef bouillon cube
A little bit of garlic (optional)
salt to taste

1. Place meat, carrots, celery, and tomatoes in a large pot over medium heat. Fill with water, almost to the top of the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer while doing step 2.
2. In a frying pan, fry chopped onions with 1 tsp garlic until browned; put aside.
3. To the soup pot, add kidney beans, potatoes and fried onions; cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Add the beef bouillon cubes, and cook for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Easy Winter Side Dish

This is a cold weather staple for us. This dish is easy easy -no measuring required! It's really hearty, it's inexpensive, it's colorful, it's healthy, and it goes with almost any type of meat. We like to serve it with pork chops or marinated chicken.
You will need to chop:
potatoes
carrots
celery
onion
pepper (red, green, or whatever color you like)

Start by boiling the potatoes, carrots and celery until soft.

Then melt some butter (or use olive oil) in a frying pan and saute the onion and pepper.
Drain the other ingredients and add them to the frying pan. Cook until all ingredients are soft. Be careful not to overcook or the potatoes will start getting mushy! Add salt and pepper and enjoy!