Cinnamon and Venison Chili: Who Knew?

Served with a cornbread muffin, a little cheese
and a dollop of sour cream

My favorite chili recipe – particularly for venison but I’m sure it’d be great with beef, as well – is this one: Award Winning Chili Recipe

It's one of my favorite things to make in general, especially since we have several pounds of venison remaining in our freezer in the garage. I double the recipe, freeze a bunch and we eat the rest over separate days.

The past few times I've made the chili, I have added cinnamon, and I really think it makes the dish. Others may have known about this all along, but for me it's a new discovery. I love it!

I've made it many many times now, and while I follow the recipe pretty closely for the main ingredients, I make a few tweaks:

My Garden Survived the April Snow in Colorado

I planted last weekend, and then several inches of snow fell, starting the next day. We had several days of snow this April. A good thing for the drought, a bad thing for, well, people who really want spring to start. I guess the former is better.

I covered my lettuce and spinach (and rhubarb because it was close to those) with a light row cover the morning I knew it was going to snow. I laid it loosely over the plants and staked it down. I'm not sure if they really needed it, given the hardiness of a lot of lettuce and spinach types. I left the kale open and the onions.

My garden is in the bottom left of this picture, the day it was snowing. This isn't the full amount of snow we received.

I checked on it the next day or may have been the second day after the snowfall, when the snow had started to melt.

Love My Slow Cooker: White Bean Soup with Italian Sausage and Kale

I’m a sucker for slow cookers these days. Recipes I can throw in the crockpot in the morning and come home to in the evening are the best.

It’s like I have a personal chef who is preparing dinner for me while I’m on my way home from work. The house smells great and the food is ready to scoop and serve. I don't know why I never did this much before this year!

Getting Cool Weather Plants in the Ground: Lettuce, Kale and More!

I planted some cool-weather veggies last weekend - pre-Snowpocalypse here in Colorado. (For the third week straight it snowed, in April.  I'm ready for spring!)

I was so eager to get out there, and I wanted my lettuce to get a good start this year. I know that you can plant lettuce even earlier than I did, as it is a frost-hardy plant, but being a beginner, I'm pretty cautious.

I even expressed doubts about planting when I did; my husband responded by telling me to trust myself. I've read so much online and in books about gardening this year that I have too much information in my head, and it's making me think too hard about what's right and what's wrong. I didn't think at all last year, and things turned out OK. I think a new gardener needs to balance what they find in books with what they find with experience.

What the Heck is this Quinoa? Here's How I Cook It ...

Quinoa. It took me a long time to figure how you were supposed to say the word, much less how you are supposed to eat it.

Now I love quinoa as an alternative - a much healthier alternative - to rice or potatoes. Which is great, because quinoa apparently is all the rage. But I know why now.

The Wikipedia entry for quinoa is here. The grain is considered a superfood, and is full of protein, fiber, magnesium, iron and phosphorus. It's also a source of calcium and, important for me, is gluten-free. Not that you'd expect a grain to be gluten-filled, but still!

Get Here Already Spring! I Want to Plant!

When snow hits Colorado in the spring, there's good and bad.

We were in a bad drought last year. Well, the country was. The mountains here in Colorado and up and down the Rockies play a critical role in the amount of moisture that gets downstream. Last year, not much snow fell in the mountains.

The drought conditions last year made the fact that my first year of vegetable gardening could be considered a success quite the feat. It was in the high 90s way too often!

My New Pancake Tradition: Banana Walnut, Strawberry Banana, Apple Pecan and More!

I'm starting to love my pancakes.

It's now a tradition in my small family - myself, my husband and my chihuahua (who, to be clear, sticks with dog food and only gets to watch us eat pancakes) - to have pancakes on Saturday or Sunday mornings. It heralds in the weekend. It's a nice lazy, relaxing food to cook as I drink my first cup of coffee.