From Solo Lisa's Kitchen: Beef Chili and Chicken and Pasta with Homemade Pesto



New year, new job, and along with all these changes, a plunge back into cooking at least once a week. Making a week's worth of lunches and packing them into containers is my way of eating out less and saving more money. The day before the boy and I returned to work from the Christmas holidays, we shopped for ingredients to make this delicious-sounding beef and bean chili recipe I found on Epicurious.com. The amount of fresh jalapeno it called for turned out to be too much and we left out the chili powder completely for fear that the chili might be too spicy. But next time we might halve the amount of jalapeno and substitute chili powder instead. As good as this chili was, it lacked the smoky depth that chili powder probably would've provided.

After the chili was done, I took some homemade pesto out of the freezer to defrost and made quick lunches out of pennette pasta and chicken breast. I tweeted a photo at the end and someone commented that the chicken still looked raw. It does look really pink in the photo, but rest assured that it was fully cooked in real life.



Are you into cooking? What have you made in your kitchen lately?

7 comments

  1. SO jealous lol. At the moment my stove/oven doesn't work, so no cooking for me. But I actually absolutely love to cook, and will be moving in the next month, so I'm looking forward to cooking again. My favorite thing to make is vegetarian stews and cupcakes. Your chili looks awesome! Will have to add that to my list of things I'll cook once I have a stove :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I haven't been cooking at all this month! Bad me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yummy! You know I was just thinking I hadn't seen any cooking on your blog as of late! I made cornbread! lol I'm getting more into lipstick but I haven't worn a good red in a while. This look inspires me to get into red ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I need to get cooking. So lazy lately :) I blame the weather!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love chili so much! My husband and I usually make a big portion so we have dinner + left overs for work + 2 portions frozen for another work lunch!Lol Sounds too much, but it's not!

    Another delicious food I cook with leftovers to bring to work is a Brazilian style chicken salad. Whenever we cook a whole chicken thats what I make with the rest. And then it becomes chicken salad sandwich.

    If you want the receipe check this post: http://brokenproject.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/turkey-salad-crepes/

    I made with turkey (used left overs from Christmas), and instead of sandwich I made crepes. So delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks so much for stopping by!!!!
    Your comments were so appreciated!
    I am into an egg kick right now....
    easy!
    Here's to a great new year!
    xXx
    Reva

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love pesto!!!
    And chicken goes so well with it!
    Now, I'm starting to crave for one :-)

    ReplyDelete

Back to Top