Baby, It's Cold Outside.

Nothing says lovin like a heapin, hot bowl of chili. I love all kinds of chili, as long as it's got a kick to it, and when the weather gets cold and icy, there's no better time for some hot lovin.

I'm always trying new kinds of chili, too. I just got a new recipe for chili that looks easy, but the recipe makes 16 gallons of chili, and I'm not sure I could feed that many people in my house. I'll keep you posted on how that one turns out.

While I love a good beef chili, the past few years have seen me coming back to my new favorite recipe, and it's not the chili of my dreams. Nope, its a vegetarian chili that is every bit as rib stickin', tummy satisfying as it's older brother, and it comes from Emeril Lagasse.

I stumbled upon the recipe a couple of years ago when I had been served a delightful bowl of veggie chili that had me yearning for more. I think I googled vegetarian chili recipe and his was the first to come up. A Food Network 5 out of 5 stars recipe, it's tattered and stained print out has been my go to chili for the past few years because it never disappoints.

Do your tummy a favor and give it some warm lovin. Cuz Baby it's cold outside...

Vegetarian Chili

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
• 1 cup chopped red bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 to 3 serrano peppers, stemmed, seeded, and minced, depending upon taste
• 1 medium zucchini, stem ends trimmed and cut into small dice
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 3 ears)
• 1 1/2 pounds portobello mushrooms (about 5 large), stemmed, wiped clean and cubed
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespooon ground cumin
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 cups cooked black beans, or canned beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup vegetable stock, or water
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• Cooked brown rice, accompaniment
• Sour cream or strained plain yogurt, garnish
• Diced avocado, garnish
• Essence, recipe follows, garnish
• Chopped green onions, garnish

Directions

In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers, garlic, and serrano peppers, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, corn, and mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until soft and the vegetables give off their liquid and start to brown around the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and stir well. Add the beans, tomato sauce, and vegetable stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cilantro. Adjust the seasoning, to taste.

To serve, place 1/4 cup of brown rice in the bottom of each bowl. Ladle the chili into the bowls over the rice. Top each serving with a dollop of sour cream and spoonful of avocado. Sprinkle with Essence and green onions and serve.

Stick The POTUS Fork In it

I am so done with this election.

I am so glad that after today it will be over. If I see one more Elizabeth Warren or Scott Brown political ad on TV I'm going to sucker punch someone.

At this point there's nothing more to say and nothing more to do except to exercise your right as a registered, over the age of 18 American and go and vote. That's it. We will let Democracy do the rest of the talking.

May the best man win.

Candy Coated Dreams

Like a kid in a candy store.......

Does the sight of this make you go all giddy and weak in the knees?

I took this picture in Paris, France in 2009 just outside a movie theatre and I remember the excitement of the prospect of being able to put together a whole bag of wonderful. I still feel the same way about candy and right now I'm putting together all my favorites so that I can bring that kind of joy and excitement to my clients.

For me, it goes back to my childhood and a place called, The Dover Country Store, in Dover Ma. The Dover Country Store was a musty antique shop located on a railroad track that my mom used to take us to. Now, one would think that the store, loaded with old antique furniture and goods that were musty and piled atop one another in an old barn would not be a place that a carload of kids would stampede into with joy. But the Dover Country Store also had one of the greatest penny candy shops for miles around and back then the candy really was a penny.

Nothing was greater than hitting up the gorgeous, colorful display with a pocket full of change needing nothing but my imagination and my taste buds. The small brown bag of candy that was mine was then lovingly carried off to some secluded area of the shop, usually where all the rugs were piled atop each other, for further inventory and careful inspection. It was truly the start of "retail therapy" for me. That little brown bag was torn and tattered by the weeks end, from moving it to different hiding locations and from it's rationed and dwindling contents.

Like a kid in a candy store.....

I know that's how my grown up clients feel when they enter The Candy Bar, and now they will be able to re-live some of those precious candy memories from childhood. Maybe their kids will make their own Candy Bar memories, or they will bring someone a Candy Bar gift of candy to make them smile. The option will be theirs and it will be my joy to offer them a little slice of wonderful.

Help me out bloggers! Share your candy favorites and memories.

You Can Insert "X-Husband" Too, Ya Know.

My ex-wife started taking flying lessons about the time our divorce started and she got her license shortly before our divorce was final, later that same year. Yesterday afternoon, she narrowly escaped injury in the aircraft she was piloting when she was forced to make an emergency landing in Southern Tennessee because of bad weather. Thank God our kids were with me this weekend. The NTSB issued a preliminary report, citing pilot error: Judy was flying a single engine aircraft in IFR (instrument flight rating) conditions while only having obtained a VFR (visual flight rating) rating.  The absence of a post-crash fire was likely due to insufficient fuel on board. No one on the ground was injured. The photograph below was taken at the scene and shows the extent of damage to her aircraft. She was very lucky.

 Happy Belated Halloween!!!

Up And Running.....

No more than 30 minutes ago, I joined the real world again. My power was finally restored and I'm grateful that we survived with barely a scratch. My town was very hard hit with wind, leaving in it's wake power outages and lots of downed trees all over the place, but now that the power is restored I feel anew. I can hardly complain. After three days of no power, I was finally able to put a TV back on and see what happened around me.

Look at New York City and New Jersey. Oh my.

NYU was clobbered and almost all of the dormitories were evacuated due to power outages and flooding. The school will remain closed until Saturday and classes will resume on Monday. Frick is fine, thank God. She and her roommates took the train on Sunday to New Jersey, hours before the rails were closed for the storm (inland not the Shore) to stay at one of the roommate's home. The family has 2 generators, and while they lost power and are still powerless, Frick reports to having generator power and having a ball. They are being treated like Queens and last night she text me, "Porkchops on the grill and macaroni and cheese! Can't get much better than this." I am eternally grateful to that family for watching over my baby girl during the Hurricane.

Frack is pumped...
Day three and no school and I'm thinking that he is liking this. The downside is that Frack's super excellent Golf team was scheduled to play in the State Championships on Monday, but that has been postponed until next Monday, which gives him a few more days to get prepared. GO WILDCATS!

My store never lost power, My Guy's office never lost power and all is well here in the aftermath. Driving to work, I see more and more fences, trees and power lines down, and I'm grateful that my home survived quite well. I'm thinking we are on the road to normal. That new normal I told you about.

Sandy's Not So Dandy

It seems I can remember a time when I thought living on the East Coast was truly a weather blessing. Sure, we get belted with snow in the long and hard winters on the East Coast, but if you live here, that's what you sign up for. We also get glorious, sweltering summers, like the one I am looking at in the rearview mirror right about now. I also remember, years ago listening to National news reports about frequent earthquakes on the West Coast and severe storms, twisters and flooding in the Midwestern parts of the country. I used to think that stuff only happened to other people. The ones out there. Not us here in the East.

But over the past couple of years our luck has run out. It's like payback for all that good weather karma, and we really are making up for lost time, fast. In the past two years alone, our region has been hit with devastating, severe storms, tornadoes (virtually unheard of in these parts) and ice storms more frequently than  previous history will tell. I, myself, have been affected by long lasting power outages at least three times to date. Last week we even had a "4.5  on the Richter Scale" earthquake.

So it should be of no surprise to me that yesterday, it seemed like there were millions of "Chicken Little's" running around the area, cleaning out the Home Depots of batteries and water in preparation for today's Tropical Storm Sandy. I was one of them. Gone is the warm and cozy feeling of hunkering down for a day off with family watching the storm. The fun has been replaced with worry and aggravation over the prospect of long lasting storm effects and the costly damage to homes. And I'd rather not even think about people's safety. It's not so fun anymore.

Preparing for severe weather has become a competitive sport around here and some become the envy of the neighborhood with their storm prowess. Personally, I'd rather be popular in the neighborhood for my grilling prowess, but who's complaining? This has become our "new normal" and I've got to ride it out and say my prayers. Sandy, please spare us all your wrath. These frequent Tropical Storms are messing with our lives and our livelihoods. Last year Halloween was CANCELLED, and if this continues as it's supposed to, this year is not looking promising either. Have you ever? Rescheduling Halloween?

This "new normal" just isn't normal at all. I pray that everyone rides out Sandy's wrath in safety. May the "force" of storm preparedness be with us and not the force of the storm. Please, not the force of the storm.

Crazy Cat Lady

I am SO not a cat person, but these keep going around the Internet and some of them are hilarious!

Happy weekend bloggers and try to stay out of the catnip....