In honor of it being:   a) finally cold outside b) Kitchen Day at our house (per the Large Family Logistics Plan) c) a dish my family has been asking for,   I am posting my recipe for Cincinati Five-Way Chili. My Mother-In-Law came home from a work trip with this recipe about 12 years ago. While in Cincinati, she and friends found that the city was famous for this dish. Cincyusa.com estimates that there are 140 chili restaurants in the city, and around 70 of them are owned by the same extended Greek family. This is not the Texas version of chili con carne...this recipe was created by Athanas Kiradjieff, a Macedonian, and tastes Greek. It is served like this:   One Way: chili in a bowl with oyster crackers on the side. Two Way: chili on a bed of spaghetti. Three Way: chili on spaghetti with grated cheddar cheese on top. Four Way: onions underneath cheese on top of  chili over spaghetti. Five Way: spaghetti, chili, onions, kidney beans and grated cheese.   Cincinnati Chili   1 Quart water 1 pound ground beef (double ground or run through blender quickly) 2 medium onions grated in blender 4 garlic cloves 2 Tablespoons white vinegar 16 oz. tomato sauce ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes* 2 teaspoons Worcestershire 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 ½ teaspoons salt (omit if using cheap chili powder) 4 Tablespoons chili powder* 1 teaspoon cinnamon ½ ounce Unsweetened Chocolate In a Bouquet Garni: 1 large Bay leaf 5 whole allspice 5 whole cloves   Cook over medium to low heat until consistency is like spaghetti sauce. *You may want to go easy on the chili powder and red pepper flakes until you (especially the children) have tried it first. I can't remember how many serving this is, but I multiply it by ten making six meals for us, if that helps.   You can pick and choose which toppings to add, but most prefer not to have it just plain chili in a bowl, as it is very spicy (not hot, just rich). Some folks like to serve sour cream with it as well.   I'm anxious to see how you like it! Happy Autumn!

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Nesting seems to be covering many aspects of the daily workings of our home these days. I've been painting, cleaning, ditching stuff, and reworking systems to be more automated. Reinventing the wheel on a daily basis is not as efficient for me as reading a previously thought-out list of ideas. Read that: I don't think well on my feet. I've been working on grocery lists, chore lists, stuff-to-pack-in-the-diaper-bag lists, and any other list that will help me (and the kiddos) keep ourselves in order even when life is crazy. The ladies at Choosing Home have inspired me to work on a What-To-Have-For-Lunch list. Whenever possible, we have leftovers from dinner the night before, or Live It Up Lunch, but in the abscence of leftovers, I am sharing some of the ideas from our list.   First, some of the ideas for the days when there are "some" leftovers, but not enough to just have that alone. Soup: Ok, kind of a no-brainer, and not all that interesting in August, but it really works for January. We mix different veggies and meats together, and usually fill in the rest with milk. A tip I learned from Joy of Cooking, is to not mix too many types of leftovers together. Pick a theme and go with that: Mexican (corn, tomatoes, beans), Italian (pasta, tomatoes, spinach, white beans), oriental (rice, brocolli, peanut butter). We serve soup with bread, leftover muffins, or pancakes. Open-faced sandwiches: leftover casserole, soup, sloppy joes, meat and gravy, etc on top of toast. Omlet: a few veggies and some chopped meat make fun omlets. When we have tons of time, we make individual "real" omlets. When we are short on time, we mix all the ingredients together into scrambled eggs. Salad: Dad prefers Plain Jane type salads, so when he's not here, we can be a little zany with our salads. Into a base of lettuce or spinach, we toss in leftover meat, cheese, boiled eggs, weird veggies that you wouldn't find on a salad bar (corn, green beans), nuts, bread cubes , etc. When we are starting from scratch without leftovers, here are some of our usual (and unusual) ideas: Cheese fondue: Shredded cheese, some milk, maybe a smidge of your favorite herb, melted together. For dippers, use bread (fresh or stale), raw veggies cut up, fresh fruit cut up (apples in cheddar fondue is awesome), crackers, etc. Yogurt bar: we always have plain yogurt around , so we serve bowls of yogurt, so folks can doctor it up themselves. We add pineapple, apples, orange slices, berries, jam, shredded carrots, a bit of ginger, etc. for a sweet version. Some folks eat it straight from the bowl, others wrap it in a tortilla, or serve it on leftover pancakes. Tuna/chicken/roast beef salad: we stretch the meat by adding shredded carrots or shredded apples to the mix. (Shredded apples is especially good with tuna.) We eat this plain, or with crackers, on celery , scooped up with carrot sticks, in a tortilla, or the "normal" way: on bread. Eggs: Boiled eggs with veggies on the side, egg salad (plain, on bread, in scooped out tomatoes, etc.), fried or scrambled. Quiche is also pretty quick to throw together. Leftovers mixed in the batter, or just some salsa and cheese are yum. We just use a ratio of 1/4 cup milk for every egg, then bake it at 375' until set in the middle. Baked potato bar: This only works if I think of it early enough in the day, since they take an hour to bake. We top potatoes with  leftover or canned chili, always cheese, veggies, yogurt or sour cream, green onions, etc. The kids love making their own crazy toppings. "Heidi Lunch": This is one of my kids favorites-literally a slab of cheese, and a thick slice of homemade bread. Butter the bread, and serve with lacto-fermented pickles. Add an apple, and lunch is done. "Beanie Weenies": This is one of my emergency lunches for a brain-dead-with-no-leftovers day. Saute chopped hotdogs with some onion, green pepper, and add canned beans. Add to taste: ketchup, mustard, mollasses, garlic. Mongolian Grill: The kids get ready their own stir-fry ingredients, then I saute each one individually. It is really quicker than it sounds-remember stir-fry is a quick-cooking method. We serve it over rice. When we are pressed for time, we mix everyone's ingredients (that they picked out and got ready) together and saute all at once. Bean Burritos: Another emergency food I keep on hand is canned refried beans. The kids can add whatever they want to these: cheese, veggies, salsa, etc. They also sometimes like them cold. We prefer to eat whatever we're in the mood for, but since that doesn't always work (i.e. life is crazy, someone is melting down, there is a newborn in the house), I have adopted Kim's plan from Large Family Logistics (scroll down sidebar for "Lunch Plans"). We have a menu set up for those less-than-perfect days, then, when things are going smoothly, we can eat a little more intuitively.   Also, when things are going smoothly, or more importantly when they are not, and we need something refreshing to change the direction of the day, we throw something easy into a basket and head out to the yard. This doesn't have to be involved-just think Heidi lunch: toss in a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, some apples, and a jug of water. When the weather is yucky, I'll let the kids eat under the kitchen table, pretending they're camping for a change of pace.   Two birds, one stone: another quick note about our lunches is that we do Science during lunch. No, no, no... not because we pull out the green hairy stuff from the fridge during lunch. We listen to science audio tapes during lunch. Currently we are enjoying the Jonathan Park creation science radio shows. They are a little hokey for the mommy's taste, but the scientific stuff is awesome! The fringe benefit is that lunch has to be eaten by the time the tape is done (thirty minutes), so we don't hang out too long and blow naptime. Priorities, you know.   Happy Lunching! And be sure to check out Choosing Home for more great lunch ideas. Because we know that crisis is only one bologna sandwich away...

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Our second child, The Flower Child, was out this morning for her birthday breakfast with Dad. Tradition is, that while the birthday child is away, the rest of us scurry around to get party preparations in order, as well as start on any other weekend work.   Since I was missing one of my biggest kitchen helpers, others had to be drafted. Over the years I have learned that the youngest child who can handle a job, gets it. This plan  frees up the older children to learn new jobs as well. I am not a big fan of "self confidence" and "self worth" that is based on nothing other than the fact that a person "is". Instead,  I teach my children their worth in the eyes of the Lord, and provide ample opportunities to learn self respect.  Mastering new skills and being aware of their valuable contribution to our family builds a child's self respect in ways that lounging around being waited on do not.   Using all my available resources, and taking into account Mr. Visionary's timeless advice to not refuse help, the boys were recruited for new kitchen duties. With a half cow coming from the butcher tomorrow and no place to put it (the two full-sized chest freezers and two refrigerator freezers are crammed), the boys learned to cook hamburger. They cooked and packaged twenty pounds without destroying the kitchen.   Also, teaching the boys cut short my time for other preparations, so The Literary Lady was able to try out cake decorating for her first time. She did a great job!     The Literary Lady decorating the cake, and Doodle "washing dishes".     Left to right: The Engineer, Little Napoleon, and The Dreamer. Professional chefs? Maybe. Godly servant leaders? Definitely.

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For anyone who is marginally interested, which, based on the post title should be painfully few, I thought I'd let you know that we added a colorful post about what we did with our first beet harvest on our new homeschool blog.

Also, there are fun pictures posted by my daughter, The Flower Child, including a almost-six-foot black snake, and soggy guinea hens.

You can check them out here.

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Learning a lesson the easy way is, well, easy. But learning a lesson the hard way builds character. At least that's the story I'm sticking with.

On my agenda before our newest blessing appears on the scene, is to refill our freezers with ready-made meals. I became an old pro at stocking the freezer, and built a lot of "character" along the way. We went for several years while my first five children (ages 4 and under) were tiny, "eating from the freezer" every night. I was flat busy during those years. After doing a time study to discover where I could become more efficient, it was decided that making dinner from scratch every night had to go.

Enter freezer cooking. I reasoned that if I could make two dinners in just a few minutes more than it took to make one, it was good. If I could make five dinners in a fraction more time than two dinners, it was better. Please note that this is not a proper arena for exponential math, no matter how efficient it appears on paper. Enter character building. Let the record show that a family will get tired of even their favorite meal when the freezer is stocked with twelve meals of it, no matter how much time I saved in the process.

For those interested in this method of bulk cooking, I will share a few more lessons learned along the way:

-The bigger the pot, the more you will burn. One enormous batch never works as well as a few modestly large ones. Just ask my smoke alarm.

-It is very disheartening to serve a meal that your family finds disgusting. Especially when there are eleven more just like it neatly labeled and packed in your freezer. Lesson: don't make something new in bulk.

-The difference in cost between the "good" and the "cheap" freezer bags is minimal compared to the cost of eleven meals worth of freezer-burnt ingredients. Ask me how I know.

-Label, label, label. Have you heard the one about the lady who accidentally added frozen fish broth to her chicken gravy? I have. In fact, I've never heard the end of it. Sharpies and masking tape can save your reputation.

I  hope these lessons can help someone else learn the easy way, because learning the hard way is over-rated, even if character is not.

Let me get busy in the kitchen...before my belly is too big to reach the stove.

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The thing about embracing the Nourishing Traditions mindset is that you simultaneously give up ever having clear counters again. To have fermented dairy and vegetables, stuff just has to sit around a lot. I'm a bit weird about anything sitting out normally (for me it is all about the visual), but somehow I am getting used to this. Seeing jars and bowls laid out around the kitchen makes me feel as if something productive is happening, even if all I am doing is standing there looking on.

I woke up to a busy counter this morning. It was clean and neatly laid out, appearing as if nothing was happening, but silently active underneath. Sprinkled around the kitchen  were:

- 2 gallon jars of sourdough starter, (which I have been too Chicken to try yet)

- 2  gallons of already-made Kombucha, with tight lids becoming tighter as it becomes carbonated

- 5 big bowls of Kombucha with cultures doing their work

- 1 bowl with this morning's waffle batter soaking in sour milk. (I have been using sour raw milk for soaking grains and cooking in place of buttermilk when it tuns out that we have it. It took me a while to get over the gross factor, but experience and frugality have won out.)

- 5 quarts of kefir, almost ready

- 2 quarts of lacto-fermented pickles, ready to be refrigerated this morning

After breakfast, I recycled the kefir grains into fresh milk, refrigerated the pickles, made the waffles, refrigerated the bottled Kombucha, ignored the sourdough starter, and peeked under the cloth at the Kombucha that is culturing.

In the quiet of my morning kitchen piddling, I pictured my busy counters as a likeness of our walking with the Lord. At those times when it appears that nothing is happening on the surface, He is still at work on the Inner Man, purging that which is bad, and creating that which will make us healthy. Sanctification although real and continual, is not always recognized by us or others until it bears its fruit at the proper time. The Holy Spirit is faithful that way. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1:6)

So I'll keep piddling, and I'll try not to peek under the cloth too much.

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