Vegetarian Chili

I know it's only August, but we've had some cool evenings lately, which has left me excited for fall to get here (I mean, not too excited because summer is my ultimate fave). I can't get on board with pumpkin-y things yet, so the next best thing in my book was chili. I know my go-to chili recipe by heart, but I recently stopped eating meat. My mouth wasn't left watering after searching through vegetarian chili recipes, so I decided to create my own. Basically, it's about the same as my regular chili recipe, but with a few added beans (for extra protein) and no meat.

I grabbed any kind of beans I could off of the grocery store shelves, tomato juice and paste, chili powder, a green pepper, and an onion (full disclosure, I thought I grabbed an onion and didn't. In this batch of chili I used onion powder, but in the future I'll remember to grab that dang onion). I drained all of the beans and rinsed them, other than the chili beans. Those I put right into the crock pot. I used one cup of frozen lima beans (not the entire bag as requested by my kids). Once all beans were in, I poured the entire can of tomato juice in, scooped out the can of tomato pasta, chopped up the green pepper, and put a good amount of chili powder in.



The crock pot was put on low for 6 hours. At hour 5 1/2 I added a zucchini. At hour 6, we devoured. I added cheese and a dab of sour cream to the top of mine. Since the rest of my family is still (mostly) eating meat, I had a surprise for them. In a separate crock pot I made ground beef (with chili powder on it) that they added to their chili if they wanted.

Vegetarian Chili:

1 - 46 fl. oz. tomato juice

1 - 6 oz. can tomato paste

1 -  cup frozen lima beans

1 - 15 oz. can chili beans (do not drain)

1 - 15 oz. can pinto beans (drained and rinsed)

1 - 15 oz. can cannellini beans (drained and rinsed)

1 - 15 oz. can great northern beans (drained and rinsed)

1 - 15 oz. can red beans (drained and rinsed)

1 - 15 oz. can black beans (drained and rinsed)

1 - 15 oz. can garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)

1 green pepper (chopped)

1 medium onion (chopped)

1 zucchini (added at the last half hour of cooking)

Chili powder

Cook on low for 6 hours.

Make Your Own Stilts

We spent a few hours at a local living history place (Living History Farms) this past weekend. I love how my kids get hands on experience of what it's like to live in the past. On this particular day, we learned a lot about the 1800's. 

Grinding cinnamon in the drug store.

The minis got to play with toys and games that kids enjoyed in 1875. One of which was stilts. Yes, stilts. 

We walked away from the stilts and my (wonderful) husband says, "I think we can make our own." A half hour later we found ourselves at the hardware store buying supplies for stilts. We grabbed:

4 2x3 boards
1 2x4 board (for the foot holds)
large screws

The boards needed to be cut into proper heights. We went with 6 ft. and 4 1/2 ft. for pole lengths. The boys sat down and determined pole lengths based on the ones at Living History Farms and how tall they were (they want their friends to be able to use them too, so we wanted basic heights.

The cutting was simple and didn't take long at all. The entire project took around one hour. Then it was play time!

For future reference, don't try it with sandals on!