Chili

People will be around today, and I wanted to have something for anyone to eat who happens to show up.  Every time I thought of something I'd like to cook, I seemed to be missing at least one vital ingredient.  We don't live next-door to a store, and I hate worse than anything making a trip for one item, especially on a day that has enough other stuff going on.  Cliff saved the day by suggesting chili.

As I was going about the preparations for chili, gratitude began to fill my heart for so many things:

1.  That huge pan, the only one in the house that will hold a quadruple batch of chili or a double batch of home-made noodles (I think it holds two gallons).  Thank you, Charlene Marlow, for giving me that pan years ago.  
2.  I can't raise good onions; if I try to store them, they rot in the middle.  So I dice them and freeze them.  I was so thankful not to have to dice four cups of onions this morning.  Thank you, lousy onions, for being faulty and forcing me to freeze you.
3.  Most years I have a wonderful sweet-pepper crop, but I always have far more than I can use, so I dice them and freeze them.  Thank you, pepper plants, for the good winter supply of a vegetable that is rather expensive to buy in the store!
4.  My two favorite cows had to be butchered last year, one because she wouldn't re-breed, the other because after her calf died, her udder was so messed up I couldn't have milked her.  Those cows were pets, but we have no qualms eating them.  Today three pounds of ground beef is there in my chili.  I know it's from Bonnie because there is a little fat in her meat.  Jody's meat is practically fat-free.  Thank you, Nadlers, for processing our milk cows so that they didn't die in vain.  I am so glad you are less than a mile from our house.
5.  I have my own tomatoes to use in the chili.  One quart failed to seal this year, so I put it in a freezer bag.  Used that along with one jar that did seal.  
6.  Beans, dry beans!  I happened to have a couple of one-pound bags of small red beans in the cabinet, so I soaked them overnight, cooked them this morning, and have now added them to the chili. 

And now, after all that gratitude, I just realized that we are out of saltines.  Maybe my daughter has some at her house.  Somehow I doubt it, but I'll see.