Heartbreak Weekend

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It was a rough weekend for sure. The culmination of many months of expectation and hope were all dashed in a single evening. Thankfully, Sunday went a little better, but the damage was still done. If you are wondering what I am talking about, well, the Detroit Lions lost their football game and they are no longer in the Super Bowl chase. I'll talk more about that in my @bozz.sports post today...

I've really been loving this #weekend community that @galenkp started. Though I don't participate in the prompts that he offers as a starting point, I use the weekends to gather my thoughts and content for the week ahead, so this works perfectly for me.

Saturday was a rush of activity for @mrsbozz and I. We got up and did our weekly cleaning of the house quickly. Then my wife started her meal prep for the coming week. I've mentioned this in the past, but she prefers to get the prep work done on the weekends for our meals through the week. That way we just have to throw something in the oven to heat it up when we get home from work.

We have a brutal forecast coming this week in terms of the weather. Temperatures are supposed to get down in to the -15 to -20 degree range with the wind chill. That's -26 to -29 for those of your outside the US, or for the folks in Minnesota, "shorts weather".

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With such cold weather on the agenda, I thought it might be a good idea to make a batch of chili for this season. I actually just finished my final container of chili from last Winter about a month ago, so it was time to make some more anyway. I started things off with a onion, jalapeno pepper, green pepper, and some fresh garlic.

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I mixed all of that into my Instant Pot along with a can of crushed tomatoes, half a can of tomato sauce, some diced green chilis, a can of chili beans in sauce, a can of low sodium beef broth, and a small can of Bush's Baked Beans. I then added copious amounts of seasoning like black pepper, chipotle powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and chili powder.

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I used my handy dandy Spurtle to get things all mixed up and then I got to work on the remaining ingredients.

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I decided to cook the meat outdoors on my Blackstone Griddle so that it wouldn't smell up the house. I also set the Instant Pot on my work bench in the garage so I could just let it sit and simmer all day.

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For the meat, I used a half pound of ground pork that I get from the local butcher shop as well as a pound of ground beef that I get from my cousin's farm. He raises the cows himself and when he is trying to make room in his freezer for more, he sells the stuff he doesn't want to us for $2 a pound. If you have seen the price of beef lately, you know that is a dang good deal.

I don't eat a ton of beef anymore, so I only picked up about 10 packages from him last year. It's a great deal, $20 and those 10 packages will probably last me a year or more!

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I've been really impressed with the Kinder's brand of seasonings lately. This woodfired garlic one is really great and it doesn't have too high of a sodium content compared to some of their other offerings.

I sprinkle that on the meat after it had started to brown up a little bit.

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Before long, the meat was all browned up and ready to go into the Instant Pot with the rest of the ingredients. Just a couple more things to add and it would be ready to go!

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Half a can of light beer. I drank the rest, so this definitely qualifies for a #beersaturday post! Yes, it was only like 10 AM in the morning, but you can take your judginess somewhere else, there is no place for it here!

'

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With everything in the pot, I set it on the slow cook setting and let it go for about five to six hours through the day. I came down to the garage occasionally to stir it and to do a few taste tests to see if I needed to add any more spices.

While that was cooking, @mrsbozz had one final meal she needed me to prep for her on the griddle. I cleaned it off and got ready to cook.

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The dish consists of some marinated chicken and potatoes that she pre boiled in the house so that they would get tender enough. It can be hard to get potatoes tender on the griddle without burning
unless you cut the heat down a bit and use a dome with some steam to cook them. Even then, it's a little hard to manage.

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With the chicken cooked through and everything mixed together, I then add this garlic buffalo hot sauce from Frank's that we really enjoy.

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Let it cook off a bit more with the hot sauce on it and in a couple of minutes dinner is all prepped for later in the week. Just be sure not to breathe in the fumes from the hot sauce cooking off. It can really clean out your sinuses!

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With the meals all prepped and my chili simmering down in the garage, I sat down to a lunch of leftovers from the BBQ joint we had gotten take out from the night before. St. Louis style ribs, Tri-Tip, baked beans, and mashed potatoes. It was delicious!

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After the chili had "cooked" most of the day, I let it cool a bit and transferred it to some Solo cups we had sitting around the house (they weren't red though). I then put them in the freezer and let them sit overnight. On Sunday I got our vacuum sealer out and I cut the cup off the portions of chili and then I put them each in a Food Saver bag and vacuum sealed them for future use.

Now when I want to have chili some weekend I can just pull out the individual portion, thaw it out, heat it up, and I am good to go. I had a bowl of chili for lunch on Sunday afternoon and it turned out great!

It wasn't the weekend I hoped for in terms of the Lions winning, but it was still a pretty productive weekend!

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Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced