Pantry Cooking Success #1

This past weekend was a monumental one in the Foodmomiac household. It was our first official weekend in the summer cottage that we rented. And, though the weather was chilly, it was wonderful. We did a whole bunch of nothing. I picked up some eggs at Chicken Scratch Farms, went for a 2 mile run (and then died, because OMG the hills in Michigan are crazy), read books, played catch with the kids, watched my elderly dog romp around the yard like a puppy and just CHILLED. I think part of the secret was knowing that everything was in order at home.

Michael got some kind of an organizational/anti-clutter bug last weekend while I was in New York, and I have to say that I am a big fan of this. He is definitely a little annoying with the constant reminders (nagging) to straighten and pick up, but the house looks GOOD. I also did all of our bills the evening before we left, so I didn't even have that unpleasantness in the back of my mind.

I was telling my neighbor that I was feeling a bit stressed about the weekends in Michigan because the weekends are my time to get everything accomplished. However, I think that's a "glass half empty" point of view. My new philosophy is that weekends away are AWESOME, because we are forced to accomplish everything during the work week, leaving the weekends for pure relaxation.

The one glitch that we still need to work out is the food shopping. For the past year or so, we have been doing our food shopping on Sunday mornings. This won't work on the weekends we are in Michigan. This week, we determined that Michael would shop Monday evening (last night) while I prepared a dinner using stuff we had laying around. It worked out fine, but I'm not sure it's the system we'll use for the long haul.

Anyway, last night's dinner was pretty successful! We grilled a humongous pork loin while we were in Michigan, so I had those leftovers to work with. First, I chopped up 1/2 an onion and 2 cloves of garlic and sauteed it in some olive oil. I then chopped the pork into 1/2 inch chunks and added it to the pot. After one minute, I added one cup of chicken broth, one can of diced tomatoes and one can of tomato sauce. I then poured in a VERY healthy amount of chili powder and one can of corn kernels. While that simmered away, I cooked up some Jasmine rice in the rice cooker and made a salad (we had leftover lettuce from Michigan and I made ranch dressing). Voila! Instant pork chili.