spring

Sorry for the lack of regular posts here on the blog. It has been a busy past few weeks and the blog has been pushed to the side for the time being. But don’t worry, once the craziness of our move and Adam’s new job has died down I will have plenty of time to devote to writing posts and giving you guys recipes!

I thought that I would drop in today and give you a quick update on what’s going on here in the Dawson house. If you recall my husband, Adam, was offered a job at Aon Benfield in Chicago. Once we found out and talked about it, we decided to make the move to Chicago and thus begun our search for a new apartment. Luckily it didn’t take that long and we found a great place in the Lakeview area of Chicago. We both fell in love with the area and the variety of things that are available to us there. It’s also a short commute for Adam which is pretty much one of the main reasons we were moving. We signed the lease and will be moving towards the end of May.

Now, I’m not sure how familiar many of you are with downtown living, but it tends to be a little bit of a smaller space. Our new apartment is a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with a living room/dining room and kitchen. While it is not super tiny, it is a lot smaller than our 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, home here in Sycamore. So we have been slowly going through our things and downsizing to only the essentials. At times, I look around and start to panic and think, “There is no way that we will be able to fit into this new space!” But I know that once we actually make the move and get everything organized, it will all work just fine. It’s also nice to get down to the bare essentials, sometimes we get so bogged down with “stuff” that we think we need but we really don’t. While I may hate moving, it does help to keep us from becoming pack rats because who wants to move a bunch of useless things? Not I.

Stuff we really don’t need…

I have also been feeling my way into the health and nutrition arena of the world to see where I can fit in and start my own career. There are numerous programs to become certified in a variety of things, so I’m not worried about finding the right fit. I am finding that I am most passionate about the food/nutrition side of things and have been leaning towards continuing my education in that sense. While I have nothing definite yet, it is exciting to plan my own future and think about what I really want to do. After the move I will be able to devote 100% of my time to pursuing that and I can’t wait!

That’s pretty much all the excitement that is going on in my little corner of the world. Thankfully it seems that the weather is slowly turning to spring here in the midwest and it has been a little warmer. I really do love this time of year when I go outside and can actually smell things like trees and grass and flowers. It’s also nice to not have to put on 6 thousand layers just to walk to the car and not freeze to death. Hopefully it stays this way and we can finally enjoy spring! I hope that you all have a great week and I will talk to you soon!

Beautiful morning for a spring time run!

While the calendar says that spring is almost here (technically it is already meteorologically spring, but that’s a whole different post), the temperatures here in the midwest have still been frigid. True, we have escaped the “polar vortex” but it still isn’t quite t-shirt weather. So in hopes to keep you warm and cozy, I have a slow cooker chili for you. It is hearty and delicious and will make you feel a little less sad that it just snowed 4 inches in March.

White Chili

2 cups dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight (you can use canned, but the flavor and texture is better with dried)
1 1/2 cup frozen corn kernels
1 large green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
4-6 cups vegetable broth
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne, more if you want a spicier chili
1-2 tsp salt

1. If you are using dried beans (which you should!), make sure to soak your beans for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight. You want the beans to be soft. Once they are soaked drain and rinse them. Take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the beans and puree them in a food processor or blender until they are nice and smooth. Add this to your crockpot

2. Saute the onions, corn, garlic, and green pepper until the onions are soft and the pepper and corn have browned, about 7-10 minutes. Add this to the crockpot.

3. Add in the rest of your beans and the vegetable broth. You want the broth to just cover the contents of the crock pot by about an inch. If you need more, you can always add liquid in at the end. Next, add in your spices and stir to combine everything. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Once it’s done, check that there is enough liquid and add a little salt if needed.

You could easily add cooked and shredded chicken or pork to this chili and I might add that it tastes really good with cornbread and topped with sour cream or greek yogurt. You could even top it with some of my avocado cream and it would be even more amazing! Enjoy!