Happy New Year!  In the northeast, the new year brings cold weather. Our white bean chicken chili will positively warm you on a cold winter’s night. We also offer a couple of upbeat craft projects, our garden update, and of course, the bears, who share their New Year’s resolutions!

WHITE BEAN CHICKEN CHILI

We were surprised when we looked back at our previous 64 blogs and saw that we hadn’t shared one of our favorite recipes, white bean chicken chili. It’s a healthy, warming comfort food, perfect for a cold winter night!

 

 

 

 

 

This chili is easy to make and delicious.

Ingredients:

• One teaspoon olive oil
• One lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast
• Three 15.5 oz. cans cannellini beans, rinsed
• One 16 oz. can fat-free refried beans
• One 32 oz. carton low sodium chicken broth
• One small onion, chopped
• One 4 oz. can chopped green chilis
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash garlic herb mix
• One teaspoon cumin

How to prepare:

• Chop chicken breast into 3/4 inch pieces.
• Warm olive oil over medium heat in a 5-quart Dutch oven.
• Saute onion in olive oil until soft.
• Sprinkle chicken with chili powder and add to Dutch oven.
• Cook chicken until lightly brown, about 3 minutes.
• Add cannellini beans, refried beans, chilis and cumin to pot.
• Stir to break up refried beans.
• Cover mixture with chicken broth.
• Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
• Simmer 20 minutes or until thickened.
• Serve with tortilla chips, guacamole, olives (Kevin’s favorite), green onions, salsa, sour cream or any of your favorite toppings.

Adjust seasonings to make it more hot or mild according to your own taste!

COLLAGE

The new year is a hopeful time and one way to maintain that feeling is to surround yourself with positive messages. We combined two uplifting thoughts into one inspirational piece of art.

We cut out letters from old magazines and newspaper inserts, choosing contrasting sizes, colors and fonts. If you can’t find all the letters you need for your project, use stickers or print letters from the computer. Once all of our letters were gathered, they were attached to a piece of specialty scrapbook paper cut to fit the size of the frame. Gift wrap or construction paper also could be used as a background. Total cost for our framed project was about $6.00! This easy and effective type of collage has many applications. It’s a fun project for kids and adults alike. We’d love to see your positive messages for 2016!

SPEAKING OF POSITIVE MESSAGES

People appreciate being remembered. We make a point of mailing birthday, anniversary and holiday cards to family and friends throughout the year. To make this easier, one thing we do at the beginning of the year is to note special occasions on a wall calendar that hangs in our living room. It’s an easy way to keep track of card-worthy events throughout the year. Who doesn’t like to be thought of with a card? We recently received a touching, handwritten thank you note from Kevin’s 5-year old great-niece, and it made our day. Positivity bounces back and forth!

PATIO UPDATE

We removed the decorative holiday items this week, but left the greenery and lit tomato cages. The greenery will be removed when it starts to dry out. Hoping the tomato cages will be glowing on the patio all winter.

Sign for the Patio

While we were designing the “Create Peace” collage, we came upon a beat up old door from a long-discarded cabinet. A quick paint job and fun message adds a bit of whimsy! Let’s grow!

Hitchcock’s view from our patio:

Is Tippi Hendren in town? (Rizzolty rozzolty now now now) This photo from our patio reminds us of Hitchcock’s classic movie, “The Birds”.

FOOD ART

THE BEARS

The bears are doing pretty well with their resolutions!

Enjoy!

Roy & Kevin