Chicken Chili

This chili is one of the easiest ever! Most of it involves opening a can and dumping it. If your name is Jessica Smith, the whole thing involves opening a can and dumping it in, more on that later!

I got this recipe from Niki, a colleague at Pawnee. Not only is she a great teacher, she is funny, stylish, and has such a huge heart for her students.  I think the original email that she shared with us, said I'm almost embarrassed to share this with you, because it is so easy! 

I have made this for new moms, Grey's dinner, and shared it with my friends who don't like to cook. It freezes great too!

So here it is.....

Niki Neal’s Chicken Chili

• 1 can chili Ro-tel
• 1 can Mexican Ro-tel with cilantro
• 3 cans of any white bean (pinto, butter, navy, great northern etc…) Drained
• 1 rotisserie chicken (Jess likes to use canned chicken, because it is easy. She LOVES her canned chicken!)
• 1 can of Stagg chili*…this adds thickness.

Mix together and simmer for 30 minutes. SO easy!! Serve with sour cream, cheese, and any other chili toppings you like.  This chili is kind of spicy! 

*Stagg Chili is the chili in the can, if you can't find Stagg any bean-less canned chili will do!

Create * Cook * Teach In iPhone Pics

All of these are 1 photo iPhone pictures. Some of them are self explanatory. Some may get a post someday! 

Fancy Sleeper for Riley

Basil Pesto in heart ice cube trays, ready to be frozen.

Rag quilt for baby Isaiah. Tutorial to come soon! 

Kindle cover 

Catching up on scrapbooking!

The Help Quote for my room

Trader Joe's Asian meal

Burlap Wreath

Banana Nutella Pie- Kent needs to guest post this one!

Cornbread muffins with Paula Dean toothpicks!

Wine Bottles

A perfect gift for my friends! We love wine! I used the Cricut to cut out words and "scrapbooked" on the wine bottles.  

Big Sis, Little Sis

Before I got my fancy machine, I would print out letters and trace them. I made these Big Sis and Little Sis onesies.  They were very time intensive (I hand stitched around the whole thing!) But they turned out so cute! 

Samantha and Scarlett Hopkins

Friday Funnies

I don't like him because he called me a Jew. He says I talk Jewberish.


On a side note, today we went to see Clara Ma and Nagin Cox talk about the Curiosity Rover that they helped name and build.  It was really neat to see Shawnee Mission students working on this cool project! You can watch it here: The Town Hall also can be viewed on Time Warner Cable channel 2, SureWest channel 18, and AT&T U-Verse channel 99.

Sweet Chili Edamame

My friend Erin posted a picture on Instagram of yummy looking edamame.  I asked her for the recipe, because she is a great cook. Her response, I don't know its from a restaurant.  So I did some experimenting and came up with an EASY way to make it! 

Ingredients: 
edamame
Thai chili sauce
sea salt

Directions: 
Place frozen edamame in a microwaveable bowl, cover with plastic wrap.   Microwave for 2 minutes.  Drizzle Thai chili sauce over edamame and sprinkle with salt. Enjoy!

Funny story about edamame and a warning!  We were eating at Seasons 52 with Morgan's mother-in-law.  We ordered edamame because we were starving after a long drive to Atlanta.  I don't think she had ever eaten it before, because she ate the whole thing and had a sour face.  For those of you who don't eat edamame, you only eat the beans inside, not the whole thing.  She realized that we were only eating the beans, and quickly changed her ways!

Wine Bottle Jack-O-Lanterns

I saw these cute little guys on Pinterest last year.  I really wanted to make them, because I knew that I would have wine bottles to spare.  I cleaned out the wine bottles, and used goo-gone to get the labels off.  Then, I bought orange acrylic paint and squirted it in the bottles.  I shook it up (with a paper towel as my new cork).  I added a hint of water to make sure it got spread around. I rolled back and forth. It does take a while for the paint to dry, if you put a lot.  I have been "rolling" mine for 3 days now and the paint is still not dry.  Finally, I cut out black vinyl for the faces and stuck them on there! Easy! My bottles that I chose already had green tops, so I didn't have to do anything to them. You could tie a ribbon to them.

You could do it on wine bottles that have not been used, and give them as gifts. That's what they did on the original idea! http://www.instructables.com/id/Wine-bottle-jack-o-lanterns/