High Five for Friday #4

  High Five for Friday!!  This has been a great week for us and it feels so good to have another one under our belts and to be looking forward to the weekend.  Our week was full of fun, friends, and finished up with some great news. 

#1

I organized a Pi Run for 3-14-15.  I  About 20 of us crazy running Kwajis met at the big pavilion and ran 3.14 miles starting at 9:26 at night.  Of course, after the run, we ate all the Pi pies we'd made! I brought Sky along as a special treat and she loved staying up late and getting to do something that her brothers didn't get to do.

The Kwaj Pi runners, post run



The Pi Pies

#2

We broke our meat fast this week to celebrate St Patrick's day with corned beef and cabbage for dinner.  Sadly, I still haven't mastered cooking corned beef without my roasting pan so it came out pretty tough.  We also only had purple cabbage, which I thought tasted better but wasn't very traditional.  The kids were excited to be eating meat but Sky had trouble finishing because she didn't want to eat "that" part of the meat.  Of course, she meant the pink part, not the fatty part!



#3

This baby is fully mobile!

Water's been working towards crawling for a weeks now but he finally got it all figured out.  He's into his brother's cars and his sister's legos and manages to find (and eat) any scrap of paper that's left lying around.  Love this kid so much!

#4

Dinner with Friends

Our wonderful friends had us over for dinner.  It's been a while since we got together and everyone had a blast.  One of the best parts- all the kids loved the pumpkin chili that Heather made.  It was so great, I'm going to share the recipe with you.  You should also check out Heather's blog if you want another view of life on Kwaj.

Pumpkin chili with black beans and garbanzo beans

Ingredients:

• tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1.3 (a little more than 1 and 1/4 ) cup pumpkin puree (from the can or homemade)
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 can black beans (15 oz, 425 g) - with liquid
• 1 can garbanzo beans (7.5 oz, 212 g) DRAINED or white beans
• 1 tablespoon cumin powder
• 2 tablespoons chili powder 
• 1/2 lb ground sausage (I used Jimmy Dean Regular)

1) In a skillet, cook chopped onion and minced garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes on medium heat until soft. Put in crockpot. Then brown sausage until cooked through. Put in crockpot.

2) In crockpot combine cooked onion/garlic mixture, sausage, pumpkin, canned tomatoes, chicken bouillon, black beans and drained garbanzo beans and seasonings. Stir everything well. Taste your chili, season some more with salt and pepper if needed. Cook 4 hours on high.

3) Serve in soup bowls, garnished with chopped green onion or cheese (we at ours over rice).

*makes 4 lunch-size servings. You can (and should!) double this recipe, if you plan to serve this for dinner (larger portions) for 4-6 people!

*You can also add 1/2- 1 pound of beef as well (just cook with onions/garlic).

*You can also cook it on the stove instead of in a crockpot, if you want - just cook onions/garlic in large pot and then add the rest of the ingredients - bring to a boil - reduce heat and simmer for 20-30. 

Adapted from: http://juliasalbum.com/2013/11/pumpkin-chili-recipe/

#5

Auntie is coming to visit!  This is the best news ever.  I have missed her so much and can't wait for her to meet her new grandson.

How was your week?  Got any big plans for the weekend?

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