excuses, excuses.

I feel like ever since the new year, I've been showing up sporadically to make excuses for why I'm not updating this blog. Do I really need to make excuses for why I'm not blogging? How silly. Life gets in the way, of course! I'm working a second job now (nannying for a good friend, it's great!) and preparing for a lot of big things: trying to purchase a home- this is a long way off, practicing drawing every day in anticipation of going to tattoo school, so I can become a tattoo artist- these things are keeping me very busy! When we were in our heyday, Summer & I were churning out baked goods daily, chatting over coffee and updating as much as 3 times a day, but I put a lot of things aside to get this blog going. To be quite frank, I don't get paid to do this, and I don't particularly have the inclination to hassle people to put up ads so I can get paid doing it, it's a LOT of work to churn out all these photographs on a daily basis, especially when I have a lot of other things to do (in the creative sense, and just the general- I'm a mom, after all).

So here, may I offer you these beans? They're lovely, right? I soaked them overnight (2 cups of kidney, 1 cup pinto) and cooked them this morning until they were not quite finished. I cooled them off, popped them in the refrigerator, and tossed them into a huge batch of chili this evening- enough to keep us set for a few days. This was bare-bones chili, the "Oh crap, we're out of food" chili, with half a large red onion, a small white onion, a handful of garlic, a single carrot, one 12 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes, a few bay leaves, and about 2 cups of water. I sauteed the veggies, tossed in the tomatoes and water, dumped in the beans, and let it simmer for about an hour and a half until the liquid reduced, the beans were fully cooked, and the whole thing came together. Seasoned liberally with chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, & salt. It was the perfect cool weather dinner (after a few days of sunshine, here we are, back to the dreary grey Portland winter) and it'll be the perfect lunch for me, my son, and our little friend that I'm watching tomorrow afternoon.

So forgive me, readers. Despite being too lazy to update, I'm still checking stats obsessively (of course) so I can see that you are all still coming back every day, hoping for something new. It's not that I want to disappoint anyone, the problem is that I don't really eat anything exciting. We have a pretty solid revolving menu in our house of things like pasta with canned sauce, brown rice & steamed vegetables, salad night, etc. I eat the same thing for breakfast every day, it's kind of pathetic (granola with plain yogurt and honey). But, a light at the end of the tunnel! A friend of mine is planning to make his spectacular beef stew next week, and I can't wait to photograph and eat it. Another good friend has a small backyard flock of chickens, and she's been making fresh pasta with her amazingly fresh eggs. We keep meaning to get together and make a "thousand layer" lasagna. So, don't give up on us. The year is young. (And if you get bored, visit my flickr for daily updates, it's not all food, but it's still something to stare at.)