Leftover Beef and Bean Chili

I hit the ground running at work yesterday it was so busy.  But I was lucky enough that my train actually got into the station a bit early so I had time to eat my breakfast before the craziness ensued.

Another 6 smart point breakfast – 5 for the quiche, and 1 for the salad.  I decided to dice my apples up and put it on top of the salad, and used 1 teaspoon of light Italian dressing on it (1) and sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper.  I actually loved the salt, pepper and dressing on the apples.  It most likely will be tomorrows breakfast again too.

I ended up working through lunch yesterday, so I ate my lunch at my desk.  I think I talked about meal prepping chicken for stir fry on Monday.  I just sauteed the chicken in 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of Thai chili paste, then added the Frank’s ginger stir fry sauce to my veggies of zucchini and red pepper.  Even though I had five ounces of chicken, this whole plate was only 6 smart points – by 2 in the afternoon I’d only had 12 smart points and quite a bit of food.

One of the gifts the kadults got me for Christmas was this giant microwave bowl, that has a really tight fitting lid and a steam spout so no splashes in the microwave.  I’ll get a lot of use out of this, and it’s nice to carry back to my desk without fear of spilling soup on the floor.

But around 4:15 I got really hungry.  Like I hadn’t eaten much at all, so I was happy that I brought a Premier Protein shake to stick in my desk the other day.  I mixed that with some iced coffee from work and this kept me full until dinner times with the 30 grams of protein.  Another gift from the kadults – a really nice travel coffee mug.  My coffee stays hot until the last sip, and it kept my iced coffee shake really cold.

Hannah texted me if I had any thoughts for dinner.  Since her dinner wasn’t ready until nearly 10:00 p.m. the night before last, I told her to just go ahead and I’d make something for myself.  She had plans on making smoked sausage with onions and cabbage – which actually smelled really good – but there were huge chunks of onions and because she chopped up the cabbage, I couldn’t tell what was onion or not.  I asked if she minded if I used up some of the crockpot beef and she didn’t mind.  Hannah and Jacob “talk” about eating leftovers, but that rarely happens.

So as I was on the train ride home, I thought in my head that I had everything to make a chili with the leftover beef.  Only one tiny problem, I had no tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes or anything like that.  But guess what I did have?

For some reason I have a fear out of running out of Bush’s beans – I believe as I type this I have probably half a dozen more cans in the pantry.  I picked up this Tapatio picante sauce on a whim because 1. I love Tapatio, and 2. the whole jar was only $1.78 at Wal-mart.  I thought I could use that to make the base of my chili.  Um, best decision evah!  It’s spicy, but flavorful spicy.  I did end up adding an extra 1 cup of chicken broth to thin it out just a bit with all the beans, but holy balls this was delicious.  And 1.25 cups is 6 smart points.

This was delicious for a meal that literally took no time to put together at all.  Note to self though:  stock up on canned tomatoes!  But in a pinch, find this Tapatio picante sauce.

Since I had 18 points going into dinner and my dinner was only 6, I used 12 tortilla chips (4 smart points) to dip into my bowl of chili – basically here is the perfect bite.

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Huge shout out to my Aunt Martha for some more Christmas loot.  The amazing Whitley nuts that she and her partner sell – um, maple bacon peanuts – yes please!  And this spicy hot sauce that is made by friends of theirs – I already popped it open and it’s delicious – almost too spicy, but I can handle it.  Some jalapeno pepper and two pairs of the softest socks rounded out the package.  Thank you Martha and Will!

I did end up having 4 points of nuts last night before I went to bed, but ended up with 28/30 for the day.  Two days in a row of tracking and not going over my points!  I have WW today – I didn’t track at all over the long weekend, so I’ll be happy with a small gain and just move on.   Oh, and please don’t ask me where I got my countertops from (ha!) I think they are from 1972?!  One day I’d like one part of my kitchen to be made out of butcher block – we have those at The Chopping Block and while it requires some routine maintenance, I love them.

Here’s to one day closer to the weekend – make it a great day!