Another Pantry-inspired recipe

(or, how the Captain stepped up to his IT problem)

I stopped at Home Depot at lunchtime to pick up supplies I will need for this weekend’s projects. I left there $70 US poorer but with a trunk load of supplies and two eight-foot 2” x 6”s that I had them cut up to the correct lengths I will need.

At home for lunch, I didn’t have time to unload the car, just heat up one of the leftover chicken breasts. I made another sandwich and ate that watching the noon news.

Back at work, I emailed Phyllis (a System Admin) and asked her what my static IP address was. Why? Because, for the first time in a long time, I tried to remote into my work computer after hours Tuesday night and the damn thing didn’t work. Oh, the VPN connection was established, but I kept getting an error message trying to reach my PC.

Now, in the past, I would have just called Jake and asked him to take a look at it. It was nice to have my own personal Geek Squad (and he was free!) But, like having to worry about “Security Concerns,” it’s a brave new world around here.

So, Tuesday night I reviewed the connection information and found the static IP address I was trying to connect to was in Building 73 (where I used to work). Since I know that IP addresses are tied to building numbers, I knew that was wrong.

As I said, I emailed Phyllis today. Once I had the new static IP address, I emailed it home. After work, I figured out how to edit the connection information. Then I put in the current IP address and tried it again. Bingo! I must admit, I felt a lot prouder of myself than the occasion probably called for...

You probably don’t remember this, but back in March I was bragging about making soup with just items from my freezer and my pantry. It turns out I’m not the only one as I came across a video the other day of a chef showing a woman how to make vegetarian chili by only using pantry items.

There was no written recipe so I had to watch it several times to write down the ingredients and can sizes. I checked and found I had all but one of the items in my pantry as well (and that one item I wouldn’t want, anyway, LOL).

So, tonight, after treating the cats and changing clothes, I started making my chili.

I put a drizzle of olive oil into a large saucepan. Then I added one 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes (juice and all), one 15-ounce can of drained and rinsed black beans, one 15-ounce can of drained and rinsed kidney beans and one 15 ounce can of drained and rinsed garbanzo beans. Here’s where I varied from the recipe: it called for one 15-ounce can of creamed corn; but I HATE creamed corn. So I put in one 15-ounce can of drained and rinsed regular corn. I also didn’t have a 4-ounce can of fire roasted diced green chilies, but I did have a 4-ounce can of plain diced green chilies, so in they went. To that, I added one packet of taco seasoning (leftover in the cupboard from something or another) and three tablespoons of barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray’s, but the chef didn’t call out any specific brand).

You are supposed to bring this to a boil (or a bubble as they say in England) and then simmer it for 25 minutes. I did that, but then turned it on low and covered it to eat later.

It had started to drizzle, so I went outside and dragged in the plywood I had made into a tabletop extender for the old table. That plywood was outside on the trailer because I didn’t think I’d ever need it. But now I need some of it this weekend, so I put it in the garage to keep it dry.

Back inside, I made a four-cup pot of coffee as I felt chilly. I drank that watching the NBC Nightly News. When that ended at 7:00 PM, I went in to fix my VPN connection (see above), type the Blog entry to date and then went and dished out a bowl of that chili.

Interesting! The seasoning was spot on for a medium-heat chili. The sweet corn really helped the texture by giving it a nice “crunch” (I think I’ll add a can of drained corn to all my chili from now on). I do have to admit that I missed the sauteed onions and meat, but not enough to prevent me from having two bowls of the stuff. Hmmm... I wonder what else I can make from just my pantry.

I started watching TV, but fell asleep around 9:30 PM (being huddled under the covers probably didn’t help). I slept for about and hour and a half, so when I woke up, I was not sleepy. As a result, it was after 12:30 AM before I finally fell back asleep.