I?m Totally Justifying?

I’m suffering from two-day later syndrome today! Last night’s company Christmas party seemed like a late-in-the-week-type activity, which has left me feeling like it’s Friday today…all day.

Thankfully the PTO God’s gave me an early Christmas present this year, to the tune of multi hours I need to use or lose before 2011, so I was able to hop out of work early and snag a primo spot on a treadmill at the gym! Zipped through this 50 Minute, 5 Mile Treadmill Routine:

Followed up with 10 minutes on the elliptical at level 7. Ten minutes is about all I can do on the elliptical before I lose feeling in my feet. Isn’t that weird?

The whole while I was thinking about what I was going to do about dinner. Not, “Hmmm, what am I going to make tonight?” rather, “Is dinner SAFE to eat tonight?!”

Here’s the sitch… Last night I got home early enough to make tonight’s dinner – a big, bubbling pot of Chicken Chili. I was going to let the pot sit on the stovetop until it was cool enough to put into the fridge, but I forgot about it and went to bed without putting it away! RATS!

This afternoon I asked you on Facebook and Twitter what I should do. Waste a gigantic batch of my favorite sweet & spicy chili that sat out all night? Or, bite the bullet, boil the heck out it to kill any germs, cross our fingers and chow down…

The response was about 50/50, and…we chose the latter.

I know!!! I just felt as though this was one of my best batches of chicken chili ever, as I used Homestyle Busch’s Baked Beans (SUPER thick and sweet!) and TONS of chili powder and cayenne pepper. It was off the charts good when I tasted it last night!

I spent a good 15 minutes researching online too, and the majority of the info I found said I was probably fine to eat it. Especially since it’s winter and the house is pretty cool at night. I know, I’m totally justifying…

For a companion, I made something I KNEW would be good – Grandmother’s Cornbread!

Usually I try and make this recipe a little bit healthier by subbing applesauce in for the butter and cutting the sugar in half. Well, I didn’t have any a-sauce on hand tonight, so I subbed in…PUMPKIN!

omg it was AWESOME!

Based off of this recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk (skim, 2%, buttermilk or almond)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine pumpkin, sugar, eggs and milk in a bowl. Add salt, baking powder and flour. Whisk to combine. Add cornmeal and whisk to combine.

2. Pour cornbread batter into a greased, 8×8 baking dish and bake for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

You can’t really taste the pumpkin (I didn’t even tell Ben it was in there because I know he wouldn’t have eaten it if I did!) and half the pan’s gone if that tells you anything! So moist!

So 1 mug of chili down the hatch and we’re still alive…for now!!!

In other news, Hannah turned me onto THE coolest website today – KevinandAmanda.com. We’re talking posts on photography, recipes, scrapbooking and more. GREAT stuff.

Anyways, I clicked on one of their photo tutorials about taking pictures with Christmas lights and was BLOWN away! Amanda made a homemade, construction paper-esque filter to attach to the front of her camera lens, and you’ve GOT to see what the results were. SO cool. Plus, the post features their adorable dog. So, win/win.

We’ve got some Panera gift card winners! Kudos to:

Vanessa: I am most excited about giving a napa fire light!! They are so fun and I think my gift receiver will LOVE IT!

Erin: I?m in the process of converting all of our old home movies from VHS to DVD. I can?t wait to give this gift to my Mom. She will love it!

Have a French Toast Bagel Breakfast Sandwich for me! Oh and email me your full mailing address at IowaGirlEats@gmail.com.

Have a wonderful Friday Tuesday night all!

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Are you squeamish about leaving food out then eating it? What would you have done?

I’ll eat things like pizza that’s been leftover overnight, but really not much else. This was definitely outside my comfort zone!