Rainbow Chili + Our Halloween Costumes

One Halloween tradition I carried from my family was to have chili on Halloween night.  I know that's not super original, but it is a really easy dinner and very filling for cold nights hitting the pavement.  I knew I had most of the stuff for chili on hand, but I did grab a can of black beans while I was getting supplies for apple cider (and hot dang!  Cinnamon sticks and whole cloves are expensive!  I came up with a poor girl's apple cider recipe and I'll share that soon).

Chili is great because its one of those things you don't really need a recipe for.  I did want a little guidance on spices so I looked up a recipe on allrecipes and this is the one I referenced.  It also inspired me to add celery, something I never thought of before.  Adam and I participate in a food co-op every couple of week and so I had a ton of vegetables needing to be used up and I just started throwing stuff in.

And it looked like all the colors of the rainbow, hence the name

All mixed together and cooking

1/2 red onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 yellow squash, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced (I don't know what kind I used.  It was from the co-op last summer when I cut and froze them.  I do know it was spicy but not a jalapeno.  You could use a jalapeno though, if you like that amount of heat)
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cans beans, drained and rinsed (I used one can small red and one can black)
2 cans tomatoes (I used one can of crushed and one can of diced.  I knew the other vegetables would give plenty of chunkiness so I wanted to reduce that a little by using some crushed)
2-3 T chili powder
1 t cumin
2 t oregano
salt and pepper to taste

I cooked all the veg in a little bit of olive oil and salt until they were soft.  Then I added my beans, tomatoes and seasoning.  I stirred it all together and let it simmer on low for an hour.  Right before we went trick-or-treating (we ate after because Olivia is so small we wanted her to get out before the big kids) I turned it off but left it on the hot burner (electric stove, which I hate, but was good in this situation) for kind of a slow cooker effect.  It was still really hot when we got home an hour later. 

(No pic of the finished chili.  I think you have all seen chili before. . . )

And here we are after trick-or-treating.

Blogger Barbie, Lady Bug and Billy Idol

Olivia got really into it and so we didn't stop at three houses, we did probably 15 or so.  She learned to say trick-or-treat when she knocked on the door but of course refused to do it any of the times I tried to video her. 

I was Blogger Barbie.  You can tell by my colored denim, fall boots, cardigan, red lips and top knot.  Of course I'm Barbie so I had to go with blue eyeliner and purple shadow.  No one asked if I was dressed up (probably because they are my real clothes and my real hair) and so I guess they just assume I wear blue eyeliner during the week.

Adam was Billy Idol, a blast from our past four years ago.

Hope you guys had a great Halloween as well!!