I have become obsessed with watching MTV’s Teen Mom on Netflix. Seriously there is something wrong with me, but I can’t stop. I’ve stayed up late like four nights in a row to watch marathons of it.

And I spend a disgusting amount of time trying to figure out if two of the teenage mothers are acting out because they’re on camera or if there are actually people in the world who are that combative, irrational and unreasonable. You should watch the show and guess which girls I’m talking about. I don’t think it will take long to figure out.

If you, too, are too busy working, cleaning, doing something productive, watching terrible television, this is a great recipe that cooks unsupervised. (Man, I love my slow cooker!)

A lot of slow cooking recipes require browning or broiling or some sort of cooking meat prior to dumping it into the slow cooker. My favorite recipes, like this one, require none of this.

I adapted this recipe from Skinnytaste, which I found on Pinterest. [Read more...]

Over the weekend, after a very long and stressful work week, my crock pot broke and spilled water all over our new kitchen floor.

I was clad in my ankle-length flannel, plaid nightgown, on my hands and knees trying to clean up the mess with a wad of paper towels, when John, who works in the store downstairs, came running upstairs because the water had leaked into the store.

After I told him the mess was limited, that I had it contained and he went back downstairs, I burst into tears. Sometimes the pile of obstacles just gets a little too high, and instead of jumping over them, you have to take them down piece by piece.

Luckily, A.J. came to my rescue and went to the store to buy me a new crock pot, which solved the immediate problem of what I was going to do for dinner. They were sold out of the wonderful 7-quart size that I got for sale last fall, but A.J. snagged the last 4-quart version, which was large enough to make this delicious white chicken chili.

After some Internet research, I think I determined that the reason the bottom fell out of my insert was because I had been refrigerating leftovers in the crock pot. Although I always waited for the ceramic insert to cool before tossing it in the fridge, I think it weakened the ceramic. Tupperware, FTW!

To make this chili, first, I gathered my ingredients: cannellini beans, flour, some chicken bouillon cubes, one chopped onion, three cloves of minced garlic, some butter, cumin, chili powder and cayenne pepper.

I dumped those ingredients in the crock pot along with four chicken breasts that were mostly frozen and three cups of water (one cup for each bouillon cube). [Read more...]