Ok, so I shared my sweet cooking from the weekend already, but that just barely scratches the surface of my kitchen toils on Sunday. I was happy though that my coworkers enjoyed the tray of crisp I brought in. It's hard to go wrong with a boatload of butter, sugar and spices.

A few weeks ago, Western One and I realized how insanely off-track we'd gotten with eating at home. Out had become the standard, hence the dearth of blog posts about balancing work with cooking at home. Anyway, we made a deal that we were only allowed to eat out once a week for the month of October. I realize this is an obnoxious deal and that we're crazy lucky to be able to eat out once a week, but it's our deal nonetheless. While we've been fairly good (I think we've stuck to it, although that's not a huge accomplishment as we're not even on week 3) I realize I've been really bad about lunches at work as well.

So during my massive shopping/cooking adventure yesterday, I resolved to make and package up some lunch foods. First on the list - a big ole pot of chili. I make pretty basic chili - ground meat of choice, tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, a healthy dose of chili powder and red pepper flakes along with a few choice secret ingredients. A good, hearty dish. I am super excited though because my mom booked a cooking class for me as a birthday gift. I will be celebrating the first anniversary of my 30th birthday learning to make chili. My technique, like most of my cooking, is entirely self-taught, so I can't wait to learn what I've been doing wrong.

But this batch came out pretty good, and made for a nice, packed up and ready to go lunch today, Western One had some for dinner tonight and gave it a 7 out of 10. From Mr. Southwestern food snob, I will take it as a compliment.