I can feel the hustle and bustle of the Holidays all around me, and I usually can't wait to come up with new recipe ideas I can share with customers to make their Holiday entertaining more interesting, tastier, healthier, and of course, less stressful & more convenient, but this year I was pretty slow on the uptake because of a little surgery. After a busy and spectacular Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to have some surgery done I had been putting off. I decided to take care of an old "Welsh Terrier from Hell Injury." To make a long story short, 23 years ago, my darling, unruly Welsh Terrier pulled me down my slippery garden steps. What I was told was just a hip contusion at the time (after 23 years and finally an MRI) turned out to be a hairline fracture full of arthritis and finally the bone on bone pain that tells you it's time!

Surgery went well, and this "New Hippy" Dippy lady is up and recovering slowly but surely.  I'm moving and maneuvering around my little kitchen very slowly and carefully using a cane (and not a candy cane). There is not a lot of holiday cooking going on here. Even making meals for my own little household has been hard, so the recipes I am sharing with you are truly Christmas miracles!

When I got home from the hospital, my Angel of a neighbor, Megan, and her little girls dropped off three delicious, easy to warm up casseroles filled with love and warmth from their kitchen. When those were gone, we had cheese and crackers with canned soup for two nights in a row. After that, I softly put my good foot down and demanded help in the kitchen to make something really warm and tasty -- something that could last for a few meals without much work and something that with a tweak or two could be served in a couple different ways. 

My Cowgirl Chile! This recipe is so simple and so full of hearty, filling, organic ingredients with the added convenience of cooking everything in one pot.

I decided to sit back on a comfy chair and direct my husband through the quick, easy recipe I kept in my head. While Jimmy browned the organic, grass-fed ground beef with 1/2 of a sweet onion, I was the can-opener. Two cans of organic stewed tomatoes, sweet corn, black beans & kidney beans. After the meat and onion were cooked through, Jimmy added the canned veggies and beans to the pot to simmer for 25 minutes and then he bundled himself up to retrieve our weekly loaf of fresh baked bread from our local neighborhood bread baker, and all I had to do was watch the pot boil simmer & stir for 25 minutes. As I stirred the delicious chile I, of course had to have a taste and when I did I realized we had forgotten the organic chile powder. I clumsily searched my spice pantry and realized that my chile spice bottle was empty.  Jim was gone, I was hungry, so I decided to use about 1/3 bottle of our Salad Girl Organic Chile Limon Vinaigrette to add that Tex/Mex chili pepper, cinnamon, lemon and lime flavor and voila! Best chile ever!

Our Cowgirl Chile lasted 6-7 meals, and on the last servings we switched it up by melting some Queso Fresco over a warm bowl of of the delicious chile.  We sprinkled it with pepitas and fresh cilantro and dug in with a bag of fresh organic tortilla chips!  I can definitely picture this recipe being served as a great meal or party dip for your guests after a great day of skating, sledding, skiing, or caroling!

Enjoy & have some Happy, Safe, & Healthy Holidays, and thank you all for supporting Salad Girl!

Pam