But regardless of change - I’m still working.
I’m still exercising.
I’m still staying hydrated.
I’m still washing my hands. Funny thing there - I always did wash my hands.
I still have a daily routine.
I still plan.
I still write.
I still paint.
I still cook.
I still eat.
And I still ramble on and on.
So, yeah… I’m still simply chugging along.

I suppose the only real and big difference here is that I’m gonna take that virus, and give it a swift kick in the you know what, and send it packing. I will NOT be scared at all.

And with all these simple and very basic of changes in life happening right now, I know with a hundred percent certainty that there’s one vitally important thing on the above list that is imperative to human survival. And we all certainly don’t need Google or the news to tell us that it is so. And that is food. Cooking. The act of eating. Amidst all the Corona Chaos - we all still need to eat, my friends.

Yes, Corona Apocalypse or not - we all gotta eat y’all.

So today I’m publishing a fabulous and easy and completely one pan dinner recipe. If you’ll be home busting some Corona behind, do it in style with an easy meal. That is, as long a you have some chicken available at your local grocer. Lord only knows we don’t have access to a lot of toilet paper these days, but your store may, possibly, have chicken. Makes sense, right?

This recipe was inspired by the MyFitnessPal One Pan Chicken recipe, with some modifications to suit our tastes. It’s loaded with flavor. Very healthy. And a simple dinner to whip up after a long day of fighting crime - or viruses.

I hope you enjoy making this dinner as much as I did. And I definitely intend on making it again real soon.

In the interim, I’ll keep living. I’ll keep on keepin’ on. ~

And on that list - a list that I used to house on physical paper - sits a copper pot from Williams Sonoma.

Yes, I’ve now wanted a real copper pot for 20 years. 20 freaking years… Since the year 2000, during my sophomore year in college. Since Bean’s first Basement Bash held outside the walls of my family home growing up. Since my pasta party for the cross country team. Since that day I was in literal shock, and since the day my jaw sat on the ground as I dragged myself out of Williams Sonoma. Since the day I goodbye to the kitchen store of my dreams.

That’s how long I have wanted my own piece of copper to place inside my very own kitchen.

A beautiful, shiny, new, dreamy, and very large, copper pot. One that was sitting high up on the highest shelf in the expensive and wonderful Williams Sonoma.

Someday I will get that copper pot.

Even if I have absolutely zero space in my small kitchen to store it. I don’t care. I will sit it out on display somewhere. It can be housed on my stove top for all I care. That way I can stare at it. And dream of parties. Dream of cooking. Dream of cooking for other people. Dream of carb-loading for cross country meets. Dream of my grandparents house as a child. A small kitchen, with lots of food, lots of laughs. Italian Papa cooking the red sauce, Irish grandma talking with us kiddos. And copper hanging on the wall of the kitchen backsplash.

So that’s why a Williams Sonoma copper pot has been on Bean’s List for over twenty years now...

And yes, I ended up finding a pot for that party. And, I ended up hosting the Bash, just as planned. And yes, it was a fun night.

It was so fun that I never forgot that night. That Bash. At a place where any night and every night is a good night for a party - college. That night - was a great night.

And today, I don’t remember how well the food turned out? I don’t remember what ingredients I used in my first attempt at red sauce?

I just remember the joy of cooking. But mostly, I remember the joy of cooking for other people. And wanting for as many people as humanly possible to feast from that pot of sauce.

And that’s why red sauce is such an important meal to me, why we make it all the time, why we love it dearly, and why I wanted to share it with you today... Today - during the season of love… and during the month of Valentines… and red… and hearts. A time for simple - and shareable - red sauce.

But regardless of how many people one is cooking for. And regardless of the size of the pot. And regardless of the brand name of the pot that the meal is being cooked within. In the end, maybe cooking doesn’t have to be about any of that.

Maybe it’s about all the heart and soul that is poured, and grounded, and crushed, and chopped, and heated, and sautéed inside of that pot that really matters the very most.

While the meal may not have turned out perfect, the pot may have been old and scratched - a team of people still showed up to dine and to have some fun together. As they all sat inside of The Townhouses. Thinking about the upcoming run, and maybe even discussing the race taking place the following morning. But probably, and mostly, just chatting about that week’s episode of Dawson’s Creek. Or maybe The Princess Bride was being watched yet again.

And maybe while chatting over prime-time television, somebody was thinking of a pot… A pot made of copper, shiny and new; a large beast of a pot - taking up a lot of space inside the small kitchen of a very small apartment. And maybe while contemplating that shiny pot, the chef was dreaming of all the pasta-bilities yet to come. ~

Bean’s Red Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 large 28 oz can crushed tomatoes/or tomato purée (I used Cento)
• 1 small 4.56 oz can/tub tomato paste (I used Cento tube)
• Roughly 1 lb. pasta (any shape/noodle of your choice)
• Roughly 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 large sweet onion
• 1 tsp oregano leaves
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp basil leaves
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• Sea salt to taste

Directions:
Sauce-

• Pour olive oil in pot.
• Put ground beef in pot and start on a slow simmer.
• Chop onion in small chunks and place in the simmering pot with the beef.
• After meat is browned almost all the way, add in the large can of crushed tomato, then add the tomato paste.
• Next add all seasoning on top.
• Simmer long and slow, at least a half hour.

Pasta-

• Fill medium sized pot ¾ way up with water and bring to a boil.
• Add pasta to the pot.
• Boil 7-8 minutes, until al dente. Then drain.

Serve-

• Bowl of pasta with ladle of sauce poured on top.

Share and enjoy! ~

Ingredients:

• 1 16 oz. package of bacon
  
• 3 8 oz. cans of whole water chestnuts
  
• ⅓ cup brown sugar, packed
  
• ⅓ cup ketchup
  
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  
• 1 ½ tablespoons Worcester sauce
  
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
  

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400.
  
• Drain cans of chestnuts.
  
• Put the chestnuts in a quart size ziplock baggie.
  
• Pour the soy sauce in the baggie and let the chestnuts soak in the soy sauce while preparing the rest of the dish.
  
• Cut all the bacon slices into thirds.
  
• After chestnuts are done sitting in their bath tub for a while, take the slices of cut bacon and wrap each chestnut with a bacon slice and then stab a toothpick through both sides of the bacon to hold it together.
  
• Once all chestnuts are wrapped with bacon and held together with their toothpicks, place them on a tray of non-stick foil and bake in the oven for 30 mins.
  
• While bacon is baking, prepare sauce.
  
• Put brown sugar in a mixing bowl.
  
• Add ketchup into the bowl.
  
• Add 1 ½ tablespoons of Worcester sauce into the bowl.
  
• Add freshly ground pepper into the bowl.
  
• Stir all added ingredients to make sure the brown sugar is mixed really well, into a smooth consistency.
  
• Once bacon wraps have completed their 30 minutes in the sauna, transfer bacon wraps into a pyrex tray to remove them from sitting in their fat drippings. Pour sauce over wraps.
  
• Bake that tray for 15 mins.
  

Share & Enjoy! ~

For more of Bean’s Best Recipes, go ahead and check out these creations below:
10] Bean’s Soulful Southern Chili
38] The Year Of The Sweater ~ Bean’s Minestrone Soup Recipe
43] Bean’s Bold Beef Stew Recipe

Do you love incorporating bacon into your recipes? Go ahead and step foot in your kitchen and make this dish; then - tell me how you like it? I’m so curious - go ahead and share with me in the comments down below.

Ingredients:
Roughly 3 pounds of baking potatoes - give or take - I usually buy a 5 pound bag and have a few leftover, to be used in other recipes throughout the week.
1 ½ pounds of beef stew meat (beef stew chunks cut into cubes)
1 bag of whole carrots from the fresh produce section
About 3 whole sweet onions
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
Salt as needed - roughly less than a small tsp
Freshly ground pepper as needed - roughly a small tsp
Water (enough water to fill the ingredients about halfway or less in the crock pot)

Directions:
Heat slow cooker to Low (8-10 hours)
Peel all the potatoes and cube them
Peel the carrots and cut into roughly 1 inch chunks
Peel and chop the onions into chunks or quarters
Pour in Olive Oil to coat the bottom of the crock pot
Add all the beef stew chunks next as the bottom layer
Add carrots next
Add potatoes next
Add onions next as the top layer
Add seasoning on top the onions
Add water
Cook in crockpot on low for 8-10 hours
Share and enjoy! ~

For more of Bean’s Bold Recipes, check out these recipes from my kitchen to yours, below:
10) Bean’s Soulful Southern Chili
25) Don’t Google It, Just Do It ~ Christine’s Chocolate Chip Cookies ~ *Part of ~ Bean’s Baking Series ~
30) Bean’s Sugar Cookie Recipe ~ *Part of ~ Bean’s Baking Series ~
38) The Year Of The Sweater ~ Bean’s Minestrone Soup Recipe

*I’d love to know if you make my Beef Stew recipe? And, did you enjoy it?! Go ahead and leave me a comment down below:

And if you aren’t yet signed up for my twice-a-week newsletter, go ahead and sign up below, now. As one of Bean’s Sunshine Subscriber’s, you’ll receive two emails per week from me. One every Monday, and one every Friday. I’m here to help you turn your Monday’s into Friday’s, and live life like it’s a Friday, every gosh darn day of the week!

It’s winter y’all. And while it’s still pretty darn warm here in Florida at the moment, I’ve become so acclimated to the intense and fire-breathing dragon which is our summer heat, that right now it might as well be winter in Chicago. Any drop on the thermometer, even a pinch, and I’m absolutely freezing!

No joke. Like, for real.

And, I never enjoyed wearing sweaters. One year, many Christmases ago now, and after I was married, I received all sweaters for Christmas. All sweaters, and nothing more. Everybody who gave me a gift that holiday gave me a sweater. By the end of the evening on Christmas Day, I was literally drowning in sweaters sitting upon my lap.

I didn’t even ask for sweaters.

But sweaters I did get.

And to make matters even worse, my husband received all sweaters as well.

My mother-in-law correctly deemed it... ‘The Year Of The Sweater’ … and she really was absolutely right.

It remains to this day, one of the funniest things she ever told me, and it was all just so very true.

I’m not sure if anyone else on Earth has ever received as many sweaters for gifts as my husband and I both did that holiday a long time ago.

And for years afterward, I could not even look at a sweater without thinking of The Year Of The Sweater. I basically hated and despised sweaters since that infamous day of unwrapping all that extremely itchy wool I was then surrounded by and being suffocated from.

I mean, it could be well below zero outside, and I could be driving in a car with the windows rolled down, and I still would not succumb to the temptation of a nice and beautiful looking sweater that happened to be sitting next to me on the car seat. If it was a sweater, I was NOT wearing it.

Fast forward to today.

Living in Florida.

It’s beautiful. All year round. No joke. It’s perfection. I feel like I’m living in a paradise, or Heaven, or some combination thereof. I'm so used to the perfect weather that when the temperature takes a dip, I wear more layers than I’ve worn in my entire life, combined.

I could very easily be teleported to the Arctic tundra, and Santa Claus would hire me on the spot to work for him in his outdoor garden, simply because he wouldn’t need to buy me the standard uniform that would need to be worn in the elements. I’d already be wearing it. I’m ready for the cold.

So, yes, finally, at long last, the sweater has come back into my life. And it sits there and laughs at me with every breath I take.

It could be 69 degrees out here in Jax Beach, and I’m frozen solid.

And this winter is the worst yet - in terms of clothing. I’m in my third year living in The Sunshine State, and I was so desperate when the temperature took a slight dip that I had to go out and buy a big winter down puffy coat to get through the coldest days and nights.

And now, I’ve resorted to complete and total desperation while at home.

I currently take perfectly clean and dry sweaters, put them into the dryer, simply to get them feeling nice and toasty - steamy ... hot.

I RUN to the dryer the instant it buzzes me, and I wisk open the door of the magical appliance. I grab for the hot sweater, and hurl it around me. And then, what the heck, I might even throw on another layer. Then, finally, I can get back to work in my art studio, and I can actually concentrate. I’m from Illinois - and I’m now in Florida sitting under layers of blankets and sweaters with palm trees and perfect blue skies outside my window - I’m absolutely pathetic.

So naturally, while wearing sweaters, long pants and slippers, what does one eat when it’s a cold and frigid 70 degrees outside?

Soup. Of course. Minestrone Soup.

Also, I’ve done the calculations on MyFitnessPal, and at only 239 calories making 8 servings, it's not even heavy on the calories. And did I mention that it’s very healthy?

When we lived in Illinois, we tended to make this soup more so only in the winter months, as we tended to grill out every chance we’d get throughout the entire summer period.

But it IS winter in Florida, y’all.

So, as I freeze under fleece blankets and heavy sweaters, we desperately needed a hot soup to eat. We proceeded with the task, and dug out our biggest pot on New Year’s Day. Sometimes we make a big pot of chili on New Year’s, but this year, I needed soup. It called to me as much as I needed the warmth of a sweater straight from the dryer.

And I tend to think the best thing about this recipe is the week full of leftovers it will leave you with. (In our two person and one furry creature household, we have the first main dinner, and then about three nights of leftovers, both eating one bowl per night).

And I always recommend making a pot of soup on a Sunday. It’s the best day of the week for soup. On Sunday’s while you tend to your chores around the house, you can enjoy the scent of the long, slow simmer on the stovetop. But better than that, you have leftovers for the work-week ahead of you. So Sunday it is for us. Or New Year’s Day.

So this year, cold as we were, we enjoyed a nice, leisurely New Year’s holiday at home. Our little sous-chef helped us out in the kitchen…. It’s really important and vital to the entire kitchen operation that you hire such a chef. Your soup might not turn out correctly without one on staff.

Bean’s Minestrone Soup Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• Sea Salt to taste
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 whole sweet onion - peeled and chopped
• Carrots - 3 whole carrots peeled and chopped/or baby carrots
• Celery - one bunch chopped
• 1 zucchini - chopped
• 1 cup frozen cut green beans
• 1 large potato - peeled and chopped
• ½ head of cabbage - chopped or sliced/grated long
• 1 large can crushed tomatoes
• 1 large can (or 2 small cans) chick peas, no draining needed
• 1 large carton organic vegetable broth
• Water as needed
• (Add on: Ditalini noodles served on top/side.)

DIRECTIONS:

• Pour olive oil in bottom of pot.
  
• Put in chopped onions and bay leaf and turn stove on very low and simmer.
  
• Next add chopped carrots, keep simmering low.
  
• Place celery in pot.
  
• Place potatoes in.
  
• Add green beans in.
  
• Add zucchini.
  
• Add spices.
  
• Pour in can of crushed tomatoes. Saving remnants in can to fill with water and add last.
  
• Pour in both cans of chick peas.
  
• Pour in broth.
  
• Add half can of water.
  
• Stir.
  
• Cover.
  
• Simmer low roughly an hour or longer. Stirring infrequently.
  
• Boil pasta in separate pot.
  
• Pour soup into bowl and add pasta on top.
  
• Share and enjoy. ~~
  

For more of Bean’s recipes - click below:
~ Bean’s Soulful Southern Chili ~

We schedule the baking for a few weeks after the season has officially started and all the holiday activities are well underway, but before the actual holiday. It’s become a nice way to decompress, and stop everything for even just a little bit of time, during a very busy time. By stopping, we are focusing on ourselves, on family. On our baby Sheltie, who did an excellent job keeping the floor clean. On moments. And not rushing during those moments.

So we made the dough and baked all the 75 cookies on Saturday. And we spent many hours frosting and sprinkling on Sunday. All of this can definitely be done in one day, though, if you need or want. You will just need to make sure you allow a few hours to let the dough cool in the fridge once mixed though, as I mention in the instructions, or it will throw a fit and be too sticky and messy to work with. Give the dough the nap it needs before waking it up to go play!

So, get to that grocery store.
Buy your ingredients.
Dust off your copy of White Christmas on DVD. Or put some tunes on the iPad.
Press Play.
And
GET
BAKING!

Cookie Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups butter (softened)
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 ½ cups sifted flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Cookie Directions:

• In large mixing bowl, mix sugar and butter until whipped
• Add eggs and vanilla
• Mix
• Slowly add flour with salt and baking powder
• One cup of sifted flour at a time
• Once fully mixed chill dough for two hours
• Roll on floured surface and cut into cookies
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Bake for 8 minutes
• Cool on a baking rack
• Frost after complete cooling

Frosting Ingredients:

• Powdered sugar
• Water
• Red, Green, & Blue food coloring
• 4 bowls or piping tubes - or both

Frosting Directions:
Note: We found two piping tubes at the local Dollar Tree. They obviously were not very high quality, and when I tried to squeeze the frosting through it ripped fairly quickly. But it did its job for a bit then we moved onto the second tube we had purchased just in case. Next year I’m thinking of getting actual squeeze bottles from Michaels or Hobby Lobby that are sold in their baking aisle - just a few more dollars a piece but probably well worth it for the hassle and mess of the squeeze bag.

Make one bowl each of white (no coloring added) frosting, green frosting, red frosting, and blue frosting by putting lots of powdered sugar in each bowl and slowly adding in a bit of water, and drops of food coloring, at a time.

BORDER FROSTING
To make the border frosting you can keep the white frosting a thicker, gel-like consistency - just add liquid very slowly and in tiny bits at a time. Aim for a thicker frosting and stop adding water once you like the consistency, or if it becomes to runny just add more powdered sugar. You can then spoon this frosting into the piping bag and can shape all the borders of your cookies with it. One of the goals of the border is to prevent the frosting from rolling off the edge, which gives the frosted cookie a neat and clean looking appearance. Obviously, mine didn’t meet that goal - I just know I need more practice. I did have the right consistency for the most part. And you can get as creative as you want with the border by adding details, such as eyes onto snowmen, or hats, or clothes, or garland on a tree, stripes on a candy cane, etc.
Frost slowly.

FLOOD FROSTING
To make the flood frosting the colors can be just a tad more liquidy by just adding a tiny bit more water to the consistency in the bowl. The colored bowls of frosting will be used to fill in the middle of your bordered cookie tops - to flood all the gaps made with the border.
Make separate bowls of frosting per colors you choose
Frost slowly

-Makes approximately 75 cookies (depending on the size of the cookie cutters you use.

Share & Enjoy!

We had sooo much fun doing this activity! Our cookies turned out pretty messy, but it was our first time using piping bags, and I hope to improve on that skill next year.

During this busy and fun and exciting time of year, stop what you’re doing for one weekend. Commit to nothing outside the home. Say no to all events and ticketed functions. Turn on some holiday tunes, or a holiday classic on the tv, light the yule log, and get baking… It’s good for the soul. And remember, looks don’t matter… it’s what’s on the inside that counts. ~

*Part of Bean’s Baking Series*

With the holidays fast approaching, I’m here to broadcast a friendly reminder. It seems everyone may be a whole lot better off if we all stopped to smell the roses, even for a bit, during this festive, yet often hectic, time of year.

And while according to commercial advertisements, the holidays have already arrived, and yes, Thanksgiving is coming up quickly… whether we like it or not, Christmas will be over in the blink of an eye.

Snap. Just like that.

It’s always over too fast.

Don’t let it all go by so quick that you don’t get to enjoy those special, slow moments.

So between now and that blink occurring, I highly recommend baking some cookies. Whatever cookie you want, just do it. Because baking takes time. It forces you into your kitchen. It makes the oven come alive with wondrous scents.

But baking also allows you to slow down for a bit. There’s no rushing allowed in the baking process. You have to mix your batter to the correct consistency. You can’t undertake. The dough must rise. All of this takes time. And patience.

So don’t wait for the perfect day…
Just bake away.

Because sometimes, in life, you just have to stop what you’re doing and bake some cookies.

To me, food, baking, and the holidays go together like a ham sandwich. Or an oreo cookie. One part just doesn't happen without the other.

And I LOVE to bake throughout the month of December especially. I’ve got quite a few types of cookies in mind that I want to bake this year, so I figured I’d start now with the chocolate chip. Yes, even if it’s the simplest of simple baking… the classic and undeniably original chocolate chip cookie. Baking, and the scent it releases into the home, reminds me of Christmas… Probably because that’s the cookie we put out for Santa! Those, and some carrots, of course.

And baking cookies really doesn’t have to be an all day project. Never forget that dough can be made in advance and then frozen for later. Or even mix the dough on a Saturday, put the bowl in the fridge, and bake on the Sunday. By doing your prepping ahead of time, when it comes time to turn on the oven, it’s then the easiest and most enjoyable part of the process. Just turn the oven light on and watch ‘em bake.

I suppose I could say that chocolate chip cookies are a staple in our house.

Well, not really.

But I want them to be.

Can’t I enjoy cookies as often as I thoroughly enjoy eating slices of completely boring 100% whole wheat bread??? I guess not on that one either.

But if cookies were an everyday food, they wouldn't be as special when you do go ahead and make them, would they?

So that’s why it’s always important to treat yourself. Have those special foods. Don’t eliminate them from your life altogether. Go ahead and eat a cookie once in a while.

And you know those sayings that start off something like:

“You know you’re getting old when…” ???

Well, that thought temporarily crossed my mind the other day.

My entire life I could always simply walk down the baking aisle at the grocery store and quickly grab a bag of Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chips. It was the perfect bag size too… not too big - not too small. And it corresponded with the cookie recipe perfectly, of course.

Well - everything changed.

And I didn’t get the memo.

Never, did I ever have to look up the recipe for chocolate chip cookies online before. Because in the act of grabbing a bag of chips, the recipe was always printed on the back of the bag. That printed recipe would then direct me on through the rest of the grocery store to grab the sticks of butter, vanilla extract, etc. etc.

So, here I am at the grocery store, in said baking aisle. I grab the bag of original Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips - not the extra dark, not the mint or other random flavors that have been added to its selection over the years, but the original semi sweet that the classic recipe calls for. And the bag might as well have weighed five hundred pounds.

Let’s just say it was the Costco sized version of chocolate chips. And that’s what was available for me to purchase, no other option. They changed their portion size! Gasp. They messed with the original recipe portion. I could always just slice open the bag in the past and pour the chips into the mixing bowl, no measuring required. But this bag was much, much too big. This meant that I would have to go back and remember how many chocolate chips corresponded to the original recipe and divide it out myself or look it up online. Plus, I had to purchase about four hundred ninety nine extra pounds of chocolate chips that I didn’t need.

Never fear, I thought. I could very easily figure out what the portion size should be... I would just read the recipe on the back of the bag to figure it out, right?

I turn the heaping bag of chips around…

The bag reads something along these lines…

“Visit our website for the cookie recipe...”

Ha.

And.

Ha again.

We have now reached a point in time when the chocolate chip cookie recipe is found online, not on the back of the bag. Too funny.

I did find it funny, and kind of sad, at the same time. Just for a moment.

So there we stood, both hubby and I - in the baking aisle, on our phones, to pull up Google, find the website, and figure out the ingredients I needed to buy. And actually, I’ve made these cookies so many times in my life that I know the recipe by heart. But I still go through the motions and double check the printed version to make sure that I have everything in my cart. And that printed recipe on the yellow bag of chips was always my reminder. So in one trip to the grocery store… they changed the portion size, and took away the printed recipe. Sad face.

The bag of chips ended up being so big, and so much, that I just decided to wing it, and just poured in a ton of chips into the mix in the bowl. I was done. When we got home, I didn’t want to look up one more thing online in order to make and bake my precious and simple little cookies.

I just wanted to be in the kitchen.

Light a lovely cinnamon spice scented candle.

Turn on a podcast to enjoy.

And BAKE.

So we guesstimated on the chips. Those cookies we baked were extra tasty this time around.

In a world now where everything is GOOGLED for an answer to life’s problems, I just wanted to solve this minor little dilemma on my own. Not everything needs to be Googled. Not everything needs to be looked up online in order for the decision-making process in one’s brain to take place. Right?

Sometimes you just need to make a decision on your own. Small or big.

Don’t Google it...
Just Do it...

If it comes between guessing and Googling, go ahead and add some extra chocolate chips into the mixing bowl.

(But for all those bakers out there baking to perfection, I have included the ORIGINAL, CLASSIC, NESTLE TOLLHOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE recipe below for all your baking needs.) Yes, you can read the recipe here, but just know you can’t read it on the bag.

So go ahead and make some cookies. Light a candle and listen to something you love… As you mix, and scoop, and watch the dough rise in the oven.

And next time you are faced with the almighty decision of reaching for your phone and pressing G O O G L E, I encourage and challenge you to S T O P right then and there.

Whatever it is, whether it's the address to a destination you are going to drive to, or the answer to why your arm currently hurts, or what the name of the movie Tom Hanks starred in where his character goes back to college after a twenty year career in the navy? Oh, what’s the name? It’s on the tip of my tongue….?????

Stop.

Don’t GOOGLE it right away.

CHALLENGE yourself.

CHALLENGE your brain for the answer.

Call up the person on the phone whose house you will be driving to and ask them what their address is? Think about Tom Hanks for a while… Contemplate where he is in the movie… think of the setting. Oh yeah... he has a crush on Julia Roberts in the movie? That’s right! I’m getting close…

Oh yeah again!... Julia Roberts is a college professor in the film.

A young and rising star named Rami Malek is also in the film… sitting in the back of the classroom.

The answer is coming to me….!

Oh yes, it’s from 2011 and takes place after the Great Recession. Before you Google up Tom, or Wikipedia search the list of movies he has been in throughout his long and very successful career, ultimately your brain might remember that the name of the movie I am referring to is Larry Crowne.

And Larry Crowne is WELL WORTH a watch by the way. Without giving away any spoilers, his speech at the end is priceless. And is spoken in such a way that only our dear Tom can deliver.

Yes, I AM in love with him.

But challenge that brain. Just as Tom Hanks’ character did in the movie by going back to school. To change. To grow. To nurture his brain.

The funny thing is Julia Roberts’ character in the film ‘suffers’ through listening to her GPS device while driving the same route from home to work every day. It’s not like she can’t remember the route from her house to the school. But it keeps talking to her and telling her where to turn. She was going crazy. Tom Hanks comes along and helps her turn the device off. It was running on auto-pilot and driving her mad during her commute.

While GPS is quite a perk of modern life, it’s definitely not always necessary.

And nope, not all change is bad. Even if the change is sad for a tiny bit of a moment in time while you are standing in the baking aisle at the Winn Dixie. And think, am I getting old? No, you’re not getting old. The world is just spinning onward a little bit more.

In the movie, Larry Crowne suffers some sadness and heartbreak. But because of those aches, he was also able to change his life most definitely for the better.

I picked up Larry Crowne from the Jacksonville Public Library. I had seen it before, and always remembered it for the speech Larry gives. It was well worth another watch, and if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s one of those films that has it all.

Romance. Sadness. Tears.

Action... If you count riding around town on a scooter with a scooter gang - action.

Comedy, and A LOT of laughter.

So next time you’re looking for a film to watch, choose to revisit one from 2011, instead of one from 2019.

Stop and smell the roses once in a while.

Or the radishes.

Christine’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (Just slightly amended from the Official Nestle Tollhouse Recipe)

Ingredients:
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of butter softened
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup densely firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 bag of 12 ounce package (2 cups) semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix everything but the chips together slowly into a creamy dough, stir, then by hand or with a spoon as it gets thicker
Add chips last and mix and mix by hand together
Scoop roughly tablespoon drops of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet
Bake roughly 9-11 minutes
Cool on the sheet for about two minutes
Then cool on cooling rack completely

Share & Enjoy! ~~

Ingredients:
1.5 LBS lean ground beef
1 sweet onion - chopped
1 large 28 OZ can Cento tomato purée
1 15 OZ can tomato sauce
1 15.5 OZ can dark red kidney beans
1 15.5 OZ can light red kidney beans
1 15.5 OZ can navy kidney beans
1 tsp McCormick Chili Seasoning
1 tsp Peppercorn from a freshly ground peppercorn grinder
1 tsp olive oil
Pinch of sea salt to taste

Directions:
*Pour olive oil into large pot.
*Put ground beef in pot and start simmering.
*While ground beef is simmering chop onion.
*Add peppercorn and sea salt while simmering.
*Continue cooking beef low to medium heat and as simmering ground the meat with wooden spoon into smaller chunks - not too fine, just small chunks.
*Pour chopped onion into the simmering beef and continue simmering low to medium.
*When ground beef is browned, add all cans of beans, then tomato purée and tomato sauce.
*Add chili powder seasoning.
*Add about one 15 OZ can of water.
*Stir.
*Put lid on pot and simmer on low about an hour, stirring about every 15 minutes.
**Optional: Serve over pasta shells and/or add Parmesan cheese on top.
***Enjoy! ~

Now it’s time to feed your soul! ~~

​For more of Beans’s recipes, click below:
Beans’s Minestrone Soup Recipe