Forts and crock pots

Here's Alex in a fort.

The ingenuity of 3-year olds never ceases to amaze me. Here he's stacked up two diaper boxes as a wall and is using a puzzle as a door. He's ducking out of sight as I snap the picture.

In other news, I've been merrily cooking recipes from A Year of Slow Cooking. So far none of her recipes have disappointed!

I started off with Green Pepper Chicken. The picture looks revolting, but my experience with diced green chilies is that anything involving them is delicious. And it was. It smelled like heavenly enchiladas while it was cooking, and the chicken was tender enough to shred, rather than chop up.

Next I tried a beans recipe. Cowboy Beans, actually. She recommends soaking the pintos overnight, but I hadn't picked out a beans recipe until that morning, so I just dumped them in there dry and cooked them on high for 8 hours. They came out nice and soft when we sat down to eat them, and yes indeed, the flavor was wonderful and tangy.

Tomorrow I plan on making Salsa Chicken and Black Bean Soup, because I can dump it all in the pot and forget about it all day long. And I can soak the beans overnight, since I know what I'm making. And it has black beans. I love black beans!