Tacos and Chili

I made tacos last night.  That means tonight is chili - with the leftover taco meat.  And we always have leftover taco meat because our grass fed beef is packaged in 2 lb sections.  Who really eats 2 pounds of hamburger in one meal?  Not us.
So, I made tacos.  Since I'm eating hardly any meat these days, I filled my corn tortillas with garbanzo beans heated with a little water and taco seasoning instead of beef.  The rest of the family ate theirs with beef, but they snacked on the rest of my garbanzo beans.  So that's progress.
Tonight though, I will be eating meat.  I'm making chili and corn bread.  Sometimes I hesitate to post recipes because people come here looking for healthy recipes right?  And sugar is not healthy. There is sugar in my corn bread. There's butter in there too.  But remember the 80/20 rule?  I eat healthy food most of the time and that works for me.  So if you're looking for 100%, this is not the blog for you.
Here's the chili I'm making tonight:

Crockpot Chili  -or Slow Cooker Chili if you want to be politically correct
2-3 stalks celery chopped
1 carrot chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 lb ground beef (optional)
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
3/4 tsp cumin
1 large clove garlic
2  (8 oz) cans of tomato sauce
1 or 2 cans* diced tomatoes (15 oz)
1 or 2 cans* of beans, rinsed and drained (I used Great Northern and Black Eye Peas)
1 cup water
1 tsp Worchestershire Sauce
A little salt and pepper

*When I make this for my family of 7, I do 2 cans each of beans and tomatoes.  Otherwise, just go with 1 can.

Fry up the beef, onion, celery, carrot, garlic, cumin, and chili powder. (If you're using leftover taco meat, or omitting beef altogether, then stir-fry the vegetables and seasonings.)  Pour into slow cooker and add remaining ingredients.  Cook on high at least 3-4 hours.  Or on low for longer.

And, if you feel like making some really good Corn Bread.  Try this recipe, but substitute whole wheat flour for the white.  It's my favorite.

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule is something else that was helpful to me when I decided I was going to get healthy.  I'm a bit of  a perfectionist which carries over to my eating.  If I decide I'm going to eat healthy and then I go ahead and have a piece of cheese cake at book club, then I feel like I've failed.  The 80/20 rule tells me that if I eat good things 80% of the time, then it's ok not to 20% of the time.
I have to admit that at this point, I'm more of a 90/10 sort of gal, but that came later.  Anyway, this worked great for me. I'd eat mostly healthy food all week, and then I could feel OK about going out for Mexican food on Saturday night.  This also helped me cut down on the pop.  Coke was a hard thing for me to give up. If I told myself that I'd never drink another Coke, of course I'd want one immediately.  So instead I'd have one a week.  Some foods just need a coke to go with them (think Pizza and Bajio).  So at first I drank pop, but much less than usual.  The more I read and learned, the less I craved it. It's now been months since I've had a pop.  And I'm OK with that.