Fern Chili

Winter Storm Fern was a heck of a storm and left us with lots of snow!

The news stations around us were forecasting lots of snow most of last week.  We have gotten to the point of not paying much attention to big snowstorms.  Simply because most times it does not pan out.  Everyone goes and clears off the bread shelves for nothing.

A couple days in to "a big snowstorm is coming" and they named the Storm, Winter Storm Fern, things started feeling a bit different about this forecast.

By Friday we were convinced!  There really was a big possibility we were going to get a storm.  This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning...

It was here and it snowed for 24 hours.  We ended up with more than 12" of snow and even beat the snow total for the 1978 Blizzard!

Here are a few pictures from Cally's house.  Bill went over and got her dug out.  

Poor Harley is not having any fun with all this snow.  He is 16 and no longer has his eyes (I think I have blogged about this before) so as you can guess he was totally surprised on Sunday morning. 

When I think there could be a possibility of losing our power, I like to have chili or soup ready.  If we should lose our power, we would not worry since our house is heated with a woodburning stove.  With the wood stove we are able to sit a pan on top to warm up food... Perfect should we need to warm up Fern Chili.  I did not plan ahead this time for Chili, so Fern Chili was created using what I had in the pantry.  

Nice thing is we did not have to worry about it.  We have had power the whole time.  The only issue is now that it is so cold out in the single digits and below zero wind chills that our wood stove is not keeping up at times and we have to revert to using out furnace to get the house up to temperature.  We don't expect this snow to melt anytime soon.

Fern Chili

1 pound ground beef, browned

32 ounce container Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup (Aldi)

2  19 ounce cans tomato basil soup

15 ounce can crushed tomatoes

28 ounce can brown sugar hickory baked beans

16 ounce can pinto beans

2  15 ounce cans great northern beans

4 teaspoons onion powder

4 teaspoons oregano

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons garlic powder

4 teaspoons cumin

4 Tablespoons chili powder

3 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 japones whole dried peppers 

Brown hamburger and add to a large pan.  Add all remaining ingredients.  Heat the chili on the stove until hot.  You can eat your chili when hot but I like to get mine good and hot then turn the heat to low and simmer if for 45 minutes to an hour for the japones peppers to release their flavor.  Before eating remove the 3 japones whole dried peppers.  (I only use them for flavor and remove before eating)