Three-bean chili

Recipe for successful three-bean chili:

1. Before work, realize that you forgot to go to the grocery store yesterday.
2. Scrounge around the pantry to dig up whatever you can find that you may be able to turn into something edible for dinner.
3. Discover several open and half-used bags of dry beans – one black, one red, and one pinto.
4. Throw beans into a big bowl and cover with several inches of water.
5. Soak them during the day. Meanwhile, worry that you may not be soaking them quite long enough. Wish that you had thought of this the night before and given them a proper overnight soaking.
6. Decide it doesn’t matter, and if your husband is hungry, he will just have to eat whatever you put in front of him, even if it is a bowl of not-soaked-long-enough crunchy beans.
7. At lunchtime, change your mind about all the long soaking. Drain the beans and throw them into the crockpot with some chicken broth, water, diced tomatoes, a few spoonfuls of chili powder, and a little cumin.
8. Look for oregano in the pantry for several minutes and become frustrated that it’s nowhere to be found. Wonder if maybe you ran out, and try to remember the last time you used it.
9. Decide it doesn’t matter.
10. Turn the crockpot on high, and have every intention of turning it to low when you have to go back to work for the afternoon, but forget.
11. Remember halfway through the afternoon that you left the crockpot on high.
12. Get off work early since it is Monday and you don’t work a full day on Mondays, go home, and turn the crockpot down to low. Stir it around since the edges are starting to get a bit dark.
13. Run errands.
14. Come home and discover that your husband is home early from work and, contrary to what you previously thought, you do not have until 8:00 to put dinner on the table.
15. Taste the beans and realize that they are still a bit too firm.
16. Also they need salt.
17. Turn the crockpot back to high, change your mind, and dump all the contents of the crockpot into a large pot on the stove.
18. Turn the burner all the way up to high.
19. When it starts boiling furiously, become concerned that maybe it shouldn’t be quite so hot, and turn it down to medium.
20. Debate briefly whether or not you should cover it, and think back through all the bean recipes you’ve used in the past. This is not helpful, so just decide to cover it.
21. Keep looking at the clock, watching it get later and later, and every five minutes go over to taste the beans to see if they’ve softened enough to eat. Wonder if your husband will complain about dinner being late.
22. Announce that dinner is ready.
23. Throw a bag of Fritos on the table and declare it a balanced meal.
24. Smile proudly when your husband takes a bite and says it is very good, and that he especially likes that the beans are firm, and not soft and mushy.
25. Realize that you like it too, and that the texture is in fact perfect.

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