The Process

I have had the urge to make my chili recipe for about a week now and today I finally just decided that work can wait, I could use a little mental break anyway. With the October 15 deadline rapidly approaching, work has been a little stressful. 

I spent a little extra time at the gym, then came home to do some cooking. As the meat was browning and I was chopping the green peppers and onions, I was thinking about how much we have lost the “process” of things in our culture. Everything is “processed” for us. Our clothing, furniture, homes, much of our food supply is made for us. The processes that use to take place in everyday life have been replaced with machines to do it for us.

I remember when we first moved down to Mexico, and we had a house without a dishwasher, or maybe it had one, but it didn’t work very good, I don’t remember exactly, I just know that I washed dishes by hand for about six months, and I actually really enjoyed it.

And I just had that similar feeling as I was chopping the green peppers for the chili. It’s satisfying to me to hold the fresh vegetables in my hand, see the vibrant colors, smell the aroma. And there is something fulfilling about making a recipe from scratch. I wish I had more “from scratch” recipes committed to memory, but this is it for me. I use to be able to make apple pie from scratch, crust and all, but I haven’t done that for years so I think I would need a recipe to refresh my memory.

In the “old days”, not only did dishes get washed by hand, so did our laundry! Can you imagine? No, thank you. I really appreciate my washing machine, and my dishwasher too. And I appreciate being able to go to the store and buy pre-washed and pre-chopped vegetables. 

The convenience is nice, but what if we are missing out on something in “the process.” What if taking a morning off to cook a recipe from scratch,  or washing dishes by hand is what our brains need to process and manage the crazy, chaotic world around us. I’m not saying cooking and cleaning is the answer to the world’s mental health crisis, but I do think that slowing down and taking time to be more mindful of how we spend our time couldn’t hurt. 

Funny side note, as I was draining the beans to add to the chili, I remembered the first time I used canned beans in a recipe and I didn’t know to drain all the stuff out and rinse them. Let’s just say that cooking attempt was a fail 

Do you have a go to, from scratch recipe that you love to make? I’d love to hear about it in the comments 😊