Hey friends! Thanks for reading my first monthly challenge post! If you’re new, take a second to check out what my blog is all about on the About page.

In case you missed my first post, this month’s challenge is cooking! Friends and family reading this are probably laughing because me and cooking just don’t get along. Baking and I are buddies because I can eat cookies all day. But I’m a wife and college grad now, so I figured that it’s probably time I learn how to make decent meals instead of eating pre-made pasta mixes.

One of the dishes I made often before getting married was chili because it’s so easy for lazy people like me to make. This five-ingredient chili was in my fridge a lot. However, my husband is not the biggest chili fan, especially if it is not very filling. So I found a recipe that I thought would be tasty and filling: One Pot Chili Pasta!

There were lots of pros to this recipe:

• It uses a lot of things you might have on hand, like canned tomatoes or pasta
• It keeps going – it lasted 3 meals for us (a miracle since it seems like every time I make something Matt always eats what I think will be leftovers)
• It’s all in one pot, so you barely use any dishes!
• Did I mention it’s easy and delicious?

Here are the ingredients needed:

A few things to note:

• The green container holds flour
• Frozen garlic cubes are SO much better than buying a whole clove of garlic #itlastsforever #thanksforthetipmom
• The recipe called for only 1/2 a pound of turkey, but knowing my husband I just put the whole 1.25 pounds in and it was great 🙂

STEP 1: Dice an onion. The recipe calls for a medium onion but I ALWAYS seem to cut too much onion for any recipe I have, and since it was a larger onion I only did half.

STEP 2: The recipe says to cook the onion and garlic before adding the turkey, but my turkey was frozen so I started cooking that while I diced the onion and then added them with some olive oil. After a few minutes, add chili powder and flour.

STEP 3: While the turkey is cooking, rinse the kidney and black beans. I was very curious as to why you had to rinse the beans, so I looked it up and apparently there’s a lot of sodium in that bean juice! You learn something new every day.

STEP 4: Stir in all the canned stuff and the dry macaroni. Bring to boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Now was a great time for me to wash the three utensils I had used. Why aren’t all meals like this?

STEP 5: Devour this delicious meal, listen while your husband compliments you on the best chili he’s ever tasted. (OK maybe not, but he definitely liked it, so it’s a win.)

All in all, I think my first cooking challenge was a success! If you try this recipe, I would love to hear how it turned out for you! Stay tuned for next week’s challenge update!