🐺 on one paw, spending almost three hours prepping and cooking a chili sin carne only to realize one of the ingredients, one we were on the fence about whether or not we'd enjoy the texture of (good old bell peppers, we've eaten some before but not prepped this way), is a textural nope and is now in the entire several days portions of food is a little disheartening.

but on the other! everything else about the meal, from the other textures to the flavors, were all good stuff and perfectly viable for including this meal in semi-regular rotation! everyone in here had the same first reaction to it as I did: "remove that one thing and this is a banger!"

it might not exactly be groundbreaking flavor or ingredient wise for us (aside from the use of beans and some spices, this is a lot of the same stuff we already eat), but honestly I'm calling it a win! and who knows? we've got a couple days of this chili to go through, a couple more chances to try out that texture when we're not coming down off of way too long of a prep sesh might be helpful! I'm a happy wolf with this!