Meatless chili?

Gracie has baton on Tuesdays, so I usually serve dinner by 5:30 and then we head out at 6. Sometimes Bassam is home to join us.  Other times Matt will wait to eat with his dad if he doesn't make it home until after 6..  It's not ideal, but we are still fighting like crazy to protect the "family dinner."

So a few minutes ago, after checking homework and making a return check to Gracie's school to hunt for her iPad (we found it), I decided I would start whipping the Sweet Corn Chili  I had planned for dinner tonight.   I sauteed up the onions and then opened the fridge to grab the ground beef.  

But where was it?  

I purchased it LAST NIGHT.   I searched the fridge.  Then the freezer.  Then the fridge and freezer in the garage.  Nothing. 

Then before I walked up the stairs back to the house I glanced in the reusable grocery bags that hang on a hook near the car.   And there they were.   Not one, but TWO packages of ground beef.  

So much for chili and tacos this week.  

It hadn't started to smell, but it was no longer the reddish-pink color of ground beef.   Yuck. 

I glanced in the fridge for what I could make on the fly.   Pita bread pizza or cheese and bean quesadillas.   If they want meat tonight it will have to be beef jerky or a Slim Jim, because that is all that doesn't need defrosting.   The kids decided cheese and bean quesadillas sounded just fine!  

Now I'm off to heat up the griddle.