What's for supper?

On Friday, I decided a nice hearty Bolognese-style meat sauce sounded good, so I went out and got the ground beef that I was lacking. Just before I started cooking, I got a call from my mother - she wanted me to cook the corned beef that was in the fridge. So I changed my plans and made a usual simmered corned beef.

I let the corned beef sit in a pot of cold water for half an hour to leach some of the salt, then changed the water and brought that up to a boil, and poured that out to leach more salt. Then I added a beer and enough water to cover, and seasoned that with a few things (don't quite remember).

After it had simmered for 2 hours, I added some red potatoes. 15 minutes before it was done, I added one head of cabbage, quartered, on top of the corned beef - pretty much sitting up out of the liquid so it could steam.

Today I got back around to making my pasta sauce. Three strips of bacon, chopped, in a heavy pot with olive oil. One onion (had to use red, my white onion was dripping

), three stalks of celery, and a handful of baby carrots, all finely chopped and added to the pot. Once all those were cooked down and browned, I added two pounds of ground beef and got that broken up, cooked, and well-browned.

Then I added the remains of a leftover can of tomato paste and some paprika, and fried that in an open spot in the pot until it caramelized a bit. Then vermouth (no wine on hand), chicken broth, Trader Joe's Italian Tomato Starter Sauce (diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, already cooked and seasoned with onion, garlic, olive oil, etc.), and some red wine vinegar; then some oregano, thyme, and black pepper, and a very small amount of Chinese five spice (a secret that goes very well with the tomatoes). Then some salt and sugar to balance the flavor, and then it simmered uncovered for an hours and a half. I checked it every 15 minutes to stir and add more water if needed. The idea was to add water, cook it down, add water, cook it down, over and over.

At the last minute I added some balsamic vinegar, and then served it with penne rigate.

Yes, a long post, but I haven't posted in a few days and I've been busy

I'm trying to think of the next thing to cook. What I really want is something like chili, that I can eat in a bowl, or have a smaller amount to dip tortilla chips into. I'm thinking pork chili, but I've always found that chili is best for dipping chips with lots of beans. Not an option for me right now...

Anyone have any ideas for something bean-like that I can put in chili that won't destroy my bones? Or something other than chili that's good to dip some sort of chip into?