Chili!

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• cornbread
  

I actually made this chili last night but forgot to tell you about it! Well, we ate it tonight too so it still counts, right?

I used Martha's recipe, as usual. This time I pretty much followed it exactly except mine was about half pork and half beef. And I used Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes. SO good, y'all. We love this chili!

The cornbread was also my usual.

And it's true, we ARE pretty much eating nothing but soup this week! I'm in a soup mood, I guess. I've suddenly come down with a rotten cold so that's not likely to change anytime soon, either!

Crappy weather = chili for dinner

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• beer bread
  

You know, I was never conscious of how much the weather affects my cooking mood until I started keeping this blog. Today it was rainy and just kind of gross, so I made chili. It was a chili sort of day, I guess.

Once again, I riffed off of Martha Stewart's chili con carne recipe. This time I actually followed the thing pretty closely for a change, except that I used all beef for the meat and I didn't add any salt at all until the very end. Oh and I used my favorite Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes, which are so awesome in chili because of the added smokiness.

Beer bread was the usual also, using only 1/4 cup butter instead of 1/2. Because it makes me feel all virtuous, that's why. We LOVE this bread, y'all. We don't drink that much beer around here, but I've taken to buying it just so I can make this bread. Is that wrong?

Apart from the sliced green onions we used to top the chili, I couldn't be bothered to make a vegetable tonight. Some nights are like that!

Chili today, ... uh, still chili tomorrow, probably!

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• beer bread
  
• green salad "bar"
  

A cold front blew through central Texas last night, leaving us with chilly temperatures and a blustery wind today -- perfect chili weather! My go-to recipe for chili is this one from Martha Stewart, but I have yet to actually make it exactly as written. Here's how I made today's version.

canola oil
2-3 lbs. beef shoulder or chuck, cut into teensy dice (not quite a mince, but almost)
1 large sweet yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs ancho chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 (28 oz.) can Muir Glen Organic Fire-Roasted Crushed Tomatoes (feel free to use whichever crushed tomatoes you like, or whole tomatoes whizzed in the blender)
2 (12 oz.) bottles beer (use a beer you would actually drink; I went with Dos Equis Amber)
coarse salt
1 Tbs white vinegar

Okay, once you've chopped/diced/minced the hell out of everything, begin browning the beef in batches in a big pot with a little canola oil. You'll be removing each batch of meat to a plate as it gets browned, and adding more oil as needed. Once all the meat is browned, dump the onions and garlic into the pot and stir over medium heat until they've gone a bit soft (DO NOT burn the garlic!). Then add the chili powder, cumin, oregano and bay leaf in with the onions and garlic, cooking and stirring for about a minute until it all goes nice and fragrant. Add the meat back into the pan, along with the tomatoes and beer. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours or until the meat is tender and the broth has thickened a bit. Remove the bay leaf, salt to taste and stir in the vinegar (I have no idea what the vinegar is supposed to do, but Martha says to add it and I must obey). I serve this with shredded cheddar and sliced green onions on the side. Yum!

The beer bread is SO super easy to make, and so good! I use this recipe (with only 1/4 cup of butter) and it comes out perfect. Again, you will want to use a beer you would actually drink. DH is a fan of wheat beers and they work really well in this recipe. Tonight it was a bottle of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat, which made the bread a little bit sweet and almost cake-like. Delicious!

Astute readers will note that tonight's dinner contained THREE BOTTLES of beer. And that's not including the beer with which we washed it all down. Perhaps that had something to do with how delicious we found this particular meal!

There was no leftover bread, but quite a bit of leftover chili. Tomorrow's dinner: Frito Pie!

Not exactly chili weather, but I made it anyway

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• cornbread
  
• green salad
  

Even though it was really warm and humid today, I was in the mood for chili. I basically made this recipe from Martha Stewart, but with the following changes:

• I used dried pasilla chiles because that's what I had
• I used all beef (chuck), no pork
• I used Glen Muir organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, just for the heck of it (and to add a little smokiness, which was really nice -- I'd do that again for sure)
• I omitted the vinegar and used a tablespoon of sugar instead
• please note that the 3 tsp of salt called for is a bit much, at least to my palate -- I'd knock that in half if I made this again

Anyway, it was really good except for the extra saltiness.

The cornbread is from an old Better Homes & Gardens recipe that I use all the time.

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
4 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F, spray an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray, and mix the above ingredients together in a medium bowl.

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil

Mix above three ingredients together, then add to dry ingredients, mixing just until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Chili redux

Tonight's Menu

• frito pie!
  

What? We had to use up all that chili somehow.

For those of you unfamiliar with this delicacy, you put a layer of Fritos in a bowl, dump on some chili, and then add shredded cheese and sliced green onions (optional). I like to heat the chili before assembling it, but DH likes to layer the Fritos with cold chili and then stick the whole thing in the microwave so the Fritos go soft. For me the crunchy Fritos layered with the soft chili is part of the appeal, but whatev.

Soup's on!

So hey, everyone! Sorry to disappear (again! I know!) on you like that. We've had some crappy weather lately and so I have been busy making soup!

Let's see... last week I made Portuguese Soup, this week I made Loaded Potato Soup, and just tonight I made chili for what I think is the first time ever!

My mom makes an awesome and very Yankee-fied chili that is similar to Cincinnati style but with kidney beans and without spaghetti. I have never tried to make it, though, and DH is allergic to beans. I've used the Wick Fowler's mixes for meat-based chili in the past, but this is the first time I've ever made it from scratch!

Anyhoo, what I did was cut about 2 lbs. of beef (I honestly can't remember what cut I used -- it was a cheap, heavily marbled roast of some sort) into a small dice and brown it in a big pot. Then I tossed in a chopped sweet yellow onion and three big cloves of garlic (minced). Once the meat was brown and the onions had sweated out a bit, I dumped in an assload of chili powder, some cumin, a little oregano and some salt. Then I added a big can of crushed tomatoes and a bottle of beer (Abita Turbodog, yo). I brought it to a boil and then let it simmer, uncovered, for about 2 hours before serving it with cornbread and some shredded cheese and sliced green onions on the side.

It was pretty good but a little too tomatoey and not nearly spicy enough for my taste. If I had it to do over, I'd use a bunch of dried chili peppers or maybe mix in some chipotles in adobo or something. It just wasn't peppery enough, you know? It was tasty, though!

I'm getting a little sick of soup so tomorrow will be something ... not soup-like. Stay tuned!