John & Carolyn's End of the Millennium Chili

There is a story that a friend of mine, Terry Jackson, told me about his entry into Pepper Construction Company's annual chili contest. Terry takes cooking seriously and he took the chili contest very seriously. He prepared for a week in advance. He bought pork shoulder, seasoned it lovingly and cooked it in a low oven for 8 or 10 hours. He bought a beef sirloin, salted it nicely and cooked it for 8 hours. And then he spent a couple of hours finely dicing the meat by hand before adding it to a pot with ground beef. His recipe listed an entire page of spices and seasoning. He literally spent days preparing the winning entry. On the contest day, Terry shmoozed with the judges and basked in a winner's confidence. A woman who decided, the night beforehand, to enter the contest, using ordinary hamburger, tomato sauce from a can and a package of chili seasoning won. Terry renamed his recipe "Loser's Chili." I still have it, but I can;t imagine undertaking to make it. Carolyn and I concocted the following relatively simple recipe in and make it at least a couple of times each winter. We made it a couple of night ago, but didn't have any smoked chipotle sauce, so I added another tablespoon of chili powder.

Serves 8 to 10

4 tablespoons olive oil
3 large onions, diced
All the cloves of a bulb of garlic, crushed
1-1/2 pounds ground round
1-1/2 pounds ground chuck
4 tablespoons chili powder
3 tablespoon smoked chipotle sauce
OR 1 tablespoon ground chipotle chili pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried basil
3 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
3 tablespoons Worchestershire sauce
1 tablespoon Liquid Smoke
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree
(or any canned tomatoes plus a small can of tomato sauce)
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 can (14 oz.) black beans
1 can light red kidney beans
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 tablespoon salt

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat and add onions. Sauté onions over fairly high heat, stirring often, until they are translucent and starting to caramelize; about 10 minutes.

Add the ground beef and sauté until brown, breaking up meat with back of spoon; about 5 minutes.

Add all the spices and mix well. Mix in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, and beans (drained). Stir well. Simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, 45 minutes. Thin with beer or chicken broth, if needed (unlikely).

Serve with cheddar goldfish crackers.

(Re-heat over low heat before serving, to prevent burning.)

Corn and Wild Rice Soup With Smoked Sausage

“Good soup is one of the prime ingredients of good living.  For soup can do more to lift the spirits and stimulate the appetite than any other one dish.”    ~Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)

 
This is a hearty winter soup that is very simple to prepare, and even more simple to eat.  It's truly a Midwestern dish because it's made with wild rice.  Northern wild rice, called manoomin by the Ojibwa (which means "good berry"), grows wild in the shallow water of small lakes and streams.  Native Americans harvested the rice by pulling their canoes into stands of wild rice grass and bending the stalks into the boats to knock off the grain.  Wild rice is packed with protein and fiber.   It smells awful when it's cooking, but don't let that discourage you. The final product smells good and is tasty.  Add cream or half & half to create a potage, but I prefer to keep it thin.   Approximately 12 servings

64 oz. chicken broth
8 ox. Northern wild rice
1 can corn
1 can creamed corn
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 fully cooked smoked sausage (such as low-fat turkey kielbasa), cut into 1/2-inch cubes
6 medium-large carrots, peeled, diced
2 medium onions, diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Optional (if not concerned about calories or arteries):

1/4 cup cream or half and half, at the end, and whisk vigorously.
OR
a dollop of sour cream

Bring 4 cups broth to boil in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add wild rice, cover and reduce to a low heat. Simmer until all liquid evaporates and rice is almost tender, stirring occasionally, about 60 minutes.

Sauté onion and carrots for 7-8 minutes in the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook another 5 minutes. Add remaining chicken broth, cooked rice, corn, salt and pepper. Reduce heat, cover, and cook until wild rice is very tender and flavors blend, about 15-20 minutes longer. Add half and half, if desired.

Sea Bass

This is a simple but elegant dish with wonderful flavor. Unfortunately, Chilean Sea Bass is terribly over-fished and the population in the South Pacific is threatened with extinction. The Chilean Sea Bass is not technically a bass at all and was tagged with this name to overcome the fact that it's actually a rather prehistoric looking fish called "Toothfish." Alternative choices are black cod, grouper or hake.

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 (6-oz) fillets Chilean sea bass, black sea bass or striped bass, skin removed
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon tri-color pepper, freshly ground
2 Meyer lemons, sliced thin slices
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
20 cherry or grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons drained bottled capers

Pat fish dry and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Place olive oil and sliced garlic into a 12" skillet. Heat over a medium heat until aromatic. Cook another 5 minutes, careful not to burn the garlic. Remove and discard garlic, but retain the oil.

Cut the tomatoes in halves. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Immediately arrange the lemon slices in the skillet, covering the entire bottom, and place tomatoes and capers around the edge of the skillet (see photo). Quickly place the fish over the lemon slices and sprinkle with thyme. Cover the skillet with a tight fitting lid and cook the fish on a fairly high heat for 6 -8 minutes.

Spoon the tomatoes, caper and lemons, with the pan juices, over the fish. Serve the fish on a warm plate with a green vegetable (green beans, asparagus, broccoli, etc.) and small red or heirloom potatoes.

Chicken & Sausage Stew

 

 
This is a hearty entrée with a complex flavors and chicken that falls off the bone. I like to use a cast iron skillet to brown the chicken and sausage because it does a better job browning than a standard skillet. But it's not essential. Any skillet will do. Don't over-cook the sausages while browning because they will cook further in the pot. You want them to remain juicy. It's certainly possible to make this dish without the sausage, which contributes a lot of unnecessary fat, but it admittedly tasty fat.

Rather than a cut-up whole chicken I often buy a package of 2 chicken breasts, with bone, skinned; a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs; and a package of chicken legs. Although more expensive to buy skinless pieces, it saves time. With this much chicken I increase the amount of other ingredients proportionately. The amounts are forgiving. Serves 6-8; great for left-overs.

6 medium red potatoes, halved (3 or 4 quartered potatoes, if using large)
1 cut-up chicken, skinned (or 6-7 legs and 6-7 boneless/skinless thighs)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 green peppers, quartered and quartered again
3 red peppers, quartered and quartered again
1 or 2 lb. mushrooms, sliced (more is better)
6 links Italian sausage
1 large (red) onion, quartered and quartered again
½ bulb crushed garlic (or 2 tablespoons minced garlic)
2 vegetable bullion (Knorr’s)

Coating for chicken (mix well before coating):

1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon dried, ground rosemary (or 1-1/2 T. fresh, ground)
3/4 teaspoon rubbed sage

Seasonings:

2 tablespoon oregano
2 vegetable bullion
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tablespoon dried, ground rosemary (or 1 T. fresh, ground)
2 teaspoon fennel
1/2 teaspoon salt

Using a paper towel, remove skin from the chicken pieces. Cut and pull off as much of the fat as possible. Using a large, sharp knife, cut each breast in half (cross-wise).

Coat chicken pieces and brown on all sides in the olive oil in a 12” skillet over medium-high heat. Remove to a plate. Add the sausages and brown. Remove and set aside with the chicken.

Add the onions and a couple tablespoons of water. Brown for 6-7 minutes.

Place 1 tablespoon olive oil in the bottom of a deep pot. Add to the pot, in the following order: the potatoes, mushrooms, any remaining coating, vegetable bullion, the garlic, chicken, sausage, seasonings, one half cup of water. Cook for 30 minutes on low heat, covered. Add the peppers and cook an additional 20-25 minutes, covered.

Serve with bread and red wine.

Snickerdoodle Cookies

We did a little babysitting today with Rachel and Kevin.  To keep Rachel busy and entertained we made cookies.  Following my instructions, Rachel, who will be 4 in May, did all the work, including breaking the eggs, mixing the batter with the hand held blender, shaping the cookies, and arranging them on the cookie sheet.  The dough is incredibly sticky, but the misshapen lumps turn into nice round cookies  during baking.  Natalie and Julia arrived to visit just minutes after the cookies came out of the oven.  Yes, timing is everything.

Science lesson:  I wondered what cream of tartar is and what it's for.  It's technical name is Potassium bitartrate ( aka potassium hydrogen tartrate) and it's a byproduct from wine making as it crystallizes in wine casks during the fermentation of grapes.  It is collected, purified and turned into an odorless, white, acidic powder.  It produces a creamier texture in sugary desserts, because it inhibits the formation of crystals.  It also is used to help stabilize and give more volume to beaten egg whites.  On top of that, it can be combined with vinegar to form a paste to clean copper pots and pans.

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla with an electric mixer until mixed thoroughly (until creamy). Add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Mix until well blended. Shape into 1 1/4 inch balls.

1/4 cup of white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon together thoroughly. Roll balls in the sugar/cinnamon mixture until covered. Arrange on an un-greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart and bake 7 to 9 minutes.  (notes:  I baked the cookies on the Convection Bake setting for 7 minutes.  The cookies had a nearly cake-like interior).