(Almost) Veggie Chili

As the days have been cooling off, the kitchen's been heating up. When it's drizzly and icky outside, comfort food comes to the rescue. So, recently I made some chili. With the exception of some bacon grease, it's completely vegetarian. 

Here we go. Start by sauteeing two strips of bacon. They'll be consumed by Cookie Monster later.

After it's crisp, drain all but about a tablespoon of the grease. Chop a carrot into bite-sized pieces ...

... Then add to the pan, along with chopped onion. (You could use whatever kind of onion you have. I happened to have a red one that needed to be used up.)

Once the carrot/onion mixture has softened, add chopped green bell pepper.

And saute for about five minutes, 'til the pepper is softened. Meanwhile, get your canned goods together. 

 

I used cannellini beans, kidney beans, tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes. When vegetables are done, add them, plus all above canned goods, to your Crockpot. I also added some frozen corn but forgot to get its closeup.

Oh yeah. Add in two of these guys for spice and smokiness.

Next, toss in your spices. You'll obviously need chili powder, as well as cumin, black pepper, spicy paprika and salt.

As well as some cilantro.

Also, I added some Worcestershire, but forgot to set it out with the rest of the ingredients. Stir the chili mixture well, then Set it and Forget it in your Crockpot on high, until the whole house smells like chili. Mine went for about five hours. I came back periodically to stir and adjust seasonings as necessary.

Garnish with sour cream (or in this case, nonfat Greek yogurt) and more fresh cilantro, and then take a shitty photo. 

Voila! You have made chili!

Stay tuned for my cornbread recipe. Chili without cornbread is like peanut butter without chocolate: totally fine, but missing that je ne sais quoi it could have.

Party Eats

Cookie Monster and I recently hosted a party. This was the first time I'd cooked for several of my friends, so I wanted to impress. I also wanted to use the flavors of the season.

Here's what I made:

Hazelnut brown sugar cookies

(recipe from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook)

Cranberry sauce over cream cheese, served with crackers

Bacon-wrapped dates

Homemade pumpkin bread

Caramelized onion and blue cheese flatbread (L) and pumpkin ricotta phyllo turnovers (R)

Ginger molasses cookies

(Both cookies were served in my Snowman cookie jar, 

which plays "Jingle Bells" when you lift his head off)

And, the pièce de résistance, Cookie Monster's famous eggnog.

Also, I mulled hot cider in my Crock pot and served that, too.

So, things turned out pretty much awesome. There was very little food left at the end of the party. Yay!

Here are the "recipes" of some of the dishes. I made these all up, so there are no exact measurements.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Be sure to make a lot of these babies. They go fast!

I feel silly even typing a recipe for these. It's just combining two delicious things and making them into one uber-delicious thing. Simply cut strips of bacon into thirds, wrap each slice around a dried date, and bake at 350 until the bacon is crisp. They are salty, sweet and amazing. Highly recommended.

Caramelized Onion and Blue Cheese Flatbread

Butter

Yellow onions 

S&P

Blue cheese (I used  a tub of blue cheese from Trader Joe's)

Flatbread (also from Trader Joe's)

Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Melt few tablespoons of butter and add onions, salt and pepper. When they begin to turn brown, reduce the heat to very low. Continue to stir until they break down and turn very brown and caramely. This usually takes a while--about 30-40 minutes.

Brush flatbread lightly with olive oil. Spread a thin layer of caramelized onions over bread, then sprinkle with chunks of blue cheese. Bake at 350 until cheese is melted and edges of bread are crisp, about 10-15 minutes.

Pumpkin Ricotta Phyllo Turnovers

Sheets of phyllo dough

Canned pure pumpkin

Part-skim ricotta cheese

Grated Asiago cheese

Freshly grated nutmeg

Hot sauce

S&P

Prepare filling: Stir together pumpkin, cheeses and spices.

Prepare phyllo: Take one piece of dough and brush lightly with olive oil. (Be sure to cover unused phyllo with a damp kitchen towel; this will prevent it from drying out.) Add another layer and brush with oil. Repeat until there are four layers of phyllo. Place layers of dough lengthwise on a cutting board like a flag. Cut horizontally into four even strips. Working with one strip at a time, spoon ricotta mixture onto bottom and fold up corner to form a triangle shape. Continue folding until you have one large triangle, and tuck the last end under the bottom. Continue with remaining strips. Cut three air slits into top of each triangle, and brush tops with olive oil. Bake until golden brown in a 350 oven, about 25-30 minutes.

SuperBowl XLIV

Neither Cookie Monster nor I cared about the football game, but we felt it was our patriotic duty to watch the SuperBowl. Naturally, I had to make football food. So I bought a loin of pork at Trader Joe's and pulled out my trusty Crockpot. Into the pot it went, along with mustard, worchestershire sauce, barbeque sauce, ketchup, molasses, hot sauce and water. 10 hours later, it was a glorious mess of pulled pork. Mmm... see the greasy, porky goodness?

 I took the pork out and shredded it with a fork.

 

Then I reduced the sauce by about half, thus making a homemade barbeque sauce to complement the pig.

For Cookie Monster, I piled two Arnold Sandwich Thins (the closest thing we had to a bun) high with the pulled pork and homemade sauce.

For myself, I made a fun tasting plate centered around my vegetarian buffalo wings. Yes, I realize this is an oxymoron, but I don't care. They were good. I baked them in the toaster oven until crispy, then doused them with hot sauce. To go alongside, I made a bleu cheese dip out of plain Greek yogurt, parsley, crumbled bleu cheese, hot sauce, S&P and a little milk to thin it to a more dressing-like consistency. 

The "wings" were quite tasty. They didn't taste anything like chicken, which is fine with me. They tasted almost like a mozzarella cheese stick and they definitely had the same type of consistency.

Also on my tasting plate were celery sticks to complement the buffalo wing theme, slices of sharp white cheddar cheese, a few pita crackers, three candied pecans and some apple slices. I also had a bit of Cookie Monster's pork, and it was actually pretty tasty.

Go football!

Slainte! Happy St. Patty's Day!

A certain festive holiday was recently celebrated by many. This holiday is mainly an excuse for anyone of the Caucasian persuasion to adopt a foreign heritage, drink a bunch of beer and then vomitously pass out. I think I have some Irish in me somewhere (my surname is actually really common in present-day Ireland) but count myself among the people who find it really annoying when people say "Oh sure! I'm [insert nationality with which one may be loosely associated]" when it's convenient. So, really, I'm an American mutt with distant ties to the land o' green, along with several other countries in the vicinity whose descendants have no need whatsoever for any melanin in their skin. Seriously, I am freakin' white.

But that sure doesn't mean I don't like to join in the Americanized bastardization of said holiday. So bring on the beer! This is Guinness (what else?) but in a Carlsberg glass that is actually from Ireland.

Seriously. I stole it from a pub in Galway. Sadly, my beloved Bulmer's, one of the Best Drinking Substances in the History of the World, is not sold in the state of Oregon, so I had to do without. Woe is me.

Here is my special St. Patrick's Day shirt that I made myself about six years ago. Awww... ... So... sweet?
Into my Crock pot went about 2.5 pounds of Corned Beef, along with the corning liquid and about half a Guinness, and 9 hours later, here is what it looked like.

And, because I am apparently in fifth grade, I had some fun with me onions and me parsnip. It was a very large parsnip. Tee hee!

Here it is, along with some cabbage and celeriac.

For dessert following my Irish feast, I opted for Guinness gingerbread cupcakes.

They really had Guinness in them! Cupcake recipe at the end of the post.

Here they are, ready to get baked! Ha! Stoner cupcakes!
And here they are fully cooked, but still naked. Not unlike many St. Patrick's Day revelers.

Wanting to take in the full cheesiness of the holiday, I dyed some beer green.

And then I drank it. And it was good.

Fully clothed cupcakes!

They are frosted with Irish cream cream cheese frosting. And a green mini M&M for good measure.

Also, I baked some authentic Irish soda bread.

Like this website will tell you, real Irish soda bread does not contain nuts, seeds, raisins, candies, sugar or any other shit. It has four ingredients: flour, baking soda, buttermilk, salt. The end. It is ridiculously easy to make and is hella good with just butter. Or some Irish cheddar. Or butter and Irish cheddar.

I roasted the root vegetables in the oven, then stir-fried the cabbage and onions together.

See my corned beef? I could've cut it with a spoon. That's why Crock pots are lovely inventions. It's really hard to fuck something up in the Crock pot.

Cookie Monster attempted to make gravy from the corning liquid by boiling it and adding flour directly to it. This resulted in some lovely floaters on top of the liquid that looked and tasted gross. But since they were whole, they could easily be fished out, and we settled for a more viscous "gravy."

All together! (Oh yeah, I mashed some potatoes too). Soda bread, mashed potatoes, root vegetables, corned beef!


Slainte! (That's "cheers" in Gaelic. It is pronounced slon-chuh. Don't ask me why.)

As promised, here is the recipe for the Guinness gingerbread. If you're still reading, you get a gold star! I got this from ye old Internets, and I have no fucking clue from where. So if you own this recipe, you can have the credit.

2/3 cup (160 ml) Guinness Stout

2 cups (240 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda

2-1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper (I didn't have any of this and just left it out)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs

1/2 cup (88 g) granulated sugar

1/3 cup (37 g) firmly packed dark brown sugar

2/3 cup (160 ml) molasses

3/4 cup (180 ml) canola oil (I used applesauce instead)

Place rack in center of the oven and preheat to 350° F. In the microwave, warm the Guinness Stout in the glass measuring cup, or you can warm it on the stove in a small sauce pan. Bring just to a simmer then remove from heat. (This seems like a really pointless step. I would leave it out next time.) In the medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, ginger, white pepper, and cinnamon. In the large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and molasses until smooth. Add the canola oil and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add the dry ingredients alternating with the beer (dry, beer, dry, beer, dry). Whisk as you add, then mix at the end just until combined. (Phhhhtttttt. This is too fussy. I just dumped dry into wet.) Do not overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Place cake pan on a wire rack to cool. (I made cupcakes, and they baked for about 25 minutes or so).

Irish Cream Cream Cheese Frosting a la VCK
I softened a block of cream cheese overnight on the counter, then simply added powdered sugar and Irish cream to taste, until it was sweet enough to frost cupcakes (but not too sweet). I would say I used probably 1.5-2 cups of powdered sugar and maybe 3/4 cup Irish cream? I used this kind of Irish cream. Cookie Monster bought it because of the whimsical name. Fucking adorable, right?