Chili!

18 Oct 2020 Leave a comment

by A Dreamer in Uncategorized

With nice, soft, edible kidney beans! Yes, we are a chili over rice household.

This is the recipe I use – scaled and tweaked from one I found on Allrecipes.com that makes 6 gallons… (I thought I had posted it before, but maybe not.)

1 pound lean ground beef
~ 1/2 cup chopped onions
2 decent sized cloves garlic, minced – 3 if they’re smaller
1 small can tomato sauce (1 8oz can)
1 small can tomato paste (I like the garlic infused when I can find it.)
1-2 cans kidney beans (don’t start with me)
1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Brown beef, garlic, onions, drain off excess fat.  Add the rest, simmer 1 hour.  Eat!

For the kidney beans, it really depends on how much you like them in your chili. I like them a lot and usually go with 2 cans. I drain off most of the liquid.

If it seems too thick, I’ll put a glug of beer or red wine in. You could also use a bit of chicken stock, or more tomato sauce.

If you are using dried beans, please learn from my mistakes and cook them separately ahead of time.

Lessons learned

18 Oct 2020 1 Comment

by A Dreamer in Disasters, Kidney Beans Tags: ,

So, earlier this week, my brother mentioned that it was chili weather and he was right, so last night I tried to make chili.

I’ve made it hundreds of times. The only difference this time was dried kidney beans. But, I soaked them overnight and wasn’t really worried about it.

Well, as it turns out, my chili recipe does not have enough liquid in it to really cook the beans, and somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours, I had burnt chili and crunchy beans. (Hence, the cheesy sour cream & onion mashed potatoes for dinner.)

We’re giving it another whirl today with my beloved Hanover canned kidney beans.

And it’s not that I won’t ever make chili again with the dried beans, I just know now that I need to just cook them up separately ahead of time. (And today I don’t have the patience for it, so, canned it is.)

Long time no post…

18 Oct 2020 1 Comment

by A Dreamer in Cheese, Potatoes, Sides Tags: ,

You’d think with the pandemic, I’d have a ton of food posts cause of all the cooking. What I discovered is that I have a very narrow repetoire and I’ve been very exhausted.

After a culinary disaster last night (more on that later) I “saved” dinner with cheesy sour cream & onion mashed potatoes.

They’re simple and an excellent comfort food, and we all need that now.

Take your favorite instant mashed potatoes, throw a handful of chopped onions in with the water & butter at the start. Reduce the milk by roughly 1/4 to 1/3, and add in a couple dollops of sour cream. Stir well, move to casserole dish and top with cheese (I’m a fan of cheddar-jack or colby-jack for this) and pop under the broiler for a couple minutes til the cheese is bubbly and melty.

The lighting is utter shit in my kitchen, it does look better than this, LOL.

A red casserole dish with mashed potatoes covered in cheddar-jack cheese
Who doesn’t love cheese & potatoes