Kim's Awesome Chili

Almost every Saturday I go to Loleta Meat Market and pick up some hamburger from Pixie. She sells the good stuff.  Local grass fed, freshly ground hamburger.  You can see the difference, smell it, and definitely taste it.  Not just the flavor, but the texture is so much better then anything you can buy in a regular old grocery store.  She also has an amazing inventory of her own fresh made sausages, as well as pork, chicken, lamb, duck, and a great selection of offal.  Pixie rocks and I'm all about supporting her business. 

So, last night I had a pound of local burger from Pixie in my fridge that I needed to put to use, so I decided on chili.  I'm pretty broke, but always have a good supply spices on hand and just started pulling everything out that popped into my head that may be good in chili.  I didn't measure anything, I eyeballed it all and it came out perfect.  So I'm going to share what I made here, and give you my approximate measurements and, if you decide to recreate this recipe, I encourage you to adjust and change the ingredients to your taste.

I browned 1 lb of hamburger then added about 1/4 cup celery, 1/4 cup onion, 1/2 cup bell pepper, 1 tsp crushed garlic clove, and 1/2 tsp crushed coriander seeds.  Once the celery, onions and bell pepper were softened I added about 1/2 tbsp mendudo spice mix, 1 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/4 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp chicken bullion, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can pinto beans, drained, 1 diced tomato, 3 slices of cooked and crumbled bacon, 3/4 cup dark beer, 1 chipotle pepper, 1 diced pickled serrano pepper(my own homemade pickled serrano) and 1 tsp cinnamon.  I hope, and don't think I'm forgetting anything here. 

I let this simmer down until it got fairly thick.  I wanted it to be slightly soupy.  I had in the mean time cooked up some jasmine rice which I served my chili over.  I diced up some white onion to throw on top and grated some Loleta Smokey Cheddar Cheese on top.  It came out fantastic!  I think next time the only thing I'd do different is to add some Tobasco, or Tapatio to the chili while it's cooking and maybe double the chipotle.  I didn't this time around because I know the menudo spice can be pretty hot, but it mellowed out quite a bit and the chili wasn't as hot as I expected.  It had a nice warmth to it, that even my kids could have handled and enjoyed.  Rely quite nice, but I kind of like my chili to make me sweat a little, so next time I'll be kicking it up a notch.  Oh and maybe adding another 1/2 tsp of unsweetened cocoa. 

If you like chili, I hope you give this a try - It was a very fragrant and delicious dish.

Loleta Cheese

I just want to give a shout out to a couple of our local businesses who both provide outstanding products to our county from our little town of Loleta. First is the Loleta Meat Market located on 350 Main St. in downtown Loleta. The owner, Pixie, makes some of the best sausage I've ever had!
And if you're a hunter, she'll butcher what you've bagged for you. You can reach Loleta Meat Market at 707-733-5319.
And second is the Loleta Cheese Factory. They've been in business in our little town, making some of the best cheese ever, since 1980. If you can't make it to Loleta to stop by and pick up some awesome cheese you can click on the link above and order on line. Get yourself some Loleta Cheese and have a cheesy day!
I just love living in dairy land!

St. Patty's update, better late then never

There it is! My wonderful corned beef, corned personally by me. And man was it good! It didn't have that red coloring that you get when you buy one in the store, because I didn't have any of the insta cure no. 1. But it didn't look as disturbingly gray as I thought it would. It just looked like a beef brisket (purchased locally at Loleta Meat Market). It also wasn't as dry and tough as the ones I've had from the store. It was more tender, and the texture was softer. Another difference is, I didn't just cook it in pickling spices like you do with the ones from the store. I brined it with pickling spices, but I used a boquet garnis, or a spice bag filled with bay leaves, coriander seeds, allspice, and a dried chile. It gave it a subtle but distinct difference from store bought. That slight taste of allspice really made it unique. Another thing a friend of mine pointed out, is that it still tasted like beef. She noted that the ones from the store taste like pickling spices, and you don't really taste the meat, in mine, you could still taste the meat. I would say that's a good thing.
I got the idea for brining my own corned beef from Bon Appetite (you should be able to find the recipe at epicurious.com). I made my brine slightly different from theirs. I borrowed a few things from the brine method out of Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman.
Otherwise I followed Bon Appetite's recipe for cooking it on St. Patty's. I cooked it in Guiness Stout with the spice sack I mentioned above, turnips, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. I made the horseradish cream and guiness mustard from Bon Appetite as well. It was all worth every minute of my time, and was topped off by my Bailey's Bread Pudding topped with a hard cream sauce. YUM!
Then the next weekend it was off to Chico to spend Easter with the in-laws which I got to do no cooking, but enjoyed every bit of food, as the scale will attest.
Unfortunately the only food picture I have of the Easter feast is this one:


These turned out to be some very comforting and delicious scalloped potatoes that went along great with the ham asparagus and rolls.
Then the next weekend was John's birthday. I made my Mom's potato salad recipe (sweet pickles, not dill)and I boiled corn on the cob, while John made his own special rub and BBQ'd pork ribs, which he later doused in Stubbs BBQ sauce. The first set of ribs came from a pig our friend raised locally. John helped with the culling ( a story you don't want to hear). Those ribs came out incredibly good. Slightly spicy, the fat was crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and the meat tender. The other ribs came from a wild boar that John and his friend Pat had killed the year before.

We still haven't got the hang of cooking wild boar. The meat fibers are shorter, and it's way too easy to over cook. They would have been wonderful, if we had teeth like a lion.

Then, the next reason it has taken me so long give an update on my brisket, is that one of our 3 pregnant goats decided to have her kids the next weekend. This will (hopefully) be the next adventure in our culinary experiences. I'm planning on learning a few goat meat recipes in the future. These cute little kids:



will be ending up on the menu in the future. I know, how could you eat such a cute thing? But believe me, when they get big and have horns and start butting you and your children, it's not so hard. They start to look mighty delicious! So, bon appetite, hopefully it won't be so long until I post again.