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.

Cincinnati Chili

Today is my husband's birthday, and the poor man ended up cooking his own dinner.  Not that it was a difficult dinner, but still.

His friend Dale sent him home with a packet of spices from Cincinnati.  Cincinnati chili.  A mid-western delight apparently.  Being born and raised in California, Nevada being my home away from home, I was skeptical.  Especially when this chili involved spaghetti. Spaghetti? With chili?  WTF?  Really?  No Texan or Oklahoman would understand (or Californian).  Well, I decided, lets give Dale and his chili a chance.

It smelled delicious!  Cinnamon being the strongest smell, which I love.  I was worried about it being too salty (which the sodium level was over the top) but it didn't taste that salty.  We took the "5 way" route and were pretty pleased witht he result.  Here's ther recipe:

One package of Cincinnati chilli spices with one 6 oz can of tomato paste and 6 cups of water.
Add one to 1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef.  Do not brown.
Beat mixture with a fork and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered stirring occasionally until desired thickness - 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.

There are apparently 2 to 5 ways to serve this.  We chose the 5 way.  Serve on Spaghetti, with finely grated cheddar cheeese (Dale specified that it must be finely shredded) chopped onions, and warmed kidney beans added to the spagehetti topped wiht chilli. 

Did I like it?  Yes.  It was by no means over the top spectacular, (to me, it tasted just like my expectations of the midwest.  Simple, and plain - that doesn't mean bad, just not complex or outrageous) but, as John said, excellent comfort food.  The spices in the packet were great.  I can only imagine that this recipe homemade would be awesome.  It was quite good from a package.  So thanks Dale, you ended up giving us quite a nice dinner for John's birthday.

Dale - the inspiration for dinner, his packet of Cincinnati chili spices, the chili cooking and the final dish.  Thanks Dale!  Not bad! 

Fortuna Rodeo Chili Cookoff

Yesterday was the kick off of Fortuna's Rodeo Week, starting with the Chili Cook Off. This is a fun event that's growing in popularity. I sampled some excellent chili, and have to say, "where did they get the judges from?" Because they obviously didn't know good chili. That aside, it's a free event, and there's lots of good chili, fun times, and the band (Boomsauii) was awesome!. I've cooked in this event in the past with my best friend sponsored by the radio station she works for. (Bicoastal Media's country western station Big Red). We won hottest chili two years in a row, and lost the 3rd year to a group serving up something tasting similar to battery acid. There were a lot of complaints that year, so now everyone has toned the heat way down out of fear of the angry capiscum fearing mobs. I have to say that's a sad thing. To me, part of the joy of eating a good chili is the endorphin buzz you get from just the right amount of heat. For me that requires a bit of hurt. So, I'm hoping to try this event out again next year. That gives me a whole year to perfect my recipe, and work on my best friend to get us in the event again. They had some pretty good chili at the 100.3 The Point radio station booth, and they won hottest (I'm not sure why, my 10 year old could eat their chili, it was no where near as hot as Dirty Dan's chili) they're the ones I hope to beat next year. A friendly competition, and I will be bringing on the capiscum, so bring on your pitchforks angry mob.

If you want to know more about the chili cook off and the Fortuna Rodeo, check it out here:
http://fortunarodeo.com/Events/chilicookoff.htm