Today the man cave will be hosting some of my neighbors--all men--to come over and watch the Chicago Bears beat the New England Patriots--God willing-- and part of the fun will be enjoying a big pot of chili. I made it Saturday so the flavors can come out and the recipe can be found at the end of this post.

In Chicago you have to look the weather in the eye and say, "Is that all you've got? Is that your best shot?" And then you go on with your outdoor activities as if the weather wasn't so bad. One way you do it is to go outside for a run when it is 13 degrees and the wind chill is in the single digits.

However, running and sitting are two different stories. Today the temperature will be dropping throughout the day and will be about 16-17 degrees when the Bears start playing. The wind chill will be below zero, because the winds will be blowing around 35-47 mph. Yowza! I've sat through a Bears game at Soldier Field when it was this cold and you cannot get warm. You could if you could move, but you can't move. You're sitting the whole time playing chicken with hypothermia and frostbite. "Unfortunately" I finished my long run Saturday so I will not be able to enjoy this winter treat, but Monday is expected to be colder and mercifully less windy, so nature will get another shot at me tomorrow.

This kind of weather calls for chili and the recipe I am using combines some of the strangest ingredients I've ever seen in a chili dish. Nonetheless, they work. I could not imagine putting basil, oregano, paprika and other un-chili like ingredients in the pot, but I followed the recipe and the results, after just a few hours of simmering, were fantastic. The recipe is copied below and it can be found on All Recipes website. The link is:

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/boilermaker-tailgate-chili/Detail.aspx

 

Ingredients

2 pounds ground beef chuck
1 pound bulk Italian sausage
3 (15 ounce) cans chili beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can chili beans in spicy sauce
2 (28 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 green chile peppers, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon bacon bits
4 cubes beef bouillon
1/2 cup beer
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce (e.g. Tabasco™)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 (10.5 ounce) bag corn chips such as Fritos®
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese
Directions

Heat a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Crumble the ground chuck and sausage into the hot pan, and cook until evenly browned. Drain off excess grease.
Pour in the chili beans, spicy chili beans, diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Add the onion, celery, green and red bell peppers, chile peppers, bacon bits, bouillon, and beer. Season with chili powder, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, oregano, cumin, hot pepper sauce, basil, salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, and sugar. Stir to blend, then cover and simmer over low heat for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
After 2 hours, taste, and adjust salt, pepper, and chili powder if necessary. The longer the chili simmers, the better it will taste. Remove from heat and serve, or refrigerate, and serve the next day.
To serve, ladle into bowls, and top with corn chips and shredded Cheddar cheese.
Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 600 | Total Fat: 30.1g | Cholesterol: 70mg

Enjoy and go Bears!

Tom

PS. The mighty Bears defense held the Patriots to 3 points in the second half of the football game. Unfortunately, they allowed a Soldier Field record 33 points in the first half. The final score was 36-7. Oh well, at least th

For my sake, if not for yours, I need to lighten things up after the last blog post.

So I will share a recipe that was just tried out at an all-girl dinner party in our home (I was banished to the upstairs bedroom). This chili recipe is perfect for warming you up on a cold winter night and, as it is vegetarian, the girls loved it because they knew it was low-cal. And it is delicious. It uses bulghur (cracked wheat) to give it some of the substance it misses being meatless. For the record, I prefer lots of meat in my fire-breathing, jalapeno-laden, Texas style chili, but it wasn't my party. And I would add, I've made this recipe a couple of times now fbecause I love the flavor as well.

The recipe comes from Epicurious (a great source of recipes because each one has feedback from people who have made the dish) and it is very simple to make. It is basically two steps. One, sautee the veggies. Two, throw everything else in there and let it simmer. That's it. Bon apetit.

yield: Makes 6 servings

"This is a recipe I created on a snowy night when my family needed a little warming up," writes Rebecca Averill of Beverly, Massachusetts. "I... more ›

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ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded, chopped
3 large jalapeño chilies, seeded, minced (about 4 1/2 tablespoons)
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree
3 cups water
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
2 15-ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed, drained
1/2 cup bulgur*
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
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preparation

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, red bell pepper, and jalapeños and sauté until onion and carrots are almost tender, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, 3 cups water, beans, bulgur, white wine vinegar, garlic, and spices. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered, until bulgur is tender and mixture thickens, stirring often, about 20 minutes. Ladle chili into bowls and serve.
* Also called cracked wheat; available at natural foods stores and supermarkets.


Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spicy-Two-Bean-Vegetarian-Chili-107274#ixzz179rmkNT4

All the best,

Tom

Every now and again you have to lighten things up and pass along some advice that may prove to be helpful. Take, for example, making brown rice taste better. Everyone tells us that brown rice is better for you, but it has this consistency problem. It is very dense and chewy, while white rice is fluffy and less chewy. Hence, brown rice is less popular.

I used to travel to Japan fairly frequently during my international business days and I can never remember seeing a person in this rice-crazy nation (they often eat rice three times a day) eating brown rice at a restaurant. But it is easy to make brown rice delicious by just adding three things. First, and this is critical, cook it in chicken broth not water. Since chicken broth can be salty you will not need to add salt. Second, add a tablespoon of butter if you are cooking 1 cup of rice with two cups of chicken broth. Third, add 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder. The key is not to add so much that you taste the garlic. It will enhance the flavor without dominating it.

Finally, when you have a guest over for dinner and they tell you they like simple fare, not too spicy or adventurous, you might wonder, "Can you serve oat meal for dinner?" But you don't have to go that far over to the bland side of the food spectrum. The following chicken dish was recently served at a at a dinner party where adventure was not on the menu and everyone loved it. It is Chicken Piccata and the recipe is found online using this search string "Epicurious Chicken Piccata with capers".  It is so simple. The hardest part is halving the chicken breast horizontally (making the breast into two flat pancakes of chicken). You place the halved breasts between two sheets of plastic wrap and smack them with a food mallet to flatten them to a uniform thickness. It takes one minute per side to cook them and then the magic comes from the sauce. It combines butter, capers, white wine, lemon juice and parsley. There is no reduction of the sauce. Once you bring the wine, lemon juice and butter to a boil you add the capers and the parsley and you are done. Yum!

Tomorrow will be heavier fare as I continue with the philosophers. We will be entering the looking-glass world of deconstruction that was introduced to the world by Jacques Derrida.
Until then,

Grace and peace,

Tom 

I love chicken, but the problem is that sometimes I eat too much of it and want a change. Okay, so I eat chicken and fish. But that gets old too. I love steak--its my absolute favorite--but I look at steak like I look at desert, too much of it is too much of a good thing. So tonight I cooked some bone-in pork chops and the recipe was simple, quick to prepare and delicious. If you are looking for a way to prepare a pork dish I think you will like this one. 

This is an Epicurious recipe--my favorite site for recipe ideas. The link is below, but basically it is this. You mash some garlic cloves into a paste, add olive oil, dried rosemary sprigs that have been cut to the point of being granular, some salt and pepper, and stir it together. It forms a paste and you rub it on both sides of the pork chop and broil it. The result? My wife is not a big pork fan and was not looking forward to ths meal, but she ate all of it and the leftovers will not last long.


http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Rosemary-Pork-Chops-240946


I love easy recipes that take little time and taste great. I think you will like this one.


All the best,


Tom