When the cooler days leading into Winter come along, many of us are looking for those satisfying comfort foods -- Chili in a variety of forms is what always comes to mind for me...
When I was a youngster, still living at home, my Mother discovered a recipe that she called Chili Con Carne -- now there is some argument as to exactly what that is, but to her, it was ground beef, red kidney beans and tomato with various spices... We loved it and always gobbled it up with big chunks of home made bread.
It is only one of the many things in my life that signals Winter is coming! The other is knitting. I have not considered myself to be a knitter for very long, even though I first learned how from my grandmother when I was still in elementary school. Today, my hands pick up needles and yarn irregularly and it always seems to be at this time of year!
Last year, along with my friend Doris, we explored the making of knitted winter hats or in Canada, known at toques. Doris discovered a lovely soft chunky yarn at Michael's stores, Loops and Threads Charisma. Doris has moved on to experiment with other yarns and other projects, but I seem to be stuck on Charisma!
With no pattern, in combination with Doris' results I have created a kind of "rule" for a classic toque using the Charisma yarn and expanded a bit of the "rule" to make a cowl and fingerless gloves using the yarn. I am quite pleased with how these came out. The toque takes a ball of yarn, the cowl takes a ball of yarn, and the pair of fingerless gloves takes 1 ball of yarn...
I must say, it took quite a few rows of knit and unravel and knit and unravel, or even knit and undo and start over to develop a simple 'pattern' for these items. A pattern, that nicely remains in my head, without having had to refigure it out each time.
I have been thinking that I should write out these rules for these classic simple winter accessories, so am working on a description in an e-book format, that should be available for download in the next week or two.
For now though, how about my Mom's Chili? This is the kind of recipe that is different everytime, so don't put it on a restaurant menu!
Half Hour Chili
1 pound ground beef - or pork or even chicken if you like,
1 medium size white onion, or red if you prefer
5 stalks of celery, chopped, chunky or fine, however you like it.
Into a good quality pot, I use a very old cast iron dutch oven pot, fry the meat until nicely done and browned. Drain off most of the fat, which is the saturated fats, and then add back some unsaturated fat, such as safflower or vegetable or canola oil, about 2 tablespoonfuls. Add to the meat, the onion and celery and cook on medium to low heat until the onion is translucent.
While the meat and onion and celery is cooking, open a can of red kidney beans, a can of diced tomato, and a can of tomato paste. Rinse the kidney beans well and add to the meat mixture in the pot. Open a can of diced tomato and put that into the pot. Open a can of tomato paste and mix it with two tomato paste cans of water stir it up til nice and smooth and add that to the pot. Did I tell you what size of cans? no? use the middling sizes for a fairly even ratio to the meat, use the big size for more veg to the meat. Whichever you prefer...
Lastly, the spices -- which are all added to taste... salt, black pepper (but that depends on if you are adding hot sauce, later, or other hot pepper, you don't really need black pepper.) chili powder, alot - at least 3 tablespoons, but more if you like that flavour - chili powder is not spicey hot, so be generous. Cumin, adds a nice earthy flavour and you can be fairly generous with that, too, at least a tablespoonfull. Now you can also add a bit of garlic flavour to the pot, I prefer crushed and chopped real garlic, about 3 cloves but if it is easier for you, you can just use a garlic powder or even that jarred garlic - say about a teaspoonful...
Bring the whole thing to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Now is the time to add the SPICY HEAT if you like it. You can get that BITE from a number of products but be careful because the longer it cooks in the pot the HOTTER IT GETS. I use Tabasco, just a couple of drops, but I have also use Epicurian Chipolte Pepper, which sneaks up on you or in a pinch I have use a Chinese Sweet Hot Sauce.
So, you see why it changes everytime? Once you have the basic RULE of it, you can create a different chili everytime by simply changing up or adding something different. Try grated carrot, try garbonzo beans instead of kidney beans, or in a pinch use a can of baked brown beans with its sauce...
It is called Half Hour Chili because really it doesn't take much more time than that to put it together and cook it... You can cook it longer, depending on what you add to it, but basically once the meat and veg is cooked through, it is ready to eat. The longer you cook the more the spices develop the flavour, but you can dish it out within that half hour if you choose.
Okay, now I have talked myself into making a pot of Mom's Chili.
Let me know how your's turns out if you try my system!
