Biggie's Big Chili

It has been way too long, but we finally have something blog worthy to share. Although this isn't new, it's simple and quite seasonally appropriate. One of my very favorite fall meals is Brandon's delicious chili. He prides himself on using "real" beef rather than ground, and several different kinds of beans. It's also quite spicy, owing to the awesome inclusion of poblano and jalapenos peppers. So tasty!

Ingredients

1.5 lbs stew meat (beef), cubed
2 poblano chiles, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 jalapeno chiles, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoon chili powder
5 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon sage
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon red pepper flake
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
5-10 dashes crystal hot sauce
5 dashes Worcestershire sauce
1 8 oz can beef stock
1 15 oz can kidney beans
2 15 oz cans white beans
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can pinto beans
1 30 oz can of stewed tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
1 30 oz can of tomato sauce
1 30 oz can of red chile sauce


Directions

1. Season meat with some chili powder, garlic salt, and black pepper.
2. Brown meat.
3. Add meat to pot with red chile sauce, beef stock and the rest of the spices and simmer until tender (about 45 minutes or 20 minutes in a pressure cooker).
4. Sautee chiles, bell pepper, and onions with olive oil and garlic salt until almost tender.
5. Once meat is tender add beans, tomato products, and hot sauce. Simmer 15 minutes.

Usually he uses the pressure cooker to cook the meat first, but since we had the time he decided to do a nice slow simmer instead. Look at it bubbling away.



Here's a great pic of the veggies being sauteed. The finished product, along with some cornbread with cheese and chiles in it.

Hard Core Mac n Cheese

Brandon's first attempt at making mac and cheese happened a few years ago in Hawaii and was met with rave reviews. He based it on Emeril's Kicked Up Sausage Macaroni and Cheese and kicked it up a bit himself. This weekend he tried it again and I think it was even more delicious this time around! Be warned, though - this is dirty dirty DIRTY! (We also quadrupled the recipe - we had a lot of mouths to feed!)

Ingredients

• 9 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 pound pasta (we used Mezzi Rigatoni)
• 1 pound andouille sausage
• 1/2 cup chopped yellow onions (optional)
• 1 cup chopped red bell peppers
• 2 jalapenos seeded veined and chopped (optional)
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 cups whole milk
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 1.5 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese (4 ounces)
• 1.5 cups grated pepper jack cheese (4 ounces)
• 3/4 cup goat cheese (2 ounces)
• 1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
• Crystal Louisiana Hot Sauce (to taste)
• 2-3 strips of bacon

Cheeeeeeeesy...

Lots of sausage and noodles.



Directions

1. Place bacon on aluminum foil on cookie sheet. Turn oven on to 400. Place bacon in cold oven and check 17-20 minutes later and remove when done.
2. Turn oven down to 350 degrees F.
3. Butter a large casserole dish with 1 tablespoon of the butter and set aside.
4. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Drain well.
5. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the sausage, stirring until browned and the fat is rendered. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the pan.
6. Add the onions, bell peppers, and 1 teaspoon of garlic salt, and cook, stirring, over medium-high heat until soft, about 3 minutes.
7. Add the garlic, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
8. Melt the remaining stick of butter in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour, and stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, cook over medium heat until thick, 3 to 4 minutes, being careful not to let the flour brown.
9. Using a whisk, add the milk in a steady stream and cook, whisking constantly, until thick and smooth, 4 to 5 minutes.
10. Remove from the heat. Add the salt, pepper, cayenne, and 2 cups of the cheese, and stir well.
11. Add the noodles, cooked sausage, and vegetables. Stir well to combine. Pour into the prepared baking dish.
12. Chop the bacon finely.
13. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining 1 cup of cheese with the breadcrumbs and chopped bacon. Sprinkle over the pasta and bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 25 minutes.
14. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Here's the end result:

Closeup:


Brandon also smoked some pork tenderloin. He used his mixture of spices: garlic salt, coarse ground black pepper, red pepper flake, oregano, chili powder, and let it sit for a couple of hours in the fridge...



...and then put it in the smoker for about 3 hours at 225-250 degrees. It turned out spectacular!



Along with some grilled asparagus, zucchini, and broccoli, this meal was quite a hit!

Hater Tater Tot Casserole

Actual IM conversation from yesterday afternoon.

Brandon: what do you want me to cook for dinner tonight? i will make anything you want. ANYTHING YOU WANT.
Jen: whatever you want to make. the simpler the better.
Brandon: interesting. i am surprised you didn't take advantage of the situation.
Jen: and what? ask for tater tot casserole?
Brandon: and ask for tate... haha i was JUST typing that!
Jen: believe me, that was the first thing that came to my mind, but i wouldn't force you to make something you hate
Brandon: don't worry - i will kick it up biggie style
Jen: i challenge thee!! kick up tater tot casserole!!

So, the back story here is that tater tot casserole is a childhood favorite of mine that Brandon has long derided as flavorless and too boring for him. Not to mention the fact that the crowning glory is tater tots, which for some ungodly reason he does not enjoy. The rest of the components are ground turkey, corn, and cream of whatever you choose soup (I always pick mushroom). I have made it for myself a couple times when he was out of town, but he has never tried to make it for me himself.

His first order of business was to make it into two separate dishes so that we could have freshly baked tots for tonight and tomorrow night rather than soggy leftovers.

In his version, Brandon decided to use an Italian sausage for the meat layer.

The second layer is where the bulk of the kickin up kicked in. Instead of just corn, Brandon whipped up a batch of his succotash, including zucchini, poblanos, and red peppers. He seasoned it with a bit of garlic salt and sauteed the veg, then added it to the corn. (Still steamy in the pic below!)


The third layer is the cream of whatever you want soup. Brandon made the inspired choice of cream of potato. He also went a bit dirty and used one can per dish.


As you can see in the rear dish below, he used some red pepper flake on top of the soup. And finally, the completing layer - the tots. We picked extra crispy for this experiment.

The finished product! We cooked it at 400 degrees for about 23 minutes, but tonight I think we will make it longer for even more crispiness.


Here's what it looks like inside. Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww... it tastes even better than it looks!

Smoked Pork Three Ways

One of the best investments we have ever made is the propane smoker. Smoked meats are always so delicious and kick up the flavor of any meal. Last week Brandon smoked a pork loin. It took about 4 hours. He used a rub that Julie and Erich brought him from Canada, and then added some of his own seasonings, as he does with pretty much every recipe he tries. He smoked enough meat for the bulk of the week and was able to make three unique and wonderful meals out of it.

The first was sliced pork with hominy, artichoke hearts, and cotilla cheese. He used the La Victoria red taco sauce for a little added flavor.


The next night he threw together an amazing salad with the chopped pork, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and again sprinkled with cotilla cheese.

Finally, we had some delectable quesadillas with flour tortillas, Mexican blended cheese, white beans, and zucchini slices.

All in all it was quite a successful week and fairly simple!

Out Of the Kitchen and Into the Fire

This is a bit of a silly bonus blog to highlight an awesome idea that turned out really delicious. The pics are a bit fuzzy because we were outside in the dark, but I think the idea comes through!

Last night after a failed attempt to have a bonfire at the beach (WHY was it already so packed by 5pm??) we ended up at my childhood home, enjoying a weenie roast in my parents' backyard. After all the delicious hot dogs and snacks, we whipped out the s'more fixings. The magical treat that resulted was a collaborative effort. Carrie brought all the basics, and then Julie regaled us with the tale of her sister making s'mores using Peppridge Farms Pretzel Thins instead of graham crackers. I thought that sounded amazing because the only thing I love more than chocolate and graham crackers is chocolate and pretzels. So, inspired by this idea, Deanna brazenly placed pretzels on her chocolate in the middle of her s'more, thusly:

Here's a closeup of the finished product.

Super flippin good.

I'm Corny, Corny, Corny, Corny... and Chowdery

Here's a quickie because we haven't done much interesting cooking lately but we've been itching to blog!

This weekend we threw aside any semblance of propriety and had an all out dirty bbq. The menu included home made burgers, twice baked potatoes, baked beans, and grilled veggie succotash. We're not going to blog about all that nonsense because it was all pretty basic, but we will blog about what happened to the leftover veggies. B decided they would make a pretty awesome corn chowder. In addition to corn, it included zucchini, pablano peppers, and red bells. He charged me with finding a fairly low cal recipe, and I think this was a pretty good one. We used 1% milk and the low cal Trader Joe's organic stock, so I think that brought the calories down a bit to 140 per half cup. He also added 1 tsp each of garlic salt, regular salt, pepper, and red pepper flake.

It was super easy because it was all done in the slow cooker. B chopped the potatoes Sunday night and kept them in water overnight, then threw everything except the veggies in the CrockPot yesterday morning. It simmered on low all day. When we got home he used his handblender and mixed it up a bit, then threw in the veggies and let it simmer on low while I worked out.

Here's the delicious final result:

I am madly in love with this soup. Sooooo good.

Frittata (AKA quiche's retarded Spanish cousin)

We are always wasting eggs because we make the mistake of buying a dozen when we need two, so we started buying the liquid eggs in cartons. This time around we went with the Kirkland Egg Starts found at Costco. They work really well for baking cookies as well as Sunday breakfast scrambles, and the idea would be that we would waste far less. Well, the expiration date came around and Brandon noticed we had two full cartons left. This inspired him to whip up a frittata for dinner. Had he ever made one before? Hell, no! Would that stop him? Hell, no! He enlisted me to look for a basic frittata recipe, so I found this one that uses a Dutch oven, which I knew B would like.

This was incredible. It was one of the tastiest egg dishes I have ever had. The sausage is so savory, I cannot recommend Cantella's enough. One sausage is 140 calories, which is unbelievably low. I think Brandon picked the perfect combination of veggies that really complemented each other. If he had added any more it might have been too much.

Ingredients:

• one carton Kirkland Egg Starts
• 1 Cantella's Chicken & Turkey w/Sun Dried Tomatoes, Black Olives, & Feta sausage, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta
• 1 spear broccoli, including stalk, finely chopped
• 1/2 pablano pepper, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 5 sun dried tomato halves, sliced
• oregano
• garlic salt
• red pepper flake

Preparation:

1. Sauté sausage until brown.
2. Add broccoli.
3. Wait 2 minutes, add zucchini, tomatoes and peppers.
4. Remove from heat and cover for 5 minutes.
5. Stir in eggs and spices.
6. Place in oven for about 20 minutes (use the toothpick test to see if it's done).
7. Remove and let set for about 5 minutes.
8. Slice and serve.

In the Dutch oven right after it came out:

Obligatory closeup:

Cross-section slice:

The one and only complaint I have is that I wanted to eat the entire thing myself. So. Freaking. Good.