best chili recipe, seriously.

Normally I am very impressed with the Smitten Kitchen blog's recipes and photography, but I saw this recipe for beef chili with sour cream and cheddar biscuits and I thought, gross! Look at those carrots, they shouldn't be sliced like that! Where is the deep red chili color? This is what I imagine gruel to look like! I'm not a victorian-era orphan, why would I want to eat like Oliver Twist?

And then I read the recipe, which was apparently adapted from a super old issue of gourmet, and I thought, wow, I make a much better chili than that. I should blog about it. I don't use chili powder in my chili, I use a ton of ancho chiles and other spices. The base of my chili is one yellow onion, diced, two cloves of garlic, minced, about 1 1/4 cups of seeded and diced ancho chiles (soaked first in warm water to soften), 1 large red bell pepper, diced, 1/2 green bell pepper, diced, and 1 minced jalapeno (I had a habanero this time around and used that instead). Spice-wise I add cumin, crushed coriander, and cayenne pepper. Usually I make this chili vegan, adding pink beans and crushed tomatoes to it after sauteeing the other ingredients, but as I had 2 lbs of ground beef from Marlow and Daughters in my fridge (thanks Jacob!), I added that.

It's best to do all the chopping ahead of time, because the sauteeing part of the chili is really quick. As I mentioned previously, I usually don't use meat, but in this case I browned the beef before adding the chopped vegetables.

The key to the vegetables is sauteeing the onions first in a little bit of oil, then adding garlic, then spices (I use about 2 tbsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander, and 3/4 tsp cayenne at the outset, then add salt + additional spices to taste later). The onions are great at gripping the spices and thus dispersing them evenly throughout the chili as other ingredients are added. After the onions, garlic, and spices have heated until fragrant, I add the ancho chiles, and stir until the reddish color of the chilis has colored the mixture, about a minute or two.

I then add the peppers and cook, stirring, for a few minutes. I added the beef at this point as well. Cook until the peppers start to soften and take on a bit of the deep red color of the chiles.

Then add a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes (note: I am from Chicago, not Texas, though at least 1 Texan and 1 Arizonan have eaten this chili and declared it delicious), give a thorough stir to the mixture, turn the heat to low and simmer covered for 20-30 minutes. If you're cooking without meat, let it go longer--you won't have to worry about the meat being overcooked. Below is the final product, as you can see you don't need to use chili powder(which quite frankly usually consists mostly of ground dried chiles and the other spices used in this recipe) to obtain that deep red color, and what you'll be left with is a spicy, high-flavor, low-fat(if meatless), thick-consistency chili that is pretty laissez-faire and very nutritious.

Oh also I made those biscuits she wrote about and hot damn, were those things delicious. They were even better when we froze the leftover dough and baked them the next day. Do yourself a favor and whip these up, they take no time at all, I made them from start to finish while the chili was simmering. Though honestly, just serve them alongside chili, that picture with the split biscuit with chili in it just made me depressed.

meatless/cheeseless enchiladas

Alex Iezzi's mom recently sent him a big package full of hot peppers she grew in her garden in Arizona. He handed them over to me, requesting something spicy. At first I thought I would make a noodle dish of some sort, but Veronica suggested enchiladas and I wholeheartedly agreed. I roasted a mixture of serrano, jalapeno, and habanero peppers with a drizzle of oil until slightly charred and softened, and in the meantime boiled purple and idaho potatoes on the stove. The jalapeno and habanero peppers were minced and added to a sauce of crushed san marzano tomatoes with garlic and a few drizzles of molasses and seasoned with salt; the serrano peppers were roughly chopped and added to the filling.

The filling consisted of a diced onion sauteed with one clove of chopped garlic, 1/2 green bell pepper, 1 red bell pepper, 1 15oz can of pink beans, and the just-tender, drained potatoes. I cooked the filling in a large saute pan and mashed it with a potato masher to break up the potatoes but not so much as to totally homogenize the texture. I spread some sauce over the bottom of a 13x9 roasting pan and dipped tortillas (individually warmed over the stove by Veronica) in the sauce, then filled them, then rolled them up. This is a great and inexpensive way to feed a large group with mixed dietary restrictions, because it is so healthy, filling, and delicious no one will complain, and Alex Craig may even ask, "what kind of meat is in this?"

meat happening

While Madison is on tour with Coasting, I have two dude roommates, which is a first. It's kinda like the opposite of three's company. I'm always churning out something crazy in the kitchen and Eli is salivating while simultaneously declaring he's done working and mixing us drinks with lemonade and strawberries. Suddenly, Alex Craig comes home and says something ridiculous (cue canned laughter).

We conceived "Meat Happening" some weeks ago and last Sunday actually made it happen. The idea was to have a crazy surplus of meat products and grill/eat them all in one giant meat happening. Naturally, I went to the Meat Hook and spent a completely ludicrous amount of money on "responsible" meat. It was kind of embarrassing--

Me: I'll have a pound of ground chuck and a pound of ground sirloin, please.

Butcher: Anything else?

Me: Yes, three hanger steaks, please.

Butcher #2: Are you being taken care of?

Me: Yes:

Butcher #2: Do you need anything else?

Me: Yes, 10 hot dogs, please.

Butcher: [returning from grinding beef] Is there anything else?

Me: Yes, six thick slices of bacon, please.

I made slightly fancier-than-normal "chili cheese dogs"(pictured above), meatloaf sandwiches with gravy, and grilled hanger steak with poblano peppers and onions. My friend Chris brought a chicken he had brined overnight with shallots and anchovies, among other things.

I will share the chili recipe with you in an upcoming post, because with or without meat it is fantastic. The meatloaf involved 2 lbs of ground beef, chuck and sirloin in my case, mixed with 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1 medium onion finely diced, 1 egg, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 1 tsp sea salt, a lot of coarsely ground black pepper, and a few liberal dashes of soy sauce. I mixed these together and formed the loaf in an 8x8 roasting pan, baked it for 15 minutes at 350, and then topped with a mixture of ketchup, sriracha, honey, and soy sauce, the sliced bacon, and after twenty more minutes in the oven, I added additional glaze. It was the hit of the party, especially after I made a gravy from the drippings and dressed the sandwiches with that. This was the meatloaf hot out of the oven:

For dessert, my lovely friend Amy made cupcakes, and may I say it was quite the barbeque.

this was delicious! you've done it again, smitten kitchen!

concord grape and rosemary focaccia

this is delectably sweet, savory, and herbaceous all at once. (i substituted soymilk, it turned out great)

eggplant is so good

whenever i've made eggplant dishes for people they usually say "i usually don't like eggplant, but I like this." what the eff? eggplant is delicious and i love when it's in season. let me just say though, that if you don't treat it right it will taste like crap, and that's why people don't think they like it when they really do.

if you decide to buy one before it goes out of season, slice the eggplant and put slices in a colander, salt liberally, and let sit for 30 minutes. then rinse off the salt. that's how you make it tasty. eggplant is a nightshade, it has bitter juices that need to be drawn out. that's what the salt does. after salting and draining eggplant it can be turned into moussaka or caponata, simply roasted with oregano and a medley of seasonal veggies, or lightly breaded and baked on an oiled baking sheet and topped with chopped herbs, olives, veggies, and hummus.

tomatoes pt 3: peas and tomatoes should be seasonally in sync and it's not fair that they're not

It isn't really fair that the best peas come in spring and the best tomatoes in summer, but frozen organic peas can actually taste nearly as good as the fresh ones and honestly, when combined with tomatoes, oh my god, let's just say it's a match made in heaven. My friend Fiona, who has loyally eaten almost everything I've ever made, remarked about a recent pea and tomato ravioli (details below) that it was the best thing I've ever made. But first the pizza, which was way easier to make and I would absolutely recommend making in your own home next summer.

3) Pizza with mozzarella, pureed peas, tomatoes and pecorino

The key to great pizza at home is allowing the dough you either make or buy to rise in your refrigerator for a couple of days. It really makes for a lighter, crispier end product in a home oven that can only responsibly reach around 500 degrees. I bake mine at 450. Allow the dough to reach room temperature and knead it on a floured surface, begin to roll it out into the shape of whatever pan or stone you have. I use a rectangular baking sheet usually, and apply olive oil to the sheet and spread it around before plopping my stretched dough over that and spreading it out to nearly reach the corners. I then add whatever toppings I desire and add a little extra oil and salt to the outside edges. This pizza involved a puree of peas sauteed with garlic over sliced local mozzarella, sliced heirloom cherry and green tomatoes, and a liberal application of grated percorino romano over top. Peas with pecorino is one of the best flavor combinations I've ever tasted, and combined with garlic, sweet and tart tomatoes, and rich mozzarella, it was absolutely delicious!

4) Minted pea ravioli with slow-roasted cherry tomatoes (vegan)

Peas with mint is also a classic combination, so I decided to stuff eggless ravioli with a puree of peas, mint leaves, toasted pine nuts, and a touch of organic tofu cream cheese and top that with garlicky roasted cherry tomatoes. Note that rolling and punching out individual ravioli takes forever, and that I want a pasta machine for Christmas.

I was cooking for around 10 or more people, so I made a huge pile of ravioli, with about a cup of roasted pine nuts, a very loosely packed half cup of mint leaves, two packages of organic peas, a quarter cup of tofu cream cheese, and salt and pepper in the filling. I used two cartons of local heirloom cherry tomatoes and two cloves of garlic for the topping, slow-roasted with a bit of olive oil to coat at 250 degrees for around an hour. I garnished this with additional mint leaves. Apparently this is the best thing I've ever cooked, and it was a huge hit at Coasting's west coast tour kick-off dinner party. If you have a pasta maker, have at it. If not, you must love your friends as much as I do.

Summer tomatoes pt. 2 (also vegan)

2) Bread salad with sweet corn, tomatoes, and herbed nut puree

Vegan cooking doesn't have to be boring or incorporate suspicious faux-meats. There is plenty of protein readily available in the plant world, and though it might seem like more effort to season and puree a mixture of cashews and walnuts in a food processor than to simply throw a chicken breast in a pan, it is infinitely more environmentally responsible to buy walnuts than Purdue. That being said, I am a carnivore who delights in all-vegetable-and-nut meals. This is one I came up with while vacationing in Wisconsin.

I had stale bread on hand (many commercially available artisinal breads are vegan) and toasted thick slices of it in a pan, then rubbed the slices with garlic, and cut into cubes. I dressed sliced local tomatoes and freshly-cut sweet corn kernels with white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dill, a touch of salt and pepper, and topped with a nut puree made of cashews, walnuts, oregano, hot red pepper flakes, and the same white balsamic vinegar. The nut puree I made in advance of assembling the other ingredients, and allowed it to drain over the sink in a strainer to remove excess liquid. The sweetness of the nut puree was an excellent contrast to the salty/vinegary vegetables and the garlicky croutons, and there were several delightful textures at play in this dish. Had I any arugula, I would have thrown that right in the mix.