![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Cooking Chili with Cat Ears
So, I've spent this week going to the grocery store and idly pricing out ingredients. 'Cause I've got a need for something _delicious_. And because I keep trying desserty type-stuff, I think I probably ought to try my hand at something more closely resembling an actual meal.
And oh, would you look at that. It so happens that there's a blog called Cooking Comically. And it so happens that they have a recipe for something savory that sounds totally delicious.
(Normally in these adventures, I post the recipe at the end. You're going to get more out of this post if you read it first, however.)
So! Let's make some muthafuckin' 2 AM Chili, with this guy. And cat ears.
Although wait! Disaster has struck! As I survey my GIANT PILE OF INGREDIENTS--
Seriously.
--I happen to notice that I have a box of delicious corn muffin mix--
And I hear corn muffins go awesome with chili. HOWEVER, corn muffins taste about four thousand times better when you substitute creamed corn in for the milk. One can makes about two boxes worth.
It's time to get my shopping on. I will return apace! (what does that even mean?) However, the lack of non-laptop camera means you get no pictures of me shopping in cat ears and a Sweeney Todd apron. SO IT GOES. (There is a bonus pic here though, of me in cat ears and a leather jacket, pretending to be a badass)
Okay! I'm back now, we're good. Except that all the roommates are home, plus one. I have never tried to cook with this many people in the house. It's VERY VERY DISTRACTING.
Anyways, music is on, hands are washed, food ingredients are gathered. Lets grab us some non-food ingredients too! (We're gonna set the corn muffins aside for a bit)
I have never had all my supplies take up the ENTIRETY of the dishwasher top before (where I normally work from).I am, frankly, intimidated.
And while putting spices together, we run into the first snafu. Luckily, it's the easy kind of this problem --namely, that I misread TBSP as TSP. Now, to Google! Because I need to know how many teaspoons to a tablespoon
Right then. Now that we've fixed that, let's continue making a delicious mix of spices.
I feel it's worth noting somewhere in here that, of the four people currently in the house, one of them is deathly allergic to like two thirds of my ingredients. Well, okay, mostly just the tomatoes, chili powder, and cayenne. Not that this is going to stop me, it just means I might have to open a window and cook in a cold-as-fuck kitchen. The things I do for you people (and delicious chili)
NOTE: IF YOU GET CAYENNE PEPPER ALL OVER YOUR HAND, THE CORRECT REACTION IS NOT TO LICK IT UP. Honestly, what did I think was going to happen?
I mean, I already knew well enough to listen to music while I cook. But getting to dance like an idiot to ke$ha while mixing spices? YEAH THAT WAS AWESOME!
Spices done! Let's do some more cooking!
So, the next step in the recipe is to brown some beef. If you noticed in my ingredients pictures, I don't have any. This isn't for any intelligent reason, like I don't want raw meat to come near the rest of my food. I just have a vegetarian roommate. While I'm sure I'm gonna wind up eating most of this myself in the first place, I figure being able to at least offer it to her would be nice.
Also, meat is _way_ more expensive than a couple extra cans of veggies. And I'm a broke-ass unemployed kid.
Quick guys. What is a good recipe for the other half of this onion? Also, how long will half an onion last if I put it in a baggie in the fridge?
It made me cry0! Damn onion! Why did you have to say all those things about my writing ability? Douchey vegetable knows how to hit where it hurts. :(
I also have most of a garlic head left. What is a good recipe for half an onion and a bunch of cloves of garlic? That won't cost me a fortune in ingredients?
Peeling garlic is amazingly unfun.
NOTE: YOU SHOULD ALSO NOT LICK GARLIC OFF YOUR HANDS. I am terrifically bad at this, aren't I?
I would like you all to admire how finely I chopped that garlic. I rock.
Anyways, first rule is in effect --I have finished chopping, so now I wash, dry, and put away the nice knife. Because I am only allowed to have nice things if I treat them well.
Next step! Put all the cans in the pot!
Holy shit, this barely fits.
Ancient Cooking Secret passed down from my mother --use a magnet to lift the lids of cans.
Okay, this is going great! Cooking with This Guy is so easy!
"Sauté them veggies"
...Goddamn you, This Guy. To the Googlenets! Tell me googlenets! What is "sauté"?
Sauté. Thank you googlenets.
Done? I hope? I have no idea how long to sauté things before they're done, but a piece of pepper popped out, and I tried it, and it was pretty good. So I guess that was enough? They went for like, the entirety of La Vie Boheme, and that's a long song.
Alright. I have now added all the ingredients to the mix. Adding the spices smelled _awesome_. The recipe calls for a shot or two of beer, but I don't have any. Would a shot of whiskey work? Is that a waste of my good whiskey? What if I use a shot of Fighting Cock?
(I suspect the answers are "maybe, yes, and oh gods, I thought you liked your roommates")
Reduce to a simmer! What's a si--wait! Wait, I http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/612238.htmlknow this one now!
(If anyone was wondering my tertiary purpose for doing this...maybe quadinary1-- anyways, that was it, right there.)
Simmer for as many hours as I can. Oh my! What will I do with that time? It's not like I have an e-mail to reply to, or like it's NaNoWriMo, or like I have all these cans in the sink to rinse out or anything...
As an aside, I'd like to note that I am a very exact cooker. Instructions like "for as many hours as you have" are terrible instructions, and make me freak out. I want to know EVERY INTIMATE LITTLE DETAIL of what I am trying to make. Luckily, I keep going anyways.
At any rate, with all this leftover time, you know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna MAKE ME SOME MUFFINS!
(Pee-ess: it is 9:15. I probably don't want it to simmer more than, say, three hours. I could be wrong about this. Googleresearch will be warrented at some point. But first, muffins!)
As you can see, muffin recipe is ridiculously easy. I substitute one can of creamed corn (per two boxes of muffins) for the milk. However, last time I made these, Nurit complained that they were too dry, and she asked me to add some extra milk. I can...uh...ohgods.
I've made these before, so this is TOTALLY LOW STRESS! It's exciting, cooking something and not being stressed about it.
Okay, it's not _all_ low stress. How much milk is "a little extra milk"? Oh god, oh god, are my muffins TOTALLY GOING TO BE RUNNY SHIT SHIT!?!?
(I added about three seconds worth of milk. Hopefully that's the right amount. And fuck you, I can totally measure milk in seconds if I want to.)
INTO THE OVEN WITH YOU! DARKEN MY DOORSTEP NO MORE EXCEPT IN 15-20 MINUTES WHEN I WILL TAKE YOU OUT AND EAT YOU ALL!
Okay, I really _shouldn't_, what with the raw eggs. Dear kids! Do not eat things with raw eggs in them! Not even if they taste good!
(This is why I have to make Ria-cookies more often --no eggs. If only I had pumpkin and chocolate chips just waiting in the pantry for something like this oh hm look what is that2. >.>)
While I'm waiting for those muffins to come out of the oven, I would like to point out that I just put my face over the chili and inhaled deeply. Oh hell yes. My fears that this will be completely terrible and I will have to eat all of it myself are very slightly assuaged.
Yes, that is fewer than a dozen muffins. Nurit stole one, and because I'm dumb, I forgot to grease the pan. Those are all the muffins that looked good after I got them out with a knife.
They're really quite good! And no, the chili's not quite ready yet, but it still tastes good on a muffin. Spicy! I am excited for the next week or two of leftovers. I guess that means ALL MY FEARS HAVE BEEN ASSUAGED omg.
I will have to come up with a new one. Here: the chili will reduce such that the spicyness becomes intolerable and I get holes in my stomach. YAY!
Anyways, I think I'm gonna leave it on, stirring occasionally, for another two hours. This makes it midnight-fifteen chili, as opposed to 2AM chili, but that's okay. Maybe I will eat a bowl at 2AM just for completeness sakes.
In the meantime, I am going to write some words!
***
Oh hey look at that, it's midnight! I wrote 2377 words, which is pretty good, although I'm still more than a day behind. But! I broke 20k words, and I've hit the parts of the story that I've written before, which might make this a lot easier. But this post is not about NaNoWriMo, dammit. It is about CHILI!
Here is the pot of all the chili.
Here is a bowl of chili and corn muffin and sour cream that I am going to eat.
Here is me eating it.
And here is my verdict. In two words?
Fuck.
YES!
This chili will knock you on your ass with how spicy it is (my throat feels so deliciously burny right now), but it's really good, especially with the cornmuffins and the sour cream. I am devouring it like a monster.
Thank you, Tyler Capps! 2 AM chili is a hell of a food!
...now to figure out how to deal with the pot I still have of it. Hey friends...!
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Crying because of onions reminds me of Horrible Turn, which you should all watch as soon as you've seen Dr. Horrible. It's _excellent_.
1: Primary goal: To entertain myself/get some interesting writing done.
Secondary goal: I am hungry
Tertiary goal: I actively want people to consume the things I create, in this case, I refer to both the food (which I share) and the entries (which I might put into a separate blog and crosspost).
Quadinary goal: I don't know how to cook, and people think I ought to fix that.
2: Well, I have to bring some for the Scottish Dancers to enjoy. And a secret other reason. Actually, two secret other reasons.
And oh, would you look at that. It so happens that there's a blog called Cooking Comically. And it so happens that they have a recipe for something savory that sounds totally delicious.
(Normally in these adventures, I post the recipe at the end. You're going to get more out of this post if you read it first, however.)
So! Let's make some muthafuckin' 2 AM Chili, with this guy. And cat ears.
Although wait! Disaster has struck! As I survey my GIANT PILE OF INGREDIENTS--
Seriously.
--I happen to notice that I have a box of delicious corn muffin mix--
And I hear corn muffins go awesome with chili. HOWEVER, corn muffins taste about four thousand times better when you substitute creamed corn in for the milk. One can makes about two boxes worth.
It's time to get my shopping on. I will return apace! (what does that even mean?) However, the lack of non-laptop camera means you get no pictures of me shopping in cat ears and a Sweeney Todd apron. SO IT GOES. (There is a bonus pic here though, of me in cat ears and a leather jacket, pretending to be a badass)
Okay! I'm back now, we're good. Except that all the roommates are home, plus one. I have never tried to cook with this many people in the house. It's VERY VERY DISTRACTING.
Anyways, music is on, hands are washed, food ingredients are gathered. Lets grab us some non-food ingredients too! (We're gonna set the corn muffins aside for a bit)
I have never had all my supplies take up the ENTIRETY of the dishwasher top before (where I normally work from).I am, frankly, intimidated.
And while putting spices together, we run into the first snafu. Luckily, it's the easy kind of this problem --namely, that I misread TBSP as TSP. Now, to Google! Because I need to know how many teaspoons to a tablespoon
Right then. Now that we've fixed that, let's continue making a delicious mix of spices.
I feel it's worth noting somewhere in here that, of the four people currently in the house, one of them is deathly allergic to like two thirds of my ingredients. Well, okay, mostly just the tomatoes, chili powder, and cayenne. Not that this is going to stop me, it just means I might have to open a window and cook in a cold-as-fuck kitchen. The things I do for you people (and delicious chili)
NOTE: IF YOU GET CAYENNE PEPPER ALL OVER YOUR HAND, THE CORRECT REACTION IS NOT TO LICK IT UP. Honestly, what did I think was going to happen?
I mean, I already knew well enough to listen to music while I cook. But getting to dance like an idiot to ke$ha while mixing spices? YEAH THAT WAS AWESOME!
Spices done! Let's do some more cooking!
So, the next step in the recipe is to brown some beef. If you noticed in my ingredients pictures, I don't have any. This isn't for any intelligent reason, like I don't want raw meat to come near the rest of my food. I just have a vegetarian roommate. While I'm sure I'm gonna wind up eating most of this myself in the first place, I figure being able to at least offer it to her would be nice.
Also, meat is _way_ more expensive than a couple extra cans of veggies. And I'm a broke-ass unemployed kid.
Quick guys. What is a good recipe for the other half of this onion? Also, how long will half an onion last if I put it in a baggie in the fridge?
It made me cry0! Damn onion! Why did you have to say all those things about my writing ability? Douchey vegetable knows how to hit where it hurts. :(
I also have most of a garlic head left. What is a good recipe for half an onion and a bunch of cloves of garlic? That won't cost me a fortune in ingredients?
Peeling garlic is amazingly unfun.
NOTE: YOU SHOULD ALSO NOT LICK GARLIC OFF YOUR HANDS. I am terrifically bad at this, aren't I?
I would like you all to admire how finely I chopped that garlic. I rock.
Anyways, first rule is in effect --I have finished chopping, so now I wash, dry, and put away the nice knife. Because I am only allowed to have nice things if I treat them well.
Next step! Put all the cans in the pot!
Holy shit, this barely fits.
Ancient Cooking Secret passed down from my mother --use a magnet to lift the lids of cans.
Okay, this is going great! Cooking with This Guy is so easy!
"Sauté them veggies"
...Goddamn you, This Guy. To the Googlenets! Tell me googlenets! What is "sauté"?
Sauté. Thank you googlenets.
Done? I hope? I have no idea how long to sauté things before they're done, but a piece of pepper popped out, and I tried it, and it was pretty good. So I guess that was enough? They went for like, the entirety of La Vie Boheme, and that's a long song.
Alright. I have now added all the ingredients to the mix. Adding the spices smelled _awesome_. The recipe calls for a shot or two of beer, but I don't have any. Would a shot of whiskey work? Is that a waste of my good whiskey? What if I use a shot of Fighting Cock?
(I suspect the answers are "maybe, yes, and oh gods, I thought you liked your roommates")
Reduce to a simmer! What's a si--wait! Wait, I http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/612238.htmlknow this one now!
(If anyone was wondering my tertiary purpose for doing this...maybe quadinary1-- anyways, that was it, right there.)
Simmer for as many hours as I can. Oh my! What will I do with that time? It's not like I have an e-mail to reply to, or like it's NaNoWriMo, or like I have all these cans in the sink to rinse out or anything...
As an aside, I'd like to note that I am a very exact cooker. Instructions like "for as many hours as you have" are terrible instructions, and make me freak out. I want to know EVERY INTIMATE LITTLE DETAIL of what I am trying to make. Luckily, I keep going anyways.
At any rate, with all this leftover time, you know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna MAKE ME SOME MUFFINS!
(Pee-ess: it is 9:15. I probably don't want it to simmer more than, say, three hours. I could be wrong about this. Googleresearch will be warrented at some point. But first, muffins!)
As you can see, muffin recipe is ridiculously easy. I substitute one can of creamed corn (per two boxes of muffins) for the milk. However, last time I made these, Nurit complained that they were too dry, and she asked me to add some extra milk. I can...uh...ohgods.
I've made these before, so this is TOTALLY LOW STRESS! It's exciting, cooking something and not being stressed about it.
Okay, it's not _all_ low stress. How much milk is "a little extra milk"? Oh god, oh god, are my muffins TOTALLY GOING TO BE RUNNY SHIT SHIT!?!?
(I added about three seconds worth of milk. Hopefully that's the right amount. And fuck you, I can totally measure milk in seconds if I want to.)
INTO THE OVEN WITH YOU! DARKEN MY DOORSTEP NO MORE EXCEPT IN 15-20 MINUTES WHEN I WILL TAKE YOU OUT AND EAT YOU ALL!
Okay, I really _shouldn't_, what with the raw eggs. Dear kids! Do not eat things with raw eggs in them! Not even if they taste good!
(This is why I have to make Ria-cookies more often --no eggs. If only I had pumpkin and chocolate chips just waiting in the pantry for something like this oh hm look what is that2. >.>)
While I'm waiting for those muffins to come out of the oven, I would like to point out that I just put my face over the chili and inhaled deeply. Oh hell yes. My fears that this will be completely terrible and I will have to eat all of it myself are very slightly assuaged.
Yes, that is fewer than a dozen muffins. Nurit stole one, and because I'm dumb, I forgot to grease the pan. Those are all the muffins that looked good after I got them out with a knife.
They're really quite good! And no, the chili's not quite ready yet, but it still tastes good on a muffin. Spicy! I am excited for the next week or two of leftovers. I guess that means ALL MY FEARS HAVE BEEN ASSUAGED omg.
I will have to come up with a new one. Here: the chili will reduce such that the spicyness becomes intolerable and I get holes in my stomach. YAY!
Anyways, I think I'm gonna leave it on, stirring occasionally, for another two hours. This makes it midnight-fifteen chili, as opposed to 2AM chili, but that's okay. Maybe I will eat a bowl at 2AM just for completeness sakes.
In the meantime, I am going to write some words!
***
Oh hey look at that, it's midnight! I wrote 2377 words, which is pretty good, although I'm still more than a day behind. But! I broke 20k words, and I've hit the parts of the story that I've written before, which might make this a lot easier. But this post is not about NaNoWriMo, dammit. It is about CHILI!
Here is the pot of all the chili.
Here is a bowl of chili and corn muffin and sour cream that I am going to eat.
Here is me eating it.
And here is my verdict. In two words?
Fuck.
YES!
This chili will knock you on your ass with how spicy it is (my throat feels so deliciously burny right now), but it's really good, especially with the cornmuffins and the sour cream. I am devouring it like a monster.
Thank you, Tyler Capps! 2 AM chili is a hell of a food!
...now to figure out how to deal with the pot I still have of it. Hey friends...!
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Crying because of onions reminds me of Horrible Turn, which you should all watch as soon as you've seen Dr. Horrible. It's _excellent_.
1: Primary goal: To entertain myself/get some interesting writing done.
Secondary goal: I am hungry
Tertiary goal: I actively want people to consume the things I create, in this case, I refer to both the food (which I share) and the entries (which I might put into a separate blog and crosspost).
Quadinary goal: I don't know how to cook, and people think I ought to fix that.
2: Well, I have to bring some for the Scottish Dancers to enjoy. And a secret other reason. Actually, two secret other reasons.
no subject
Looks good. What were your extra veggies to replace the meat?
I picked up a really awesome tip for peeling garlic from some Food Network show or other (I think it was Anne Burrell, but I'm not sure). Grab however much garlic you want off the head and stick it in a container with a lid. I use an empty plastic tub of cocoa, because we have at least half a dozen of those floating around, but one of those plastic pint takeout containers the Indian restaurants use would work great too. Anyway, stick the garlic in there and put the lid on and shake the thing around like a maniac (kind of like it's a morocca or something) for a little while. 30 seconds is probably enough. Take off the lid and the garlic will have magically peeled itself, or come damn close so you can just pull of the little peel that's left easily. Just pick out the garlic and dump the peel. It's so ridiculous I didn't believe it until I tried it, but it really works. All you have to do is cut off the heels.
Garlic keeps for quite a while as long as the cloves still have their peels on, so don't stress about using that. Also, it goes in like everything.
Onion too, goes in tons of things. A lot of sauces, soups, stews, and the like start by sauteeing onions in some oil, adding in some garlic toward then end, and building up the rest of the ingredients on top of that.
You could also make another batch of chili and freeze it. Or some people like to sprinkle chopped onion over their chili.
Specific suggestion: maybe a veggie stew with a lot of potato and parsnip? Root vegetables are generally inexpensive fresh. Or a pumpkin soup would be seasonal and delicious if you have a way to puree hot things.
no subject
4 Tbsp = 1/4 cup.
4 1/4 cups = 1 cup.
4 cups = 1 quart.
4 quarts = 1 gallon.
Remember those conversions, plus a pint is half a quart, and you'll eliminate 80% of looking things up in the kitchen.
Half an onion will keep a week or two in a baggie, but you will never use the other half and will find it in the back of your fridge six months from now. A partial head of garlic will keep for weeks in the open air. If you find green shoots in the cloves, just remove them; they will make the garlic bitter.
Finally, sautéeing onions is usually, in order of doneness, "until tender," "until translucent," or "until browned." The last two are easy to assess visually. If it doesn't say, assume translucence. (Browning introduces new flavors as the chemical compounds break apart and rejoin in new ways.)
no subject
If it is a generic "you," I almost never lose my half-onions. But maybe that is because I cook with leftover ingredients that need using up in the forefront of my mind.
~responsible fridge-filler
no subject
no subject
Reading about your cooking adventures is really interesting because I never use recipes except when baking. It looks like a very different process than the usual haphazard way I make food, and comes with a whole different set of concerns. Like finding a recipe for half an onion. I'd just be all
“Are onions delicious? Yes? OKAY THEN, ALL THE ONION.” I should try this “recipe” thing someday.
Dammit you mentione Ke$ha and now I have to watch this stupid Star Trek video again.
THE THINGS LOOK DELICIOUS.
Okay, guess I've got to check out the Horrible Turn thing now. Enjoy your leftovers!
no subject
the letter "d," last seen fleeing the word "mentioned." Answers to d. If found, please contact lex-of-green.
no subject
http://vimeo.com/29605182
no subject
Faux-French Onion Soup
Slice up the onion and saute it in a saucepan using butter. (medium heat)
When the onion is somewhere in the neighborhood of transparent, add 2-3 cups of beef broth, stock or bullion, the "right amount" this will vary based on how much onion you have... (you can also use vegetable stock/bullion, but it won't taste exactly the same)
Stir this around a bit until it gets hot enough all the way through and the onions are really really soft.
Pour some into a mug or a bowl. Top with a slice of bread (French bread works well) and a handful of shredded mozzarella (if you have it)
Eat the heck out of it. Then go back for more. (or share it. you could share it...)
no subject
no subject
As for "what to do with it" - chili freezes AMAZINGLY well. Toss individual portions into zippy-locky bags or other freezer-type-container-options-of-your-choosing, get as much of the air out as you can, and freeze away. Then when you know you won't feel like cooking tomorrow, before you go to bed, grab a frozen-block-o-goodness and put it in the fridge... best if you put it in a bowl in case it leaks. By dinnertime, toss that baby in the microwave and you've got hot goodness.
Of course, you being you is hot goodness all the time. But you can eat the chili... wait, the analogy is getting strange now....
no subject