Chili

San Diego has been cold and rainy lately, which is perfect for "comfort food". Consequently, I have made chili for social events a couple of times over the last few weeks. A few people have asked for the recipes so I will post them. I tried to take pictures but they ended up looking about as appetizing as dog food so I just did a Google image search and will post pictures of what the food SHOULD look like. (I am not going to get in trouble from "the blog people" for doing that, right?

Three Bean Chili

2 pounds lean ground beef
1 large chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 29 oz. can tomato sauce
1 29 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
¼ cup chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground black pepper
½ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. white sugar
⅛ tsp. ground cayenne pepper
⅛ tsp. cinnamon
1 15 oz. can red beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed


Place ground beef in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble, and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent.
Add all ingredients to a large kettle. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 to 1½ hours, stirring occasionally.

White Bean Chicken Chili

1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 (7 ounce) can diced green chiles
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 14 oz. cans chicken broth
1 pound dried navy beans
¼ cup minced fresh cilantro
2 Tbs. lime juice
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tps. oregano
¼ tsp. ground red pepper
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 whole chicken cooked and cut into pieces (I use a rotisserie chicken because it is flavorful and easy)


Rinse beans well, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes then turn off heat and soak, covered for 2 hours. Drain and rinse. Put the beans in large pot with the chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat.
In a large saucepan, cook onion and garlic in oil until tender, add to beans. Stir in chiles, beans, cilantro, lime juice and spices; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour or until beans are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove 2 cups of beans and blend in a blender to make a paste. Put back into pot of beans to thicken chili. Add chicken. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes.
Serve with sour cream, green onions, and grated cheese.

Redefining Vanilla

I have been on this vanilla kick lately. Vanilla has such a lame reputation. Boring and simple, the exact opposite of decadence. I want to see if I can make vanilla a "crave-able" flavor, like chocolate. I mean, how often do you hear someone say,"I really need some vanilla right now"? Yeah... never.

I have been experimenting with real vanilla beans in some desserts lately. I made a vanilla bean cheesecake for a party last night and used vanilla sugar and vanilla bean paste. Using real vanilla beans gives it a nice look: speckle-y. But to be honest, while the cheesecake was good, it didn't blow my mind or anything.  I probably could have skipped all the fancy vanilla products and just used extract and no one would have been the wiser. I am not giving up yet but I am afraid that vanilla's reputation might be well earned and my mission may be futile.

Nonetheless, the cheesecake was delicious (as all cheesecakes are) so I will give you the recipe. As I said, the vanilla flavor wasn't mind blowing or anything so the vanilla sugar could probably be replaced with regular sugar and vanilla bean paste with vanilla extract and the cheesecake would still be great.

To make vanilla sugar, take one vanilla bean and cut it in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds and add both the pod and seeds to two cups of sugar. Store in an airtight container for at least 5 days, shaking the mixture each day to infuse the vanilla flavor in the sugar.

Vanilla Bean paste is actually more like a thick syrup and can be used in place of a scraped vanilla bean. It adds nice vanilla speckles to the cheesecake!

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

Crust:
1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup melted butter

Filling:
5  8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 cup vanilla sugar
3 Tbs. flour
1 Tbs. vanilla bean paste
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs

Heat oven to 325°. Wrap a 9 inch springform pan in tin foil. Mix graham cracker crumbs and butter; press firmly onto bottom of pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

Beat cream cheese, vanilla sugar and vanilla bean paste in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. 

Add sour cream; mix well.

Pour over crust.

Place tin foil wrapped pan in a large pan filled with water. (baking cheesecakes in a water bath help keep them from cracking) Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until center is almost set. Refrigerate overnight. Run a knife or metal spatula around rim of pan to loosen cake. Serve with a chocolate or fruit sauce because until I get vanilla to be more amazing it could use another flavor to compliment it. Enjoy!

Itchy!

There was a HUGE (well, it probably looked bigger in my house than it would in the wild, but huge nonetheless) spider crawling up my curtains. I squished it with a paper towel and saw about 20 baby spiders explode from underneath the big mama that I just squished. I had to pick off each baby one by one and stared at the curtain for about 15 minutes to make sure I got them all. That was about an hour ago. I am still itchy thinking about baby spiders crawling on me. *shudder*

I am thinking about starting up a business called "rent-a-man" for all the single women out there who occasionally need manly services. No sexy stuff or anything like that (there are already businesses that offer that sort of thing) but stuff like helping set up a Christmas tree, chopping the onions for dinner, being a date at a social event, or squishing spiders. I bet I would make a killing! I would have been willing to rent a man to squish all of those spider babies for me.

I am still itching!

mmm... beer...

I really dislike beer. I wish I didn't. Other people seem to really like it. I try a swig every now and then just to see if my tastes have changed. They haven't. I end up with a puckered face as I choke down the brew and feel like a five year old as I go back to sipping my Diet Coke. This doesn't really have much of an effect on my daily life... today, however, I really wish I liked beer.

Why you ask? Well, I have these neighbors, they are kind of vikings. Yes, vikings. In fact, my neighbor recently shaved and cut his hair but before that he looked a lot like Stoic the Vast... well happier, and minus the helmet, but otherwise, spitting image!

Anyway, my viking neighbors do viking-like things like have axe throwing competitions and dress up for renaissance fairs and play the bagpipes (actually, I don't think the bagpipes are really viking related, but I think it's noteworthy) and they brew beer. In their apartment. 

I struck up a conversation with viking-neighbor a couple of weeks ago while getting my mail and asked if I could have a couple of beers for my friends. He invited me over and gave me a tour of his home brewery which was like my own apartment but the bathroom was transformed into a kind of beer-celler with kegs piled to the ceiling and the dining room held an industrial sized refrigerator filled with beer and the back patio was filled with other sorts of beer making paraphernalia. He mentioned that his trademark was to put a lemonheads candy in each bottle. I didn't quite catch why, but apparently lemonheads make for awesome beer.

So, now I have a bottle of lemonhead viking beer that was brewed in my own apartment complex. How cool is that? I plan on bringing it to my community group tonight to share with my beer savvy friends. I brought the other bottle to my other community group last week and heard it was pretty good. It just feels like such a shame to be in possession of one of a kind lemonhead viking beer and not even care to taste it! I do like throwing axes though...

The beginning

I am watching "Julie and Julia" right now and that movie is totally inspiring me to blog.  I have also been told multiple times by people that I should start blog. So, here I am caving into peer pressure and this impulsive desire I have to write right now and I am starting a blog even though I feel a little narcissistic doing it!
I really don't know what I plan on blogging about. Probably a good portion of it will revolve around food. I love to cook and bake and apparently am pretty good at it. I come by this honestly (thanks mom!) so I will likely post recipes now and then along with pictures to make you salivate! I am sure I will also write about random things that pop into my head on any given day, so you will have to weed your way through the drudgery of my daily life to get to the good stuff, like cheesecake! And who knows, maybe I will develop a following and become a famous internet personality, or maybe the man of my dreams is out there and will start reading and become completely charmed by my amazing wit and mad cooking skills and come sweep me off of my feet (that happens, right?)
Anyway, who knows where this will go, if anywhere. But here I am, jumping on the blog bandwagon and claiming my own little space on the internet. Enjoy!