Chili on the Verge

Best. Chili. Ever.
Make it hotter with more chili powder or add hot sauce in the dishes...
Serve with shredded cheddar and sour cream.


1 pound lean ground beef
1 ½ cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
3 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin

1. Coat a large saucepan with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Cook beef in pan until browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in onions, bell pepper and garlic and cook 5 minutes more.
2. Stir in kidney beans, pinto beans and tomatoes. Season with brown sugar, cocoa powder, chili powder and cumin. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. (To make in a slow cooker, simply transfer beef mixture to a slow cooker, stir in remaining ingredients, cover and cook on low 5 to 6 hours.)

Where the Hell Are You? Garbage Plates are on deck!

Do you guys know what Garbage Plates are? Well, tomorrow I am making them for my college son and five of his friends.

Imagine this: A bigass paper plate with a nice layer of french fries, a scoop of macaroni salad to one side. On top of these, two cheeseburgers or two hot dogs (sans buns) and a big scoop of chili with hot sauce over the whole thing.

Heaven.

I'll take pics.

Pasta Primavera from the Verge

Had a hankering for some veggies with my pasta the other night.

Sauteed a sliced red pepper, a package of sliced baby bella mushrooms, a medium zucchini for about 5-10 minutes. Added a can of those nifty Hunts Fire Roasted tomatoes and simmered until the liquid was pretty much gone.

Served over pasta with mix of shredded parm, romano, asiago cheeses. YUM.

ReUse ReCycle

I will admit a dirty little practice that will probably have you bringing your own snacky schnacks to my house. I use day old stale bagels to make bagel chips. They are cheap and the end product is delicious! I do feel like a crazy old cat man asking for the old bagels at the coffeeshop and bakery.
First I take the horrible fruit or abnormal flavored ones and toss them out to the birds right away. I slice the bagels about an eighth inch or so thick and toss them in a big bowl. I spray them down with olive oil and then toss in some sea salt and Parmesan cheese. Spread them around on a cookie sheet and broil, keeping an eye on them so they don't burn. I keep a couple of pans going so I have enough for TV snacks. Something simple and it is something I like to munch on, great with a beverage and the game on tv.

-Timo

Dire Straits of My Own

I have no pity. No chips? No chocolate? Well, my house is full of that crap and I can't eat any of it. I am trying my damnedest to low carb.

Some of you know that about a year or so ago my doctor told me that my blood sugar was close to being to high. You know, just enough to be scary, but not enough to actually be a diagnosis. It was an "almost" diagnosis. So I went whole-hog low carb. Lost some weight, got the sugar down. It was all good. Then I cheated.

You know those people who claim to be carbohydrate addicts and we all thought they were full of shit? Well, I think I just might be one of them. I LOVE carbs. I love to bake. I love to cook. I love to eat. When I cheated, I couldn't go back. But now I have to.

I am returning to the low carb circle of Hell. Think eggs, meat, cheese, and salad. Anyone who tells you that those Atkins "revolution rolls" are just like bread is lying. They aren't even bread-like. They are just plain nasty.

So, don't ask me to pity you as you eat your pretzels. At least you can eat pretzels...

P.S. I'm not really as cranky as I sound. It's just the cravings talking.

Dire Straits

I have no chocolate in my house. I have no potato chips. The ice cream flavor of the week--Maple Nut, was a mistake. It calms no cravings.

I am in desperate need for junk food. I look at the oranges in the fridge and the perfectly ripe bananas (no green at all on the stem end and evenly speckled with brown dots but not yet mushy) on the counter and I feel nothing for them.

I want a Snickers bar, or some Oreos, or a box of chocolate-covered toffee popcorn. I could make some pudding, but my milk is low. I could go for a big slice of devil's food cake or a huge handful of radioactive-cheese-coated Doritos.

A root beer float might do it, or some chocolate chip cookies or maybe even a frozen pot pie. You know the ones, the super cheap ones that go on sale for 3 for a dollar and have like three peas and four chunks of carrot, two tiny bites of chicken and tons of gravy and that fattening crust, in the little tin pan we used to put on the floor for the dog to lick when we were done.

Or if I had some cold leftover pizza, that might help, or maybe a box of rosemary and olive oil flavored Triscuits. I'd even settle for a can of Spaghettios. With meatballs.

But I don't have any of that. I have some pretzels (not enough fat), some vanilla wafer cookies (store-bought cookies need chocolate to be passable, with the exception of Fig Newtons. Oh, why did I have to think of Fig Newtons?), and some leftover Christmas candy, the kind that looks like little pillows and millefiori beads. No good at all. No good at all.

I think I'll go make a cup of tea. And eat an orange while I wait.

apologising to the blender

Hi all.

I know I'm prolific, but hey, I'm sure you want to hear from more people than just me. WotV? Timo? Jane? Sue? RB? Mark? 'rilla? Wade? Morph? Mama? Ghostie? Saysh?

Anyways (as my colleague says. He also says 'I would've went' which wouldn't make my hackles rise so much if he wasn't an English teacher with a Master's... funnily enough, my English friend who says 'I lost me phone, see?', doesn't rankle me at all [also an English teacher with a masters], but his misspellings do. What a snob I am - but only in regards to English teachers! )

I have a question. How often do you apologise or talk to your kitchen appliances? Tonight I was blending some stuff (I bought a new appliance over Christmas), and of course, I couldn't remove a part, so I was all like, come on you stupidfuckingshitofathing! But then, of course, I had to promptly apologise, and tell it how much its lime green cover suited it, and didn't make its arse fat, and how thankful I was for all that it did for me, for kitchen appliances bear grudges and are vengeful. Yea verily, indeed.

good cookbooks

This one is a winner. If anyone has been following my blathering in the Q, you'll know all about it. I bought the hardback when I worked in the bookshop (it had a prettier cover) and I have used a lot of the recipes which are not only tasty, they are also relatively easy to make. Ooh, I just found a shot of the hardcover. I guess it depends upon how you feel about asparagus. I'm pining (and salivating) just looking at it. Real Parmesan. Mmmm.


A friend expressed bewilderment at another friend's habit of poring through cookbooks with her brother, just looking at all the recipes. I understood my friend's habit completely! I'm sure you all do, too.

Anyway, of course, going through one of my frequent,What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine phases, I left it in N.Z. when I left N.Z. for Oman. See, the thing with Oman is that I had about a week to pack up and go, so lots of the superfluous, though not necessarily unwanted, was left behind. This included an amazing, quirky dream catcher, which I would have called an art piece, that my friend, Sharon, made, a great book called, "The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America, and that cookbook.

Oh, I also left all my other recipes behind. In my rather transitory life, I had kept them in a sick bag I picked up on a plane when I was 22 or so, maybe my first flight, and for some reason I just thought I wouldn't need those tattered pieces of paper any more. The bag hadn't been used for its intended purpose, let me assure you. I do, generally speaking, vaguely remember how to make things, but having the nitty gritty is nice. Why did I decide not to bring those when they'd held me in good stead for many a year? When they were just pieces of paper I could have stuffed anywhere? I still don't have an answer for that.

I did tell my housemate she could have anything that I left behind and when a tumultuous year later (love affairs do that, don't they? That's all I'm saying) I was back in Australia and trying to get some of my effects together before heading to Japan I asked her to please send it over along with other stuff, it never arrived. Other stuff did. A sleeping bag, something else I rarely use. I guess she either gave it away or kept it. I hope it has been put to good use.

This is a screen capture, so not the best quality. The Thai pancakes are at the front. The crucial ingredients are the green peppercorns and the coriander.

The cover shown above is the paperback cover, and the recipe says it feeds 4-6 people. I actually think it only feeds 2, so double the recipe a few times over if you want more. Serve with a sweet chili sauce (the recipe can also be found in the book), or with a fish sauce (a Cambodian lady I knew made some for me, but I never learnt how to make it. I wish I had. My absolute favourite sauce. A fish sauce, sugar and vinegar kind of number. I knew her in Oman, and she has a story, too. She made me a huge jar which I used with these).

None of the pictures are mine.

A screen capture as well. If you can't read it, leave a comment, and I'll transpose it.

Happy New Year

Who cares if it's only 17°F/-8°C?

I'm with Rilla. We're having steak: