Return of the Mac

To make a long story short, my husband is a genius and my hero. His Internet searching prowess led to the miraculous resurrection of the Oracle, also known as my trusty MacBook Pro. Its malfunction? A problem with the graphics card, subject to a recall. So the expired warranty ceased to be an issue. The Mac is back, and it didn't cost us anything. They even fixed the battery and disc drive! Hooray!

I always try to savor it when things break our way. It's a precious experience around here.

Anyway I've spent this evening catching up on the 45 blog posts Google Reader saved while I was in the laptop desert. And a couple of my Internet friends -- by whom I mean my only friends, for I am a hermit in my old age -- have been writing about life struggles. My heart aches with theirs, and I wish them comfort and courage.

Food photo break!

I love late summer...

That's a couple of tomato slices, with fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, and a sprinkle of salt. Crusty bread or crackers make it the best lunch of the year. I had this like, three days last week. Though I have to admit: that fresh basil did a flat number on my breath. Sorry, front row public speaking students.

Now back to that comfort and courage. Man I have been on the receiving end of a Cosmic Screw-You or two. Of late, comfort has come to me in simmering pots and sizzling pans. I get courage from my friends and family, and a stubborn, inflated belief in my own genius.

My grandma always says you speak into existence. As in, if you say you're having a bad day/week/life then the bad will keep coming to you. In my experience, it totally works. So, listen up, universe. Give my girls a break. Share some of this love you've been giving me lately. There's plenty enough blessing to spread around. I claim their victory.

You know who you are if this crack at encouragement is meant for you. Much love, ladies. It passes. I promise.

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Chili for realz

I'm informally designating today as my one-year anniversary of hardcore cooking. Good friends and regular readers already know this story. So y'all can skip the next two paragraphs. Go on ahead, I'll never know.

Last August, I came home from a month of speech camp with massive anxiety. No job, no prospects, and badly banged-up self-esteem. I decided, if I wasn't going to be adding any income to the household, the least I could do was contribute work that would cut down our weekly expenses.

Hence, the cooking. For less than a hundred bucks a week we could both eat really, REALLY well. This year, as I'm about to re-enter the workforce, I'm feeling kind of angsty about where the time to cook will come from. Gotta work on my repertoire of things that re-heat well. Gotta do something, cuz the thought going back to takeout kinda disgusts me now.

Yep, I've turned into one of those a*hole food people.

One thing on the agenda is to make gallons -- literal gallons -- of chili. Right now, while tomatoes are cheap and taste perfect. Chili keeps well in the freezer for months, so the more I crank out, the more quick meals I'll have through the fall.

I know I've covered chili on this blog before, but I wanted to share the recipe with fresh tomatoes instead of canned. The process isn't substantially different. Just a little more prep but a lot more flavor. I don't know who invented chili, but bless their memory all the same.

Chili on the "For Real" (a.k.a. with fresh tomatoes)

What I used:

• 1/2 cup dry red kidney beans, rinsed and soaked overnight
• 8 or 9 medium tomatoes (I can't remember for sure -- say a pound pint* and a half)
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 large sweet yellow onion
• 1 medium green bell pepper
• 1 small red bell pepper
• 4 stalks celery
• 4 large garlic cloves
• Anaheim, serrano, and red and green jalapeno peppers
• 5-6 shakes mild green Tabasco sauce
• Cumin, parsley, cilantro, and cayenne
• Salt and pepper

Phew! Okay, so the first thing was to pre-cook the beans. Following the package directions, I let them go for a good hour before starting the chili prep proper. Next I put the ground beef on medium heat with some salt and pepper, and blanched my tomatoes.

In two batches, because I was using my big pot for the chili -- duh...

I was thinking the other day, I don't believe I've ever broken down my blanching philosophy. I bring the water to a good rolling boil, then carefully add the tomatoes (or peaches, or green beans, or whatever). Then I bring the water back up to boiling, and let it go for 3-5 minutes. For these tomatoes, I gave them the whole five. After that I fished them out with a slotted spoon and gently relocated them to a giant bowl of ice water.

While all that browning and boiling were going on, I was chopping up all the veggies except the hot peppers. Those go in later. Then I put the browned beef aside and drained most of the grease, using what was left to sweat down the veggies.

Oops. Over-drained the grease. No worries, just sprinkle in some olive oil.

You'll notice I used celery here, which falls outside my usual onion-bell pepper-garlic trinity. In this recipe it adds some much-needed moisture. Without the extra juice from canned tomatoes, that's a big bonus.

Once the onions started turning slightly transparent, I dumped in the beef and beans and reduced the heat to low.

The beans should be *almost* done at this point. Think al dente.

Next went in the tomatoes. Again, to conserve moisture, I peeled and shredded them right over the pot. That way all the drips ended up in the chili and not on the cutting board. I hope it goes without saying, I cut out and discarded the stems.

It was looking a little dry, so I added in a few ladles of the tomato-blanching water. Then I stuck a lid on all that and let it simmer while I diced up the spicy peppers.

L-R: 1/2 a serrano, 1 red jalapeno, 1 green jalapeno, and 1/4 Anaheim

I chucked those in the pot and added the Tabasco, cumin, parsley, and cilantro. Taste. Oddly not that spicy. So I added some cayenne. And a little more salt and black pepper.

Stick on the lid and it's ready to simmer.

Now my favorite part of chili making. Walk away. Go do other stuff. I mean, I do check on it from time to time, give it a stir and a taste, maybe adjust the seasoning. But the standing around, bent over a cutting board? That crap is over. I gave it an hour, maybe more. The biggest thing was making sure the beans were good and tender.

Actually, forget what I just said. THIS is my favorite part of chili making...

You know, the eating.

We had some for dinner, and lunch the next day. The rest I stored in a freezer bag. I'll be super grateful to thaw that out, some chilly night this fall. (See what I did there? That joke's for my Dad.)

Yeah, it took a while, but most of that time was spent sitting on my butt. And it's so worth it, to have real-life-from-scratch chili! I bet this would be awesome in a crock pot too. If I had a crock pot. Are you listening, Santa?

I close, dear readers, by begging for your favorite freezable recipes. I've got two weeks until school starts and I need to do some hoarding. Recommendations?

Updated Aug. 10: Pints? Pounds? Whatever! Read what you write, girl.

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Happy anniversary my love

I wanted to do something special for our anniversary, despite our financial difficulties. If you know anything about my husband, you know why I decided the most special-est thing I could do for him was make some homemade bread.

Ready for the oven

I used the Basic White Bread recipe from the KitchenAid cookbook. This is my third attempt at this project and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it! I will prevail over my fear of baking. Oh yes... I will prevail...

Using the baker's rack as intended, for once.

To go with that, I whipped up a kind of bastardized chicken cacciatore-type dish for supper. Here's the lowdown.

Skillet Chicken Pasta

What I used:

• About 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3-4 medium garlic cloves, minced
• Half a Spanish onion, minced
• 3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes
• About a third pound of pasta shells
• Oregano, basil, marjoram, parsley and cilantro
• Salt and pepper

Here's where I'll throw in the at-home Chopped challenge disclaimer. If I was making this "for real," I'd much prefer to use tri-color rotini. It's no different taste-wise but it just looks prettier. I'd also probably add more vegetables, like bell peppers, carrots, and such.

On to the instructions. Set a skillet on a medium burner and let it get hot. Meanwhile put a pot of water on medium, with a little salt.

Put the olive oil in your hot skillet. Keep an eye on it until you just start to see smoke. (Careful with this step, olive oil scorches very easily.) Toss in the onion and garlic and sautee them until they're transparent and just starting to brown.

Dump in the chicken cubes and keep stirring until they're no longer pink on the outside. Then, using a paring knife and your fingers, you basically want to shred the whole tomatoes into the skillet. Stir that around a bit, then pour in the juice from the tomato can.

At this point, reduce the heat to medium-low, and season with any or all those herbs and spices. It should be strongly seasoned, almost overpowering. The flavor will even out once you've added the pasta.

(NOTE: There's a secret ingredient I used here, which I learned from Gina back in college. If you want to know, you'll have to ask her. She's a Chicago Italian, and I like my kneecaps.)

Once your water starts to boil, dump in the pasta. Cook it about 3/4 of the recommended time. I know it's ready by fishing out a piece and biting into it. It should be not-quite-tender in the middle. At that point it goes into the skillet. Let it all simmer, uncovered, until the pasta is tender and has absorbed most of the liquid.

This took less than 30 minutes, chopping time included.

So we had pasta for dinner, with salad greens and the Italian dressing I made yesterday. (Which, can I just say? Got a lot more delicious overnight.) We topped it off with a little Parmesan and mozzarella. It's not the anniversary dinner I might have imagined, but Doug's grunts of satisfaction told me it was good enough.

"Mmf, ungh," Damn baby!

We cut into the bread while it was totally still warm. Doug just had his with butter, but I made mine into dessert with a bit of peach preserves I bought from the farmer's market.

Doug: "Takes me back to childhood." Awww...

Happy anniversary my love. One of these years we'll do it up right. In the meantime, I'm sure glad you like my cooking.

Oh, and one last thing. My bread is turning out a little denser than I really like. Anybody out there a baking genius with tips for a better rise?

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Multi-use tomato base & veggie (beef) soup

I gotta say, all this self-disclosure is promoting self-awareness. Specifically, I've realized that almost all of my cooking revolves around a fairly small bag of tricks. Onion, garlic, bell pepper, tomato: without those four veggies, we surely would starve!

Here's an example. This tomato base underpins everything from vegetable soup to meaty 5-alarm chili. What can't you create from this starter?

Tomato-based soup/sauce starter

• One pound ground beef (optional)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (for meat-free)
• Half a large sweet onion, diced
• Half a bulb of garlic, minced
• Half a green bell pepper
• 2 cans tomatoes (alternatively, 10-15 fresh tomatoes, blanched and peeled)
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 or 3 green onions, chopped
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• Salt and black pepper

 The savory basics, plus...

You'll notice there's a piece of pablano on my cutting board but not on the list. What can I tell you? It was hanging around the fridge, not getting any fresher. I love this dish for clearing out veggies so they don't end up looking like science projects.

(Come to think of it, that last sentence made me sound really awful. Like, I would feed my family borderline spoiled shit. Which is so not the case. What I meant to say was, I wanted to use it before it turned questionable. You know, while still fit to eat.)

Back on topic: Brown a pound of ground beef in a saucepan. Drain the excess fat and set the meat aside in a shallow, towel-lined dish. Put the saucepan on medium to re-heat the remaining grease.

For no-meat sauce, skip the ground beef and just heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the saucepan. Either way, the oil is good and hot when a shake of black pepper sizzles.

Dump in your onion and garlic and stir gently. Give them a couple of minutes, until the onion starts looking transparent. Just before it starts to brown and caramelize, add the green pepper and some salt.

About, this much green pepper

Sweat that down about 3 more minutes, then add all your tomatoes. In winter I always buy cans of whole tomatoes and use a small knife to kind of shred them. Blanch and peel fresh tomatoes, cut into wedges, and chuck them in -- juice, seeds, and all.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add salt and pepper, bay leaf, and celery sticks.

Yep just toss 'em in bloody mary style. 

Bring to a low boil. Depending what the final application will be, season. I add green onion, parsley and cilantro to almost everything; oregano and basil in Italian dishes; or chili powder and cumin for southwestern fare. This is also where I add spicy peppers: hot habaneros, medium jalapenos, and mild pablanos are my favorites.

Sharp eyes may notice there's no ground beef in the photo. That's because this batch was destined for a fabulous chicken Parmesan. But since we've come this far, why not try...

Easy vegetable (beef) soup

Here's an easy finish for the starter. Dump in lentils, peas, green beans, corn, carrots, okra -- any veg you like to eat. Or perhaps, any veg you need to use before it spoils. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and walk away. Stir and taste occasionally, adjusting the heat and seasoning as necessary.

Keep it simmering gently for at least a half an hour. Remember, though, dishes like this just taste better and better the longer they cook. So, my advice is to leave it on the stove until you just can't take it anymore. Come to think of it, this should be an excellent crock pot creation. Do the prep the night before, then dump in to simmer all day.

Last, add a little cooked pasta or rice, and serve over cornbread or crackers.