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Chili is, as I stated yesterday, very Zen. But even Zen can use a hand every now and then too. And is there ever a more helping hand than Cornbread?(wait what?) This is the Capote cornbread recipe that I heard about from Serious Eats and that was originally printed in The Cornbread Gospels. It’s awesome(almost a giant cornbread pancake) and it allows you to reuse those bacon drippings from the Chili(besides just pouring them in a tumbler and drinking them):

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter or bacon drippings
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups stone-ground white cornmeal

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Place the butter or drippings in a 10-inch cast iron skillet; place it in the oven.
2. Combine the eggs and buttermilk in a small bowl or measuring cup, whisking together well with a fork.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, salt, baking soda, and cornmeal; stir well to combine.
4. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients, beating just until the dry ingredients are moistened and no more.
5. Pull the skillet from the oven. It should be hot, with the fat sizzling. Swirl the pan to coat. Quickly transfer batter to skillet; return skillet to oven.
6. Bake until browned and pulling away from skillet, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot, in wedges.

photo credit: loveberry

Men have a natural Zen like quality. We like simple. We like beer and dogs and football, all simple. There is a bit of complexity in football, but luckily we have a ref there to sort it out. If we ever wonder whether something is in or out, the ref removes all doubt. Thanks ref. Simple.

photo credit: Vox Efx

We also like Chili, because Chili is (unbeknownst to the Japanese) very Zen. It’s simple. It’ meat, beans, tomatoes and chilies. It’s balanced, the fat of the meat offsets the tang of the tomatoes and the heat of the chilies is countered by the bulk of the beans. But like most things Zen there’s a lot more under the surface than you would imagine. Chili is very versatile, it goes with any carbohydrate(well, maybe not pasta) and can even be added to whole dishes to bring out their flavor(hence the sublime chili dog).

photo credit: Lan Bui

But the problem with Chili has always been that it takes hours on the stove to cook. Unless you have a pressure cooker, which is essentially an expensive bomb you’re putting over an open flame. Luckily we have a Crock-pot.

With a Crock-pot the cooking time becomes an advantage. We just set it up in the morning and 10 hours later it’s ready for dinner. As opposed to 5 hours on the stove where we have to watch it. Simple.

• Canned
  • 2 cans (15 oz.) kidney beans, drained or(cheaper) 1 pound of dry beans. Don’t even have to soak them.
  • 1 can (28 oz.) tomatoes, cut up
  • 1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
• Spices
  • 2 medium cloves garlic minced
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 tbsp. chili powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/8 tsp. pepper
• Meat
  • 6 strips bacon
  • 2 lbs. beef cut into 1 inch cubes
• Vegetables
  • 1 c. finely chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup diced carrots
  • 1/2 c. finely chopped green bell pepper
  • 1/2 c. finely chopped celery

Fry the bacon in your cast iron pan until it’s crisp, then cut it up using a pair of scissors and put to the side. Fry up the meat cubes in the drippings on high. We just want to brown the outside of the meat, it will cook in the Crock-pot.

Throw everything in the Crock-pot on low for about 10 hours(whenever the beans seem done and the beef is tender). Then you’re ready to eat.

By the way this freezes and reheats no problem.

Here’s a recipe for perfect cheesy potatoes I totally stole from Diary of a Stay At Home Mom. It is, in keeping with the spirit of the month, a crock pot recipe and it is, in keeping with me, awesome.

First it’s the easiest thing I ever made. Making masked potatoes(unless it’s the dandruff in a box) can be a pain. Boiling and peeling an mashing and oh, did I add salt yet? Should I add it now? On the other hand you just throw these in the pot and stir it once. That’s right once. And that pot is all you have to clean. No colanders or mashers or teapots full of milk and garlic. Just the crock pot.

Also it’s a great snack that microwaves perfect. I’ve been reheating these bad boys for a few days now and they’re great every time. Plus there’s enough fat in the cheese that eating them by themselves wont cause a blood sugar spike, as I’ve talked about before.

And this recipe is versatile. You can use any kind of potato, unlike most potato recipes which need a certain level of starch. So if you have a bag of Yukon golds laying around since December, throw them in.

Of course the most important thing is they taste great, and these do. And in terms of taste to work ratio they may be the best food ever. The only thing easier is instant potatoes, but I have to drown them in butter to make them somewhat palatable and I still can’t get the plasticy taste out of them.

So how do you make these spudly wonders? Here goes:

1. 2 cloves garlic
2. 1 tsp salt
3. 1/4 tsp black pepper
4. 2 lbs of sliced potatoes
5. 8 oz. cream cheese(1 package)
6. 1/2 onion

Smash the garlic and slice it thin(or run it through a garlic press) and dice the onion up fine. You might try this technique. Then cut your cream cheese into 1 inch cubs and slice your potatoes(if you don’t have one already you’re gonna need this, trust me).

In a small bowl combine scallions and garlic. In another one combine salt and pepper.

In greased crock, layer about a quarter of the potatoes on the bottom.

Then add a quarter of the salt and pepper mix and top with a third of the cream cheese, then a third of onion/garlic mix. (Get it? We’re doing layers.)

Make a second layer with a quarter of the potatoes and repeat with the salt, cheese and garlic. Repeat with a third layer of potatoes, and the remainder of everything else. Then make a final layer of potatoes.

Cover your crock and cook on high for 3 hrs. Then give it a stir(just to break up the potatoes and move some cheese around) and cook for another hour on high. Stir one last time and they’re good.

And don’t feel hemmed in to this recipe, it’s definitely one you can play around with. I’ve added a half cup of milk before and that worked out well, making the potatoes a little less dense. I’ve also used some different cheese combinations, but you’ll want to keep at least half cream cheese. It’s got the perfect texture for the perfect cheesy potatoes.

When I was eight my brother was six. Six and very gullible. Which is why when I gave him a bar of bakers chocolate, he ate the whole thing. I just kept saying “Isn’t that great?” He just kept nodding and wincing through the whole, disgusting bar. It was much harder, a year later, to get him to consume a habanero pepper. He was gullible but not stupid.

So began our dance, me trying to feed him more and more disgusting things and him trying to eat in peace. And through the years he’s become tougher and tougher to get. Until…

The other day I was making spicy apple mustard. My apple mustard, by the way, is awesome. It’s better than any of the “gourmet” crap you find in half ounce jars at the store. And it costs less to make then the bright yellow, congealed piss most people put on their hot dogs. All it takes it a few simple ingredients, a glass jar and some forethought. Why forethought?

Because you make it, let it sit on the counter for a week, and then move it to the fridge. As a boy they told me this was to let the flavors mingle. They lied, as I recently learned.

So I last week I was going to grill up some brats when I realized I was out of my awesome spicy apple mustard. I figured that not letting the flavors mingle for that first week would mean it wasn’t quite as good, but a lesser some is better than a perfect none. So I mixed up a batch on the counter and applied it straight from the bowl.

After I regained consciousness I did a little research. In fact the one week waiting period has nothing to do with flavors mingling, it’s all about heat dissipation. The heat you get from mustard comes from a reaction between it’s enzymes. The longer you let that reaction go, the less heat you have. The reason you put it in the fridge is to stop that reaction. So what I was really doing was letting the mustard cool down for a week, then holding it at that level of spiciness.

So began a series of painful experiments. I found out that dry mustard by itself is about as spicy as cornstarch. The reaction starts when the mustard powder is mixed with water. From that moment, for about 15 minutes it tastes as bitter and hot as a lit cigarette. From 15 minutes to about 2 hours it’s obscenely hot, but you can consume it without a trip to the ER. From 2 hours to a day is about as hot or hotter than anything you can find in a specialty store. If you are looking for a really blazing mustard(as I always am) this is about the ideal zone. Letting it sit for a week will net you a really good, flavorful, intriguing mustard. But where’s the fun in that?

My brother’s coming over tonight for brats. I think I’m gonna pre-mustard my buns with the stuff from the fridge, then mix up a bowl at the table and slide it right in front of him. I wonder how long I can get him to keep eating just by mentioning “Isn’t fresh mustard the best?”

Spicy Apple Mustard

• 4 Tbsp ground mustard powder(brown or yellow or mixed to your liking)
• A pinch of cinnamon
• 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 and 1/2 Tbsp apple cider(juice if you have to)

Mix the cinnamon, mustard powder and apple juice, then let sit for 15 minutes. Then you can add the vinegar. If you add the vinegar early, it may stop the enzymes from reacting and you might get weird “hot spots” in your mustard as it ages.

Let it sit until you reach your desired heat level(as described in the article) then move to the fridge. That’s it. Really.