Jessica's Award Winning New Mexican Beef and 3 Bean Chili

Jessica's

AWard winning

New Mexican Beef and 3 Bean Chili

Truth: Husband didn't want me to post this recipe. He'd rather I keep this a closely guarded secret. A weapon to brandish at unsuspecting friends in future chili cook-offs. I don't think this blog will be read enough for it to matter, and really this is the recipe that I have made up that I am most proud of. 

It is "award winning" because the first time I made it, it was for my own chili cook-off birthday party. We had about 8 different friends bring chili dishes over that night and everyone who attended participated in voting by secret ballot. 

To be honest, it was actually a little awkward to win, given that it was my own party I was throwing for my own birthday. Oops. But despite the awko taco (as my 16 year old goddaughter would call it), I went on to make this recipe over and over and over again for friends and family. It's become sort of a thing in our household. And while I may just enter it in another chili cook-off some day, I'm going to risk exposing my secrets and share my recipe here with you today. I really am pretty proud of it. 

Side Note: Ever notice how UN-photogenic chili is? Apologies ahead of time if some of these photographs look less than appealing!

Ingredients:

1/3 c Vegetable Oil

3 large Onions

6 large Cloves of Garlic

1 can Chipotle Peppers in adobo sauce, chopped. (Use less if you want to take down some of the heat; use the full can for maximum heat)

2 cans diced New Mexican Green Chiles (or fresh if you have!)

2 whole New Mexican Chile Peppers, reconstituted.

5 T New Mexican Red Chile Powder

1 T Green Chile Powder

2 T Ground Cumin

1 lb Soy or Beef Chorizo (I use the soy chorizo from Trader Joes)

5 lbs Boneless Beef Chuck trimmed and cubed

2 Tsp Whole Mexican Oregano (grind between your palms, toss into the pot)

2 1/2  Tsp salt

1/2  Tsp fresh ground Black Pepper

28 oz Italian Plum Tomatoes canned with juice

24 oz good amber Beer (Dos Equis works well!)

13 oz Beef Broth

1 can Kidney Beans

1 can Black Beans

1 can Pinto Beans

                  

Valentine’s Day 6.0

Remember when Valentine's Day was the day you brought cards for all your classmates to school? It was about Sweetheart and red hot candies and seeing if the boy or girl you liked wrote something cryptic in that Scooby Doo valentine that might, just maybe, indicate that he or she liked you. 

It was stressful only to the extent that you worried you might not get any Valentines, or you might not get the right Valentine from the right boy or girl. But it was also kind of an exciting day because you never knew what kind of crushes might get revealed, and, perhaps more importantly, sometimes there were cupcakes in class. 

I remember in fifth grade a boy who lived down the street from us gave me a little box of chocolates: his way of telling me he liked me. I didn't really like him back, but it was thrilling to have made this discovery and I kept that heart shaped box long after the chocolates were gone. 

Somehow, in adulthood, Valentine's Day became less fun. We stopped giving cards to everyone in class, and replaced sock hops with a host of expectations and resentments. My Facebook wall feels like a battleground between the singles and the couples today. Maybe it's just my friends, but it has me missing the old days where we gave valentines to everyone. 

On the surface, I always agreed with the cynics who dismissed Feb 14th as a bullshit Hallmark Holiday, dictating arbitrary means by which we are supposed to express our love. 

BUT.. another part of me never stopped loving the idea of a day of love notes and chocolates and flowers and declarations of desire. 

If you are single, then, sure, eff this holiday. But if you have a love, the secret is to be on the same page, whatever that page may be. 

It took me and Husband a few years to get on the same page. No matter how much I proclaimed my love for the holiday, he refused to see me as anything but the kind of girl who didn't give a damn about Hallmark sentimentality. I took this as a compliment, but still wanted my holiday. I like holidays. All holidays. Eventually we began a tradition that I LOVE LOVE LOVE. 

We may or may not buy each other treats, depending on the year and our circumstances, and no gifts are ever expected, but we always plan a special meal to cook together. We usually indulge in our food selections but the real treat is spending the evening in the kitchen together, working and playing as a team. It’s always a lot of fun. It's perfect. 

Steak seems to have become an annual tradition, I guess mostly because it’s not something we cook often and therefore feels like a special splurge. And maybe there’s something sexy about steak? I think so. As long as you don’t over eat. There is nothing sexy about an overly full tummy. 

Anyway, this year we decided to make a steak topped with herbed butter. A good steak is best left simple: salt and pepper, a fast sear on a very hot frying pan and then into a hot oven for a quick, even finish. YUM.

 We accompanied the steak with a pea puree and mushrooms cooked in red wine. 

We also made a spinach, goat cheese and strawberry salad, which felt very festive and holiday appropriate.

Husband had a full day of classes, so I set the table and left out a trio of goat cheeses and some crackers to snack on before we started cooking.

Post script: I have to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the pea puree. Maybe we chose a bad recipe, because I have been seeing pea puree everywhere and everyone raving, like it's the must-eat spring food, but this... wasn't the jam. I’m going to have to leave this one to the professionals –for now. 

Tortilla Soup

Oh, Grammy night. This is positively my favorite award show. Not the Emmys. Not the Oscars. As a music lover, it's all about the Grammys for me. Even when I expect to be disappointed by who wins and who is snubbed, disappointment I feel nearly every year, I am still excited to watch the Grammys. So I decided on this special Sunday in February, to make a soup I've been wanting to make for awhile: Tortilla Soup!

Why Tortilla Soup? Well, I bought a bunch of poblano and Anaheim chilies last week, and I need to do something with them. I thought about making a mild green hot sauce with the peppers (mild sauce?) but making hot sauce is my sister's thing and she is AWESOME at it. She and her husband even made homemade hot sauce as wedding favors when they got married last August. I decided to leave the hot-sauce-making to them. 

But then I thought of this sample of Tortilla Soup I had a Wholefoods last week. Boy was it good soup! Like, I wanted to bathe in it. I have been thinking about that sample all week. I would have bought their soup, if they had been selling it, but the sample was part of a demo for a $500 Vitamix, ah... no.

So, I decided I should try to turn my peppers into Tortilla Soup and hope like hell it would taste even a little like that wonderful Vitamix Wholefoods sample.

Raven’s Purple Velvet Super Bowl Bundt Cake

The Ravens have made it to the Super Bowl! While I am and always will be a Giants fan, I live in Baltimore, so this is pretty exciting. The entire city has turned purple for the big game. 

It is like a purple haze descended down on the city straight from Jimi Hendrix himself. 

It is like Prince in 1984 all over the place... only more sporty and with Ravens instead of doves. But you know what I am trying to say. 

As one fellow expat New Yorker put it, it looks like Barney threw up all over this city. 

Everyone is wearing purple. Homes are adorned with purple lights. Cars race by sporting Raven’s flags. Our local Trader Joe's was pushing the blueberry-coated brie because, well, despite its name, it looks purple. The lady at Nordstroms had purple finger nails. It was a little overwhelming, truth-be-told. 

Despite lacking the native Baltimorian obsession, it has been hard not to get into the spirit of the moment, and so we decided to host a Super Bowl party for all of our other non-Baltimore-native friends who wanted to watch the game but avoid the ultra-intensity of what would be happening in most living rooms across the city. I myself hoped the Ravens would win, but, if I'm honest, I was far more into my purple themed party than I was the football game.

Indulging in purple themed food, I decided to make Purple Cabbage Slaw to go with our Buffalo Chicken Sliders. And I pickled some red onions, but those came out more fuchsia than purple. I also bought some grape Jello and made some purple Jello-shots, but I couldn’t leave it there. Too obvious. Too predictable. 


My true purple centerpiece, I decided, would be a purple velvet cake. Why not? The truth about red velvet—and this is no secret—is that it’s purely red food coloring that gives the cake it’s color. Therefore, it follows, that “velvet cake” could really come in any color we want. And I wanted purple. Deep, rich, velvety purple. 

Because I wanted to show off the purple color of the cake, I decided on a Bundt cake with a drizzled frosting and a crumb topping, giving the cake maximum purple exposure. This recipe was incredibly good. I mean, red velvet, despite the hype, isn’t always moist or tasty enough. This was both. It was incredible. Hubby took some to work with him on Monday and his co-workers raved about it and promptly finished it off. I highly recommend using this recipe to make any color cake your heart desires.