Easy Vegetarian Spaghetti

You could try making this, if you can figure out what “1 crapper spaghetti sauce intermixture – (26.5 oz)” means.  It does claim that “This instruction module help most quaternary people.”

This bean-and-meat bacchanal happened mostly because our benefactress Miss Huang loves chili. I love chili. It’s the greatest food on earth, and an elegant metaphor for personal philosophy. You start out life eating other peoples’ chili, sampling what each household has to offer. You train yourself to accept spiciness, or you eat chili without. Then you learn, develop your own. We had six positively beautiful chilis, variant in texture, taste, and originality, which were ranked only by the cruel whim of a discerning populace.

A. Jo: I have a hard time with beans–the outer skin throws off a chili for me, and I know that Ima have to pick that crud out of my teeth later on. I made a lady’s chili, light in flavor and spiciness, creamy texture, with turkey meat, corn, and red peppers as the highlight. I suggested and Mr. Q. R. Murphy agreed that perhaps my chili won because it was the sweetest.

B. Cara: This chili was my personal favorite. Reduced to the point of unpourability, it sat upon my hotdog and sagging bun like a great brooding titan, holding up the world on strength alone. Dark and filling, it had a cloying aroma, which according to the lady herself, was cumin. More cumin than imaginable. If you think you’ve used enough cumin, you haven’t.

C. Frazier: Frazier’s chili won the Maker’s Prize, for which there shall certainly be an actual, tangible prize at the 2nd Annual Chili Cook-off. Three meats (chicken, turkey, and bacon) and three beans were lovingly slow-cooked with his favored element: beer. (It’s super effective!)

D. Q. R. Murphy: Mr. Murphy’s chili was the most daring and perhaps the most distinctive of the six. Spurning both spiciness and traditional meats, he opted for a difficult-to-obtain ground venison and used, if I recall correctly, a metric ton of cinnamon. The spice and fragrance of the cinnamon seesawed with the gamey flavor of the deer meat.

E. Ryan: Having stolen my recipe partially from Ryan’s, I feel as if his suffered from placement, especially after the powerhouse of Q. R. Murphy’s.  Loaded up with a ton of veggies and beef, the secret ingredient was sofrito, a soup base that is used a lot south of the border. Also distinctive: Ryan’s chili was the most watery.

F. Paul: Paul’s chili was a strong contender for favorite, having ranked both in the maker’s vote and the popular. He took second place by a nose, after the discerning (and tie-breaking) vote of our benefactress pushed his upwards. Paul’s meats were ground chicken and turkey, but the most distinctive facet of his recipe were liquid smoke (which you can find at your local supermarket, also apparently referenced in The Simpsons) and vinegar, which gave it a sour tang that fought off the spicy kick admirably.  – Wait, something’s coming in. I’m being reminded that the secret ingredient of Paul’s chili is actually the essence of testicle, as demonstrated in the origin of his recipe.

With ample sampling cups and plastic spoons, Gloria’s guests sampled the chilis at hand and debated the merits of both. Corn: pros and cons. What beans? Would Donnie need a gastric bypass in order to survive another year? But in the end, there could be only one, and girly or not, I won that. See you next year, ladies.

Ingredients:

• 1 white onion
• 1 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 14 oz can chicken broth
• 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 tbs sofrito (you can find it in the ethnic food aisle of your crappy grocery store most of the time)
• 1/2 lb of red lentils
• 1 lb of ground turkey (I like 97% fat free for this)
• 1 14 oz can tomato soup (I like Campbell’s!)
• 1 red onion
• 1 green onion
• Jalapeno peppers to your heart’s content
• 1 4 oz can chili peppers
• Frozen corn
• 1 lb ground turkey
• Worchestershire sauce
• Spices: Salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper

1. Heat up the vegetable oil in the heaviest pot you have over medium heat. You want the heavy pot so you can retain heat in your chili–the more it cooks, the more its components love each other. Who the hell are you to deny love? Throw in your onions and sweat them.
   (Sweating, you say? You’re trying to get the moisture out of the onions and soften them up without browning them. You can help this along by tossing some salt in there, but you’re eating chili, dude. You know sodium will propose to you by the end of the night; you don’t need to push your case right just now.)
2. Toss in your broth, the tomatoes (juice and all) and the sofrito. Pour in a half pound of the lentils. You could probably sub in green lentils, but definitely not French lentils. Red lentils give you the right, yellow-orange color. Bring this mess to a boil, then lower the heat and cover for 30 minutes. The lentils will get nice a mushy: if you can smash some on the side of a pot with a fork, you’re done.
3. While this is happening, get a nice non-stick pan and cook your turkey meat. Cook it on medium-high until the last bit of pink vanishes, then get it out of the pan immediately. I like seasoning the meat with your worchestershire sauce and some salt and pepper at this stage. The meat will cook through thoroughly in the stewpot.
4. In the hot pan, cook up your veggies. I usually don’t worry about the size of the chunks: I cut them big enough so that someone who doesn’t want them can pick them out. The jalapenos you prepare the way you want. I figure no one wants seeds, but the spiciness will come from the veins. I love the flavor more than the spice, so I usually devein my peppers pretty well, then cut them into chunks small enough so you wouldn’t know they were even there. They impart the flavor without the raw, unbridled terror of the elder gods. Again, cook until they’re just soft–they’ll stew a little as well.
5. Your chili base should be done by now. Most of the moisture will have come out of them, so you can just stir around the stuff and break up some of the lentils. Add another cup of chicken broth, or a cup of water and a bouillon cube. You’ll have to strain the base later, but it’ll ease your conscience about the amount of fluids. At this point, I like to use my immersion blender to smooth out the base. To add to the smoothness, throw in your can of tomato soup.
6. MONEY SHOT! Toss in all your stuff together, the meat, the veg, and the little can of chilis and the frozen corn.
7. Spice that shit. I do salt first, then chili powder, then cumin, then chili powder, then cumin (you have to make sure it’s balanced, so do this as long as you like), then cayenne pepper to taste. I don’t have exact numbers for you, just whatever you like.
8. This is the part where you let the chili cook, lid half-on, half-off. Let it chill out for however long you like. You can do as little as thirty minutes, or two hours. But you already thickened up the base, so as long as you get the stuff-to-liquid ratio right (I strained out some of the liquid into the sink), you’re golden. It doesn’t even have to reduce.
9. You’re done! Go off and win a fucking chili contest!

Well, there you go. Frazier has promised his chili recipe as well, and with all luck, so will a couple of the other kids. But like I said earlier, chili is a matter of personality and love, so I highly recommend you crafting your own. Good luck!

There is nothing that pisses me off more than having a bad chardonnay, and I had a bad chardonnay this weekend. I thought–”Oh, one cup can go into delicious risotto, and then I’ll drink the rest, nom nom.” The wine wasn’t good even when paired with the risotto that it went into (mushroom and sweet onion, if you must know.) Thankfully, Gloria and Frazier let me drink their chianti (straight from the bottle like a champ), and while I was slaving over the risotto, Gloria shoved a piece of prosciutto in my mouth. Friday’s hasty wine-and-cheese party yielded the following life lessons:

1. It doesn’t matter what you put on them, these Pepperidge Farm Butter Crackers are crazy delicious. I think at one point, I gave up on dignity and just started wrapping Italian cold cuts around them and shoving them in my face-hole.
2. Try things from your local grocery store’s wacky “gourmet food” section. Our Safeway sold us delicious Italian cold cuts and this unsubtle but definitely-got-the-job-done spinach dip.
3. Don’t trust a ho Chardonnay that you haven’t tried before. You can get lucky with a store-bought shiraz easily, especially if you look to Australia. You can even nail a good merlot or chianti or pinot grigio. For some reason, I’ve spun the roulette wheel for chardonnays and each time I come up bust. I’m looking at you, Francis Ford Coppola. I recovered, though. See below.
4. When you get your friends drunk and feed them, they can’t shut up about it. In honor of pleasantly drunk Gloria, here is the salad she couldn’t shut up about (adapted from The Pioneer Woman’s adapted salad).

Easy Caesar Salad

• 3 romaine hearts
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup olive oil, plus 4 tbs olive oil
• 2 1/2 tbs mayo, mayo and mayo.
• A lemon
• 1/4 tsp worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt
• salt and pepper and parmesan cheese to taste
• Oh, also some bread that you like to make into croutons.

1. Get a food processor or blender and process the crap out of your garlic cloves and the 1/4 cup of olive oil. Mumble incoherently at your housemate about how awesome that crap smells. Strain the oil into a receptacle, then save half of the super-minced garlic.
2. Juice the lemon. Mix the juice with the mayo, the reserved garlic, the worchestershire sauce, and the 1/4 tsp salt. Hit it with a fork until it’s mixed and citrusy and delicious.
3. Pause. Do yourself a favor. Make yourself some croutons. Cube the bread you got into… cubes… and then toss it with that olive oil you saved. Grind some salt and pepper over it, then toss again. Then put it all into a skillet over medium heat, and shake it around while you’re doing the rest. The croutons should be crispy, warm, and a little brown on the outside. Your housemate will flip her shit, I promise.
4. Pro-tip: Don’t ever cut your salad with a knife. Apparently, this makes it brown faster. Take your romaine hearts and tear at them with your hands.
5. Toss in the remaining olive oil (the 4 tbs, but really it’s just a matter of taste) and the salt and pepper to taste. Toss the salad.
6. Put in the mayo dressing. Toss the salad.
7. Put in some parmesan. Toss the salad.
8. Throw in your croutons. Toss the salad.
9. Watch as your housemate rolls on the ground, babbling about how awesome the salad is. (Don’t toss the salad.)

Now, for wine.

This past Sunday, Gloria, Mr. Murphy and I attended the Reston Wine Festival (sponsored by GM and the 2010 Buick LaCrosse–I promised.) It was a LOT of fun. There were great vendors and sweet swag. Giant gave me a free reusable bag, and GM gave me a free wine stopper. They also had this sweet augmented reality thing for the LaCrosse, which I probably could have played with for hours. The future!

But wines. It was nice walking around with Mr. Murphy, who took everything with a pleasantly open mind. We usually went for the drier wines first, and ended up picking several great winners–highly recommended, if you can buy wine around or from Virginia.

The great hit of the weekend (two bottles procured) was the Cabernet Sauvignon from Unicorn Winery. Peppery, fragrant, but still light enough to drink straight, it had this wonderful tannic flavor that bounced straight off the palate and did fragrant flips inside your mouth. I’m serious, guys, there’s a flavor party here, and everyone’s invited. The wine hawker did himself a great service by pointing out the $1 lamb chop stand nearby–this wine paired divinely with a meat. Soon, it will be deployed with Steak au Poivre.  Honorable mention: Unicorn’s Traminette, a wine invented by Cornell University, caused much consternation. I think it was only the cab sauv’s food pairing that made it victorious.

I cannot say enough good things about Vino Curioso, which after the Clifton Wine Festival, is a personal favorite of mine. Their Chardontage–a blend of four different chardonnays–is still one of the greatest beverages of all times. It’s definitely got the flavor of a white wine, but it’s got the intensity–the oomph, if you will–of a powerhouse bordeaux, all sound and fury, signifying you having a great day. Not only that, but their wine sellers are very invested in the brand, and each of their wines has a character and a lot of personality. A wistful sigh and a pleasant wine seller actually got me 20% off two bottles, which is why I ended up going home with their Snake’s Den cabernet sauvignon as well. The Snake’s Den got all-around approval, but a mixed review. Mr. Murphy thought it was like a delicious blow to the face, while Team Asian Girl thought it went down smooth and vibrant, like a dark velvet.

There were so many other delicious wines there, so I’ve only focused on things good enough to spend our collective and limited funds. The last of my purchases was from Fabbioli Cellars, which we loved in spite of ourselves. Fabbioli, unfortunately in my opinion, sells mostly dessert wines, which were definitely too sweet for the iron-like palates of Team Asian Girl. However, the great surprise of the afternoon was a potent rose, a blend of a white and red wine where you could actually taste the blend. I bought it almost entirely because of the guerilla assault on my senses–I really did not expect anything to come out of a rose, despite having been exposed to Fabbioli before.

That’s what I got! Thank you, GM for sponsoring our trip, and Great Grapes, or whatever the Reston Wine Festival was actually called! Next year, mo money, mo food, mo wine.

Salmon Zucchini Cakes (adapted from Gourmet, some issue I don’t remember)

• approx. 1/2 lb salmon, cut into small cubes
• 2 zucchini, grated
• approx. 2 tablespoons grainy mustard
• approx. 4 tablespoons mayo
• approx. 10 ritz crackers
• 2 tablespoons chives, preferably fresh
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• cooking oil; olive is good for flavor but a canola is fine too

0. I have always eyeballed the proportions for this, so my advice is to fine tune the seasonings to your tastes.

1. Mix all ingredients; adjust binding until the mixture maintains some shape when formed into patties.

3. Coat the bottom of a shallow frying pan with oil, then preheat under medium-high heat. The easiest way to screw this recipe up is to use a cool pan, so make sure to allow ample time for heating.

4. Pan fry the patties until browned and crispy on each side, about 3 minutes.

Pork Buns

Bread Part

• 3.5 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 cups warm water
• 1 tsp yeast

1. Bloom the yeast in the water and the sugar, 10 minutes or so.

2. Mix the dry and wet ingredients and knead, adding flour as appropriate until a smooth dough is formed.

3. Allow to rise for at least 2 hours in all kinds of a warm and dry place.

Yon Pork Filling

• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 gloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 inch ginger, minced
• approx. 1/4 minced green onions
• approx. 1 tsp corn starch in a few teaspoons of cold water
• sesame oil

1. Heat sesame oil in shallow frying pan, then add the aromatics and cook until fragrant.

2. Add pork and green onions and cook until pork is almost done.

3. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, and corn starch/water mixture and allow to thicken slightly.

Making them damn things

1. Punch down the dough and prepare a lightly floured work surface. Tear off a piece of the dough approximately the size of a golf ball. Roll out the dough until slightly larger than palm sized, rolling from the center out.

2. Put a teaspoon or so of the pork mixture into the center of the dough, then pinch the sides in to create a pleasing shape. Scientists believe that this is actually impossible, which is why I keep a Karen Hu on hand to perform such dangerous tasks.

3. Steam the buns in steamer or rice cooker or some sort of ghetto cooling rack suspended over a frying pan kind of shit. Or you could bake them and make some sort of terrifying dinner roll of destiny.

http://ommnomnom.tumblr.com/

Another link worth checking out is this article on simple but original salads from the NYT. I am in love with the peaches/tomato/red onion/cilantro one.  Let me know if you find others that are good!