Making chili

which is NOT some kind of gourmet meal like they seem to think it is in Texas and a few other places.

You do NOT chop or grind up Delmonico steaks to make chili. Nor is there a specific recipe unless you are making a batch for some dopey cook-off somewhere.

Chili is, was and ever shall be, world without end, amen a simple saddle tramp meal made out of what is on hand. The only real key ingredient in it is beef, and not top shelf beef, either. Generally the guys herding cattle on a drive. Usually they wound up using whatever hapless animal broke a leg by stepping into a gopher hole or was just plain gnarly and unmarketable, often an old steer. 

You have to remember that the cows that the cowboys were driving were to be sold and they didn't want to eat the profits up along the way.

Generally today chili aficionados use hamburger meat to make chili but it was unavailable when I went shopping thanks to the food hoarders that have wiped out Walmart and the local supermarkets. 

My wife told me that there's been a run on freezers because of this pandemic and I see that people are buying stuff to fill them.

Anyway I bought a couple of hefty sized packages of stew beef and sharpened up my knife and went to work cutting the chunks into pieces about half the size of my little toe which is about right.

Many years ago I was using stew beef and my wife asked me how big the pieces were that I was cutting. I told her they were about half the size of my little toe. She asked me why they were not the size of HER little toe and I said because I was the one doing the cooking. I remember this well because it was one of the first time I held my tongue. 

My knee jerk reply was probably something like "Because I'm not a bigfoot." She isn't, either but an answer like that would probably get most of us into trouble because most women do not share the same sense of humor men do. As proof I use the Three Stooges or Groucho Marx which woman almost universally hate but I digress.

Anyway you brown the meat, fry up the onions and peppers, add tomatoes and put in enough beans to suit. You add  the spices you want as you go along and then let the whole mess simmer for a while and you call it good.

You have to remember that this stuff is to be eaten as a basic meal. You don't have to turn it into some kind of fire if you don't want. I figure the banana peppers, a couple of envelopes of taco seasoning and a healthy dallop of Tabasco sauce is about enough but that's just my preference. I have pretty much a garbage gut to begin with. If you are one of those people that have a delicate digestive system it's OK to skip some of the seasoning. If you are a fire-eater have at it and load the thing up.

In this case I didn't have a skillet to make a batch of this size. I want to freeze most of it in sandwich sized Rubbermaid containers so I can thaw it out and eat it at my leisure. I don't want to eat chili day in and day out until it's gone. The containers are a pretty good sized unit for portion control.

What I did with this batch is brown the meat in the skillet and then dump it into the crock pot. I did the same with the onion and pepper mix which was pretty hefty. I had a humongous onion and a big handful of peppers to get rid of so according to the Official Saddle Tramp Recipe book I simply threw it all into the pot.

Page 14, Article 2, Amendment 8 subsection B, clause B-4 says specifically that it is an acceptable thing to do under the chapter for Chuck Wagon cooks. It says specifically 'In the event one has too much onion of too many peppers just throw the damned things into the wretched mess because most likely even the pickiest cowboy will be too tired to notice and even if he does he probably won't care'.

Anyway I got a few things to do and I can get a few things done so I figure I'll let the entire thing chug away in the crock pot for a while. After that I may even put it in the refrigerator overnight and reheat it in the morning because things like this are generally better after a night in the reefer and a reheat. Spaghetti sauce is like that. It's generally best at the second or third reheat.

Anyway, it's a simple meal for simple tastes.

I don't hide the fact that trying to impress me by taking me to a fancy place for dinner does not work. It is a waste of your time and money. I am not impressed. If you really want to impress me then take me to a good greasy spoon where I can check out the meat loaf.

On the other hand, I do like good hooch.

It looks like I'll dish this batch up and freeze it tomorrow. I've made enough mistakes today and it'll probably wind up being better if I do it that way.











To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY