Geordie Making Mom's Chili from Grandma Elsie

"I made some adjustments, " He said.

Geordie sent me to the store to get the ingredients.  This is what he whipped up.

1.5 pounds ground meat

1 Medium Yellow Onion Diced

1 Green Bell Pepper Diced

2 cloves minced garlic and or 2 tsp of garlic powder

1 16oz can of Red Kidney Beans

1 28oz can tomato puree

1/2 ketchup

2 tbl brown sugar

3 Tbl or to taste of Chili Powder

2 tsp. of dried mustard or to taste

2 tsp. of garlic salt

1 tsp. cayenne or to taste

1 finely chopped jalapeno with or without seeds (optional and to taste)

1 tbl. worshteshire

2 tsp. of white pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Tabasco to taste

1. In a heavy pot, like a Crueset Dutch oven, heat a few tbl of olive oil and brown the meat.  Add salt and pepper while cooking and a little cayenne while browning.

2. When down, remove meat and drain in colander.  Add an additional tbl or so of olive oil and saute onions and peppers and garlic.  (Onions and garlic first.  Peppers after).

3. When soft, add meat back in.  Drain kidney beans goo and add to pot.  Add can of tomato puree.  Add ketchup, brown sugar and everything else.  

4. Stir.  Keep on medium heat until starts to bubble, then turn to simmer and stir occasionally.   For about 30 minutes or longer if necessary.

Serve with crusty bread for dipping.  A fresh green salad is also good.

Spinich Salad

I was reluctant to bring a salad to Thanksgiving.  Who has room for salad on Thanksgiving?  Why would you have salad when there's stuffing?  But I love Babs and will do whatever she says.  I made this from what I had in my fridge mostly from our local farmers.

1. Wash a bunch of Steve's amazing spinach

2. Mash up some garlic with some salt.  Add some of Alice's Ojai White Balsamic Vinegar.  Add some chopped green peppercorns and chopped mint from Steve and chopped parsley from BD.

3. Thinly slice at least 2 bulbs of fennel and a bunch of B.D.'s tiny scallion chive onions.  Mix and squeeze a meyer lemon from Friend's Ranch over them.

4. Toast pine nuts.

5.  When ready to serve, toss spinach with fennel mixture and dressing.  Crumble Feta on top. Heat olive oil in small pan on stove.  When hot, pour over salad to wilt.  Toss quickly.  Sprinkle in Pine nuts and add 3 cubed avocados.  Gently toss.  Salt to taste and serve.

Ginger Carrots

I was fretting about this dish.  I had not made it in a while and was not quite sure how I used to do it.  So i approached it with some angst,  but it seemed to turn out okay.  Even Lia liked it.

Peel and cut too many carrots from your favorite farmer to be as closely the same size as possible.  Heat olive oil or other favorite oil in a big saute pan and brown in batches if necessary, removing to a bowl.

Add more oil to pan and saute too many minced shallots and too much minced ginger.  De glaze a bit with some orange juice.

Throw carrots back into pan.  Add a mixture of Orange juice, honey, soy sauce, black pepper and water back to pan.  Bring to a boil.  Then lower heat as much as possible.  Cover with wax paper and lid if necessary.  Braise for up to an hour until carrots are as you like them.

Stir in fresh chopped mint and a little salt to taste if necessary.

Roasted Cranberry Sauce

At the suggestion of the Saveur, I roasted the Cranberry Sauce.  This recipe needs tweaking, but here is what we did.  This made enough Cranberry Sauce for an Army.  16 Peeps barely made a dent.

6 boxes of 7oz Organic Cranberries from Farmer and the Cook

1.5 cups Maple Syrup (sugar would prob. work too)

6 tbl. olive oil

5 pinches good salt

8 crushed cardamon pods (not a good idea, too many loose cardamon bursts...ground might have been better)

8 cloves (again, had to find the cloves in the sauce after roasting)

6 cinnamon sticks (candela would have been better)

2 seeded and deribbed jalepenos from FnC thinly sliced (if you know your people, leave some seeds in).

Peeled and thinly sliced skin of 3 oranges (from FnC)

Tossed Together and Roasted in an Oven at 450 for about 15 minutes.

(I like the look of whole berries in the sauce.  This blew all the berries up and so the sauce was more like jam)

Transfer Berries and Such to a Bowl and stir in 5 tbl. or so of Fresh Squeezed OJ and 4 tbl. or so of Port.  Let sit for an hour and taste.  Eventually remove the pods, cloves and sticks before serving.  (This was a pain!)  Refrigerate if you like cold cranberry sauce.

We mixed in the seeds from one pomegranate.  I love this!  it gives the sauce a burst like surprise.

Thanksgiving at the Washburns

We went to the Washburns for Thanksgiving.  I was super grateful to not cook a feast this year.  First year in a long time.  

The meal was fantastic.  I was assigned a vegetable dish, salad and cranberry sauce.  I ate none of what I brought.  I focused completely on the stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and a little turkey.

Recipes following.

Food Control and Family Patterns and Pasta

My little brother Geordie has moved in with us.  I love my little brother and am totally delighted that he is here, especially the way his presence exposes the family patterns so quickly and easily.

It was around 3:30pm and Eric had come home from the grocery store with the fixings for a smoked white fish dip and the ingredients for roasted tomato sausage pasta.  I was excited to make a nice meal for the 3 of us.

Geordie emerged from the office and announced he was hungry and was going to go out and get something.  I mistakenly suggested he wait cuz I was going to make dinner.  I jumped up and prepped the whitefish dip.  When it was gone within 2 minutes, I realized that maybe I had underestimated (or worse, not even acknowledged) his hunger.  And that the appropriate response would have been, "Great, see you later."

But I was attached to our having dinner together, and so I navigated incorrectly, not receiving the fresh information.  And as most of us do when we are hungry and not being allowed to do what we want to do, he got angry.  (A mild soft angry with a slight agitated and accusing raised voice).  And I felt like my mother with my father.  One wanting the freedom to satisfy his needs and the other trying to satisfy hers, corrupted with the illusion that her plan was superior.

And so he left to get food, and I laughed and saw what had happened.  And when the invitation came in to go to a housewarming party from 6 to 7, I accepted cuz now I was off the hook for dinner.  Geordie returned with beer and peanuts still under the assumption that I was cooking dinner.  Hahaha.  Trick or treat has been the theme for me with my SELF this week and she keeps winning.

1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees

2. Slice open the collection of tomatoes you have from Steve and the Sunday Farmers market.  (Tonight we had romas, heirloom, vine ripe and cherry).  Lay out on a baking sheet.  Smear with olive oil, crack some pepper and put in oven.  Set timer for 30 minutes.

3. In a heavy enameled cast iron pot, add some olive oil.  When hot, cook up turkey sausage.  Tonight Eric came home with spicy and mild.

4. Meanwhile, mince up 1 or 2 carrots and 2 stalks celery and 2 shallots.  When meat is done, remove with a slotted spoon.  add more oil if necessary and add carrots, celery and shallots.

5. Mince up some rosemary and add to herbs along with some dried thyme and other desired herbs or spices.  Eventually add about a cup of wine and allow to simmer and evaporate.  By this time the tomatoes are done.  I poured the entire tray of tomatoes with juices in.  If I had paused, i might have drained them a bit, cuz the sauce seems more watery than i would have liked.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer.  (Even though the sauce did not need any more liquid, I added a little beef broth to enhance the flavor.)

6. Meanwhile, start a large pot of salted water to boil.   Cook pasta, drain and serve with sauce.

7. Delight in the revealing of that which is no longer serving you.

Terrible Fish

At the farmer's market today, cute Taylor Fujita was working for Alicia and Ric.  She was obviously briefed to try to move the Orka or something like that.  I had never had the fish and she is so darn sweet, I took her recommendation for the fun of it.

I baked it with some herbs and spices and oils.

  

UGH!  Tough and chewy and dry, we opened up some A1 and treated it like pork.

Thank goodness the potatoes and greens with shallots, tomatoes and garlic and almonds and balsamic vinegar were delicious.