It's What's for Dinner

We stopped at Target on the way home for crackers so Bug could enjoy the pot of chili he made for dinner, since Fritos would further scald his already salt-singed tongue from chips the night before.

We walked by the freezer section and spied a container of blueberry lavender sorbet and pomegranate blood orange sorbet.

Which to choose...which to choose.

Pomegranate blood orange and blueberry lavender sorbet,
not a surgery disaster

I grabbed both.

Both sorbets are sweet, so skip these two flavors if you don't care for syrupy sweet sorbets. Orange is the dominant flavor in the pomegranate blood orange sorbet with a faint bitterness. It is less sweeter of the two. As one would expect, blueberry is the dominant flavor in the blueberry lavender sorbet. Lavender presents itself as a faint, almost neutral aftertaste. Both flavors would have been better if the sweetness could have been cut in half.

When I first met Bug, I mentioned adding corn to chili. I had tried it at a restaurant somewhere and liked it. Chili with corn chips, same thing right? He almost spat.

Years later...

Muahaha, Bug's chili with rice

Ingredients:
3-1/2 lb ground sirloin
2 cans Bush's chili beans
1 can Bush's Bold & Spicy or Country Style baked beans
3 packets chili seasoning (Carroll Shelby's Original Texas Chili)
1 can (32 oz) diced tomatoes
3-4 cups corn
2-3 cups celery, chopped

1. Cook ground sirloin.
2. Drain fat.
3. Add tomatoes, celery, cooked ground beef, beans, and corn to pot.
4. Add chili seasoning packets (follow package directions).
5. Simmer for 2 to 2-1/2 hours.

Yield: Lots (20 servings)

3-1/2 lb of beef sounds like a lot of beef. It is.

Masa flour is wonderful for its smooth corn flavor, as opposed to the sweetness corn in kernel form imparts, as well as its thickening properties. Carroll Shelby's mix includes a small packet of masa flour.

Other items we may add to the pot are hot kielbasa and sliced jalapenos. If we use unflavored beans, I'll add 1-2 tsp brown sugar. The sugar doesn't make it all that sweet, but adds a really nice layer, as does 1 tsp of shoyu.

Condiments we may add are sriracha, Tabasco, or Cholula per serving bowl. I may add a small dollop of Kewpie mayonnaise on the side. Why? It's sates my craving for potato or macaroni salad when I haven't made either. You can remove a girl from the Makai Market Food Court (Hawaii), but you can't remove the plate lunch and kamaboko slippers from the girl.

Of course, if you don't like chili on the sweeter side, use regular beans, don't add corn or brown sugar.

This chili also works if you like chili spaghetti. Just add 1/2 tsp of ketchup to a serving and serve over noodles.

- Cassaendra