Easiest Vegetable Soup Ever.

11 March 2011: I made a pot of this for the kid, and she ate three bowls a day until it was gone.

Recipe:

Chop up whatever vegetables you have on hand - I used 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, and a handful of frozen green beans - and toss into a pot with 1 cup (more or less depending on how much your kids love carbs) veggie pasta. Cover with water (vegetable stock is much more tasty, if you have it), sprinkle in a little thyme and some garlic powder. Cook it all together until the pasta is done and veggies are tender but not mushy. That's it.

This only takes about 15 minutes to make, and it's become my go-to lunch for her. My favorite local health-food store sells bulk colored bowtie pasta, and it's colored with natural stuff like beet juice. It's WAY cheap, quite tasty, and she loves it. It's also become a good way to use up vegetables that are a little past their prime but not quite ready for the stock-pot.

Dinner

Roasted butternut squash and potatoes. I've been eating this at least once a week. It's EASY. Just chop up a butternut squash and a couple potatoes, toss with olive oil, garlic/garlic salt and thyme, spread on a cookie sheet and stick it in a 350-degree oven for a while. Stir or flip the pieces every now and then so they get nicely roasted on all sides. Mine usually takes 30-40 minutes, but check it after 20. YUM.

Snapshots: Mid-June 2010

6:00 p.m., on a Wednesday: the thermostat says it is 84 degrees in the house, although, since it is located in a cool, dim hallway, I know the main part of the house is several degrees hotter. My child is running her little Ikea push-cart into the back door over and over, each time causing a loud "THWACK" noise that reverberates in my already-throbbing skull. She is cackling madly, and is, of course, naked.

9:00 p.m. on the same night finds me on the couch, glass of wine in hand. Piper is tucked in bed, happily reading books to a stuffed elephant, and I have the last lonely cupcake from her party. I dug into the tub of frozen leftover frosting and now a mini-mountain of chilled strawberry-meringue buttercream quivers atop the little cake. I boot up the Xbox, flip through our Netflix queue, and put on an episode of The X-Files. Frosting, wine, a quiet house, and the company of Mulder and Scully all combine to give me one of the least-stressful moments I've had in months.

Somewhere along the line, I tripped over or ran into something, injuring my pinkie toes yet again. The right is far worse than the left - putting on my favorite sandals too quickly can cause a grunt of pain. I am constantly breaking, cracking, or bruising my pinkie toes. I'm starting to wonder if I could just have them amputated. I know toes are for balance or...something...that I didn't pay attention to in Biology...but I am not sure lopping them off would make me less of a klutz. At the very least, I could not ram them into things or catch them on stuff, have to hear the sickening crack! noise, then spend ten minutes rolling around on the floor and three weeks babying them.

It's too hot to cook. It's too hot to think. It's 95-99 degrees but the humidity and crap makes it feel like 107. It's too hot to...I don't know what else, because my brain, like our poor, limping-along laptop, tends to fare badly in this weather and can only go for so long before it starts to smell like burning plastic and slows to a crawl. I mean the laptop, not my brain. Well, actually, I mean the laptop AND my brain.

I have 2.5 friends here, and 1.0 of them is moving away. I was okay at first, happy for her and excited for the changes this will bring to her family, but the more I thought about it the sadder I got. She's finally going to get to stay at home with her son, but this will happen hours and hours away, where we cannot hang out all day and watch our kids finger-paint together. She's moving, and unpacking, and will have a whole new place to set up and decorate, but I'll be too far away to go over and help her set up and take her kid to the park for an afternoon so she can get things sorted out. All the stuff we were going to do together - play dates and crafting and helping with years' worth of birthday parties and meeting downtown for lunches and coffees and sharing bottles of wine - is no longer going to happen. And that makes me pretty damned sad.

I was so into chipotle-flavored things: chipotle black bean burgers, chipotle hummus, chipotle sauce, chipotle salsa. I think I would've happily slurped on a chipotle lollipop if I found one. Then, just as I made a HUGE pot of this soup, (I altered the recipe sligthtly by adding more onions, because I had a drawerful of them) the very smell of chipotle anything makes me want to yak. Actually, no, wait - the very thought of chipotle anything makes me want to yak. So now I have this giant freaking pot of bean soup (and those baby limas gave me hella trouble, despite what Heidi says, and I feel compelled to point out that I pretty much worship that woman's cooking and this is the first thing of hers that I did not fall madly in love with at first bite) and I am the only one in the house who is going to eat it. Er, um, not eat it, because...yak. So I tried to puree it into some sort of hummus-like bean dip/spread that my husband would eat (and maybe I could put on a sandwich), but it was gritty and full of flecks of crunchy baby limas.

So I stuck it in the crock-pot overnight to try and cook the beans into mush, and now I have semi-gritty bean mush that I cannot stand the smell of. It made my house smell like chipotles, yak, and really the whole ordeal just pissed me off. I hate it when cooking things fail, and I especially hate it when I am left with a freaking cauldron of some inedible concoction. I guess I'll cook it some more and see what happens. My house already smells anyway, how much worse can it get?

Don't answer that.

Spinach & Cheese Popovers

Please excuse the blurry phone-camera picture, but these were SO GOOD.

R had to work on Sunday, so I spent all day playing with Piper, cooking (chicken Korma, chicken soup with homemade noodles) and baking (mini blueberry scones, red velvet cupcakes, popovers) while watching The X-Files on Netflix (all 9 seasons available for streaming, whoo-hoo!). These tasty little morsels were among the truly staggering amount of food I cranked out that day.

My basic popover recipe (from my big giant Good Housekeeping cookbook) calls for baking the popovers for 50 minutes, taking them out and cutting slits in the top for steam, and then baking for 10 more minues. Piper had been asking for spanakopita (she loves spinach), but since we were out (and I was not about to make my own), I made these. I chopped up some fresh spinach, tossed it in a bowl with a little garlic salt, dehydrated onion, and shredded cheddar. Then I baked the popovers for the required 50 minutes, and when I took them out to cut the steam slits, I just stuffed some of the spinach mixture inside and put them back in the oven. I was glad I'd gone with the dehydrated onion, as it sucked up all the moisture from the cooking spinach and melting cheese, otherwise they might've gotten soggy in the middle. The popovers came out with slightly crumbly outer crusts, and inside it was a delicious combo of eggy popover innards, mellow spinach, buttery cheddar, and tangy garlic salt.

One thing I'll do differently next time (and there will be one) is maybe cook them for 40 minutes before stuffing, so the flavors meld just a wee bit more. I might also try the garlic salt instead of regular salt in the batter recipe, or use garlic powder in the spinach. They were a tiny, tiny bit too salty for me. Other than that, they're great. I froze a bunch of them, in a pathetic attempt to keep us from eating them all in one day, and they are still great when defrosted. They are delicious for breakfast with a cup of strong coffee, they are GREAT for lunch when dunked in a bowl of soup, they are a terrific after-nap snack for the kid. The freezing trick only managed to make them last a few extra days; as soon as I go get more spinach, a double batch will be in the works.

Downer Days

The past seven or ten days turned into one of those crappy periods where I just can't seem to get it together and my guilt over (and frustration at) not being employed outside the house seems to dominate my thoughts and I really just phone it in most of the time.

I served the same not-so-great "leftover stew" (i.e., pull out all those Tupperware containers lingering in the fridge, throw it in a pot, add some stock + spices, then tell my family "oh, you'll EAT it and you'll LIKE it, Buster) three days in a row last week. I tried to be sneaky and mix it up as lunches and dinners, throw a little grated Parm on top, even made fresh, hot cheddar-garlic biscuits one night to go with it...but it was still the same pot of sucky leftovers that still suck when they are stirred together and simmered for 20 minutes.

I keep knitting the same thing over and over, because it's easy. I tried making something else, and after knitting it to near-completion and ripping it out four times, I gave up and made another Milo (#3 in about as many months, but out of cotton this time). I haven't touched that sewing machine, even though my head is stuffed full of projects I want to work on. My "project box" full of almost-done decorating stuff sits getting dusty in the corner. My camera stays in its protective bag most days. I wander around the house repeating out loud lines that I should be typing, in hopes that I'll remember them. I was doing great with the writing stuff for a while, self-imposed deadlines and mandatory page counts and all that, but not lately. There has been so little time for the real, honest work of writing that I'm not even sure I can do it any more. 

A neighbor asked me to take some photos of his kids, which I did, and now he's asked me to photograph an event at his church. I desperately want to do right by him, because he's a good man and he's counting on me. I also desperately want to be a better photographer and I can't figure out how. Nothing I read in books seems to stick; we don't have the money (or with R's crazy work schedule, the time) for a class; I don't know any other photographers. I feel envious when I see great photos by other people. Envious, and a little angry, because I can't do what they do. I'd love to be able to tweak the controls on my DSLR and get what I want out of it, to have long conversations with other camera nuts about f-stops and Photoshop actions. So far? I can't even change the shutter speed. Oy. The user's manual makes me go cross-eyed trying to digest it all, and though it came with DVD's, somehow I have not, in nearly two years, managed to find a spare hour or two to watch them. Again I say: oy.

To tell you the truth, I have been in an ever-increasing funk since Alex Chilton died. I can't say for sure that this caused it, but that seems to have been the tipping point. I would just like to tip back soon.

Edited to add: Oh, look. Now, because I am so off my game and not paying attention, I managed to post three posts in one day instead of saving the drafts for later this week like I intended. Niiiiice.

We're Not Gonna Take It (To The Potluck) Anymore

I usually knock myself out for potlucks.

Pies made from scratch 100% - not even so much as a pre-made crust. Crisp, cheesy Crock-Pot potato recipes that start the day before. Chicken fajita dip that requires warming and mixing just before you set it out so it will be at its yummiest. Cookies that take all day; layer cakes threatening to cover my car interior with homemade buttercream on the drive over; fruit crisps taken out milliseconds before departure so that they are served at a still-bubbling temperature. Complicated transport rigs involving cardboard boxes, silicone potholders, aluminum foil, kitchen towels, and bungee cords. Presentation in my best ceramic or glassware, with hand-lettered signs and decorative ribbon. Big chunks of the grocery budget taken up with quality butter, goat cheese, red wine, white chocolate, imported sugars, organic flour.

For a long time, I did it because I loved to cook, I loved to show off my kitchen skills, and I got satisfaction from knowing that I'd used top-quality ingredients and put my heart and soul into it.

But that was before.  Before this past holiday season wore me down.  It wasn't a horrible, stressful Halloween-to-New Year's run; no more than usual, anyway.  But somewhere in there was the straw that broke the camel's back.

This year was just one too many.  One too many times I'd stood by a long, extra-leaves-added table in someone's dining room, watching as people inhaled Minute Rice and Velveeta while giving my lovingly-made food a wide berth. Too many years of work potlucks where people passed up the pie I'd made from scratch in my tiny, hot-as-Hades kitchen while fighting over the last grocery-store doughnut. One too many times all those expensive, quality ingredients sat getting soggier and sadder in my fridge as I struggled to consume the leftovers I'd had to bring home.  Schelpping my beautiful glass bakeware in its own insulated carryalls home at the end of the night, their weight only marginally less than when I'd taken them out the door a few hours earlier - this had become my own personal walk of shame.

This year, it felt like I spent more time than usual working my ass off on food nobody wanted to eat.  Maybe, if I'm being honest, the seeds were planted last March, when I made, per a friend's request, a chocolate-bourbon-pecan pie (again, from scratch) for his birthday.  He forgot about our plans and failed to show up to eat it (my husband polished it off for him). We re-scheduled and I made my friend another pie...which he also didn't show up to eat (though this time at least it wasn't because he forgot). I made a third one - the third one of these in less than a week - and he finally showed up to eat it, but with just a brush off "Oh, thanks." Three rounds of pecans and bourbon and crust and toiling in a hot kitchen, all in less than a week, and all I get is "Oh, thanks"?

This same friend completely forgot about my birthday a few months later.  He (and his wife) didn't even give me an after-the-fact courtesy "happy birthday" when he asked about my new phone and I said "Oh, it was a present, for my birthday last week." Not a word. Disappointed didn't quite cover what I felt.

Fast-forward to this Thanksgiving, when I was visiting my parents' place and made seven pies in one day.  First there was some whining because I'd only made one pecan, and that was the only pie some of the non-family guests wanted to eat; then, two of my beautiful pies had to be thrown out after a couple of days because nobody thought to refrigerate them.  They were both untouched, the sweet potato's delicate asiago crust uncompromised and the pumpkin's smooth surface unbroken. 

As Christmas time rolled around, I got invited to a cookie exchange.  I figured I'd better bring my A-game, so I got my mom to give me the recipe for a family favorite, small butter thumbprint cookies with a creamcheese & candy-cane filling.  They were a real pain in the ass to make, but delicious.  I also made a pan full of these, a clone recipe for Starbucks White Chocolate Cranberry Bliss Bars. I figured if my fellow exchangers didn't like one, they'd like the other.

When I got to the cookie exchange, I discovered that not everyone thought a cookie-exchange party meant "bring something really cool." There were plywood-tasting slice n' bake cookies, break n' bakes that had been baked in their original squarish shapes, and at least 1/4 of the entries were plain old chocolate chip. One or two people brought bakery cookies, and at least 1/3 of the participants left without taking anything home. I pushed some of my peppermint & cream cheese drops on people as we were filling containers at the end of the night, because even though I knew I'd have no problem eating up the leftovers, I couldn't bear to take a box full of my own cookies home. I already had to take home the cranberry white chocolate bars, which had turned out too crumbly to dish up, not that it mattered because I and the hostess were the only ones who tried them anyway.

Dejected, I soldiered on, readying myself for a friend's Christmas-Eve potluck.  This would be our second year attending, and I think we were the only non-family people on the guest list both years.  I decided not to do anything too elaborate, but I knew that my friend adored both sweet potatoes and goat cheese, so Heidi Swanson's Sweet Potato Spoon Bread (from Super Natural Cooking, the book that changed my life in the kitchen life) seemed like a slam-dunk.  I also brought an apple crisp, for which it was no picnic finding decent out-of-season apples. Both items were made the day of the potluck, and transported fresh from the oven, so they would still be warm for serving.

Which would've been great, had anybody actually eaten them.

Since this crew is all family, everybody pretty much brings the same thing year after year, and I overheard a lot of "Oh, you brought your rice! I'm so glad" or "Did you bring that mac & cheese?  I was hoping you would!" I have no problem with this...but they don't even try anything else. As I filled my own Chinet plate with items I could easily feed to Piper, I watched as spoonful after spoonful of fluorescent yellow macaroni and cheese or greasy Lil Smokies disappeared, while the perfect golden-brown, cheese-flecked surface of my spoon bread remained untouched.  I eventually grabbed a spoonful for myself, since it is delicious, and my friend said later that she did try it and liked it. But we were the only ones who even gave it a second glance.

My apple crisp fared only slightly better. When I went in for a round of desserts, I at least found I wasn't the first person to broach its crispy surface with the spoon (although I'd wager I was the second, and only other person that night who did). At the end of the evening, as I packed up my dishes and my now-cranky child, I felt like crying. I had a moment of deja vu, and realized that this was the second year in a row I'd left feeling disappointed in this way.  The previous year, I had made an apple pie and, because I know there are people like my husband who don't like fruit pies, I had bought a frozen Oreo pie from the store.  All night I'd watched as the store-bought one disappeared, its peaks of chemically-solidified whipped cream being cut into again and again. Meanwhile, my hand-made love letter to Washington apples sat in its glass dish, with only one piece gone. I had apple pie for breakfast for the next week.

I decided right then and there that I wasn't going to do it anymore. No more pies for people who wouldn't eat them, no more food-from-scratch for work potlucks or places where it hadn't been appreciated.  From now on, I will bring plates and cups as my contribution.  I will bring drinks, or napkins, or help clean up afterward.  But I'm not going to break my back cooking for people who don't appreciate it anymore.  If they'd rather have Velveeta on Minute Rice...well, let them. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. 

Snapshots: Mid-February 2010

Last week I had an astonishing day of kitchen clumsiness that started with a case of the dropsies and ended with me accidentally dumping macaroni and cheese into a potted plant. No kidding.

It wasn't an entire pan of macaroni and cheese or anything, but still. A potted plant.

***
I am into the Olympics right now.  I sat raptly watching the opening ceremonies while my husband brought me snacks and told me the intensity of my joy made me "incredibly cute."  Piper woke up to go potty (oh, yeah, she wakes up and takes herself to the potty bathroom at night now, with little to no supervision) so we let her sit on the couch and watch for a while, until she got tired and asked to go back to bed. She was out cold before a lot of the really cool stuff (like the giant bear made of lights), but she was dancing right along with the First Nations dancers and making comments on all the flags during the Parade of the Nations. She was so delighted with the dancing and music, in fact, that I'm now hunting for video footage on YouTube and wishing this area had an annual pow-wow to take her to.  The town Ryan and I went to college in had a big one every year and I'd love to take Piper if one of our Michigan visits ever falls at the right time.

But back to the Olympics.  I've been watching a little of everything.  Ryan has been schlepping off to bed early, so I have the TV to myself for a couple hours each night, and I'll plop down with some knitting or the computer and a stack of paperwork and multi-task.  I find some of the interview bits hokey (Montage! We need a mon-tage!) and they seem to play "The Funeral" by Band of Horses under every piece, but I guess that's to be expected.

***
Text conversation with a friend on Sunday:
A: Ahh Valentine's Day.  The 15-year-old inside me gets her little hopes up every year.  And unfortunately gets disappointed almost every year.
Me: I am almost-ironically into the kitsch of it all now, mostly as an excuse to do silly craft projects with my kid. But I wouldn't say no to a hotel room, a hot tub, and champagne.
A: Exactly. It's hard to feel romantic in my dog-hair-covered bed, toys strewn all over the floor bedroom. Hmph.

I didn't "get my hopes up" this year.  I don't, about Valentine's Day, ever, really, because I don't like heart-shaped things and detest pink so it wasn't my holiday for a long time. Then I spent a number of years with someone whose birthday was February 14th and who hated chocolate in all its forms, so it wasn't like he was going to be going all-out on the day o' love. Ryan is a romantic but our budget is small and we are pretty easy to please - an awesome night for us is getting pizza delivered and watching as many DVD episodes of Mad Men as we can stay awake for. But this year I found myself making decorations, buying valentines to give to the kids in Piper's preschool class, creating a centerpiece for our table, and generally getting into the spirit of things.  A lot of holidays that sort of dropped off the radar are more fun with a kid, and I've started to remember all the silly things my mom used to do for Valentine's Day that we loved so much - heart-shaped pancakes, a small gift, class valentines, sewing us new outfits or putting out a dish of candies.  That kind of stuff is fun again, now that Piper is old enough to join in.

***
My Valentine's Day was vastly better than my mother's this year, from what I gathered.  She apparently worked on Sunday, and came home at 9:30 pm exhausted (she's a nurse) to find the first words out of my dad's mouth were not "How was your day?" or "Happy Valentine's Day!" but "You didn't bring home any food?" She replied that since he had been "sick" and lounging around the house all day, she should be asking that question of him. My dad, in true my-dad fashion, stopped at Costco the next day and bought a huge pork loin, an even bigger pork roast, and a ham.  "I brought you some food," he cheerfully as he set them in front of my mom. It's true; he basically bought her a giant pork roast for Valentine's Day.

***

Reading: Shocking True Story: The Rise and Fall of Confidential, "America's Most Scandalous Scandal Magazine"
Knitting: Another Milo for P, handwarmers for R, brown linen/cotton wrap for my mom, hat for a friend's little boy, hat for R (to match handwarmers).
Cooking: Well, I wish I was cooking these Cinnamon Bun Pancakes...maybe tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing a very happy, safe, and food-filled Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers. And, for that matter, a very happy, safe, and food-filled Thursday to all my non-U.S. readers.

I will be eating my weight in pie. Hey, I earned it, since I spent all of yesterday baking. I made the following:

Orange-cranberry-oat scones
Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
Pear Pie With Asiago-Rosemary Crust

Plus these awesome little cookies that are like sugar-butter thumbprints with a candycane & cream cheese mixture dolloped into the center. I finally packed them into Tupperware and made my brother hide them in the garage because I ate so many. It's pretty cold out there, they'll keep. And I won't get a bellyache.

And tomorrow? The glory that is turkey quesadillas.

Cleanliness is Next to Dadliness

My parents like it when I visit.

Not only do I bring the Sacred Grandchild, Best Baby Ever, Smartest Child In The Universe with me, but I cook.

And cook. And cook.

I cook big lunches and dinners and freeze the leftovers for my mom to take for lunch, or for everyone to defrost and eat on nights when nobody feels like cooking. When I leave, their spare freezer in the basement is full of stacks of neatly-labled Tupperware containers. I make a lot of food, and it's usually pretty healthy and whole-food focused. I use whole-grain flours, fresh vegetables, good meats, and as little fat and cheese as I can get by with. They all eat it and they love it.

My parents remodeled their kitchen a few years ago, and turned it from a cramped, dark horrorshow into a bright, airy space with TONS of cupboards and counter space. There is also a six-burner gas range...and my dad.

My dad does the dishes and cleans the kitchen. It is his chore around the house, his "thing" that he does, and he likes it that way.

Which means that I can come into a sparkling kitchen every evening, make honey-basalmic glazed chicken and pecan pie for dessert (or cheddar-potato soup, or tortilla soup, or turkey chilli, or pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing), and not have to clean up afterward.

Sure, I tidy up as I go, like any good cook (or houseguest) should, but when I'm done eating, the mountain of pots, pans, and plates is not my problem. Someone else will deal with and actually prefers to do it himself.

It's fabulous.

Just to Make You Drool

Sweet-potato cupcakes, with orange cream cheese icing, topped with dried orange cranberies. I made these as a surprise for a friend's birthday. They were good.

Apple & Pumpkin Pocket Pie Molds

I NEED THESE. RIGHT NOW.

Look what I could make! Don't they look delicious?
Think of all the time I'd save! I could just roll out the dough and presto! Mini-pies all ready to go in the oven.



I like to make hand-size pies, because I mostly make fruit pies and my husband only eats pie if it has cream or chocolate in it. Well, that's not entirely true, he has willngly eaten my fruit pies on a few occasions, but only because I made him feel guilty. The chocolate-bourbon-pecan pie he has no trouble demolishing, but the blueberry or the pear with asiago-rosemary crust is all mine. So I like to make little ones, freeze them, and have them for breakfast. But it's such hard, time-consuming work, and requires that I not be interrupted for at least 35 minutes while I roll and cut and fill and crimp. That is impossible in this house. Someone always needs something, and they always need it when I'm in the middle of something else. But with these molds, it would go so fast, I could easily knock out a dozen mini-pies in between disasters.

Originally found at The TumTum Tree.

Fall Preview

Is there anyone who doesn't love Fall? It seems be be coming 'round, or at least poking its head out with surprising promptness at the turn of the month. Monday the air suddenly cooled; there were even some gray skies and rain. The cool weather is sticking around for the moment, although by "cool" I mean 78-85 degrees. The mornings are chilly; I have worn long pants three days in a row for the first time in months. Our windows are all open and the breeze blows through the house. It is bright but not too hot outside and the drying leaves rattle against one another on the trees.

After weeks of muggy, 90-plus-degree days, it is a welcome reprieve. The summer weather here is always so punishing for me; I wake up in the damp, hot air with a headache that waxes and wanes throughout the day, and finally turns into a full-blown migraine if I spend any time outside in the sun. I do not know why this is, since I guzzle water, wear sunglasses, and reapply sunscreen regularly. I try very hard to protect myself from the sun. I choose to believe at this point it is just a component of my genetic makeup - my very fair skin, red hair, and blue eyes did not come from people who spent a lot of time sunbathing. My forebears are apparently all from climates where the mere appearance of the sun was cause for a three-day festival. Whatever the reason, I've had to buy ibuprofen in huge bottles from Costco just to get through the summer.

This cooler weather brings the promise of Fall, it reminds me of the looming apple season (pie! pie! pie!) and the return of all things pumpkin - pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin muffins, and the pumpkin cheesecake a nearby friend has already put me on her list for. I offered to swap her for a pie, and she immediately took me up on that offer. Our weekly produce box from the farmers' market contains apples and squash now, as the peaches and tomatoes dwindle to nothing. I am making soups and pies and ratatouille and trying not to cut my and off while I hack open the various kinds of hard-sheathed vegetables appearing in my kitchen.


The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

--Emily Dickinson, "Nature XXVII, Autumn"

My mind also turns excitedly to thoughts of the scarves it has been too unbearably hot to wear (I couldn't do even the sheer jersey ones that are suddenly ubiquitous, not in this heat), my beloved slouchy newsboy caps, and of course, BOOTS.

What trinket will you be putting on this Fall?

Super-Easy 15-Minute Chili

We have been eating this about once a week. My husband refused to eat chili until about a year ago; he claimed he "had just never liked it." I don't know what happened, but after I coaxed him into eating a bowl of it last winter, he now loves it. Which is fine with me. This is the easiest way I know to make chili. It tastes great - even better the second day - and it is super-fast.

Ingredients

1 lb. hamburger, ground turkey, deer burger, etc., or meat subsitute of your choice
1 can Bush's (or whoever's) chili beans, mild, medium, or hot according to your preference
1 large jar "thick & chunky" salsa, hotness level also to your preference
Garlic (fresh finely-chopped or powder, it doesn't matter)
Onion (freshly-chopped or dried, it doesn't matter)
Chili powder
Black pepper
Paprika
Whatever else you like to put in chili

Directions

1. Brown hamburger/meat substitute with onion and garlic in a dutch oven (if you have one). If you don't have one, you can use a large, deep skillet, or brown it in a skillet and then dump it in a stock pot. It doesn't much matter, as long as the meat gets cooked. I only drain my hamburger if it's really, really greasy, but usually it's fine.

2. Leave the burner on. Dump in salsa and chili beans. Re-fill salsa jar halfway with water, replace cap, shake, and add salsa-water to pot. You can also skip this step if you started with really watery salsa or if you're short on time.

3. Add spices, to your taste. I'd give amounts, but I never measure. I use a lot of everything, and add some cayenne pepper too. Then we dice some fresh jalapenos and put them right in our individual bowls. We love spicy food around here. Really, I'm only satisfied when the food can actually burn its way through my gut to the outside.

4. Cook on medium heat until it's warm all the way through. If you have time, simmer it a bit so it thickens and the spices mix. If you don't, it's still delicious. And the leftovers? Fabulous.

We usually have cornbread with this - I just use a mix and bake it in a shallow pan so it cooks fast. If I mix it up and put it in while the meat is browning, it's done and ready by the time the chili is.

If I have the time, I spread some frozen corn kernels on a baking sheet and cook them alongside the cornbread. A few minutes in the oven and they're roasted crisp. I love the taste of roasted corn. I sprinkle some into my chili along with the fresh jalapenos and then I crumble my cornbread into it. MMMMM.