Venison Chili

It is snowing for the second time this winter so it seemed like a good time to talk about one of the great cold weather meals

Chili & Cornbread

Not just any chili, venison chili.  Pretty similar to beef chili, but a little bit more flavor.  There is a gaminess to the deer meat, but is more mild than the gaminess of lamb.

A glass of wine always helps the spices get measured perfectly.  Since I used all venison, there was no fat to worry about draining off, so I basically cooked the meat with the spices allowing slightly more flavor saturation of the meat.  Spicy, lightly gamy meat.  A nice compliment to the acidic tomatoes.

I had to pick some green tomatoes at the end of the summer and did not fry them all before they ripened in the bowl in the kitchen.  They made a perfect addition to the chili as diced tomatoes.

Since I was using fresh rather than canned I cooked them down a bit with some salt, garlic. and chili powder.  Yep, chili is yummy.  I like to make chili pretty warm, but not over the top.  It's nice to be able to add a bit of extra spice to the bowl to make it "just right."

Yes, you so see cinnamon in the line up.  There is also curry.  oops, I just gave away my secret seasonings!  Oh well, it's better to share anyway.  Plus, I cannot remember, but I may have gotten the idea of one of them from a co-worker.  I got the idea of the other when I accidentally used it, good thing it tasted good.  Add some onion and beans with a side of cornbread, for good measure, and we are left with good food.

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JiMele's Chili
*I rarely measure when I make chili.  I make it more to be a certain texture.

About 1 lb ground venison
6-7 medium tomatoes diced, or 1 28oz can
1 can crushed tomatoes (small can tor thinner chili, larger can for thicker)
1 large onion
2-4 cloves garlic crushed then chopped
2-3 cans beans (red/kidney, pinto, black, a combination, your choice)
Lots of chili powder
ancho chili powder
Cayenne pepper
Paprika
Red chili flakes
a dash of cinnamon and curry
a few dashes of what ever hot pepper sauce you like

Gingerbread

 Because it is Christmas time, and it occurred to me that I might have the necessary ingredients on hand, I decided to put on some Christmas music and bake some Gingerbread. 

I started with this recipe from All Recipies: Favorite Old Fashioned Gingerbread. Most people probably say you should follow the recipe at least once before you start making changes, those wise people. But they miss out on the excitement of plunging head first into the unknown. Although I had never made this, or any other gingerbread before, I made a lot of changes:

I used Whole Wheat Flour + a tiny bit of white Cake Flour instead of All Purpose Flour. I wondered if there was something i should do to compensate for the heavier flour. ore liquid? Less Liquid? Cornstarch?

I tripped the Ginger, doubled the Cinnamon and Cloves and added 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon of Nutmeg. 

Instead of 1 Cup Molasses I used 1/2 Cup Molasses (Black Strap) and 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar.

I added a diced Apple. I would have also liked to add, had I had any, Candied Ginger and Lemon Zest.

I used 4 mini loaf pans instead of the called for nine inch square pan and so I set my oven time for 45 min instead of an hour. But I ended up baking for over a full hour. Maybe because of the Whole Wheat? Or maybe the mini loaf pans made thicker loaves so they needed more cooking time instead of less as I had anticipated?

By the time the bread had been on the oven for twenty minutes, I was thinking, even if it doesn't taste good, I should make this bread every Christmas just to make my house smell like this again. Delicious!

Forty-Five minutes in I was torn between the fear of under baking the bread and the fear that is was secretly burning ( It is hard to tell when baking dark brown loaves). I opted to keep baking and worrying  for a while longer. Every time I inserted a knife into the center it did not come out clean. I finally resorted to removing one loaf from it's pan so I could thump on it, the way my mom used to check her bread,  to see if it sounded done.

It turned out great, not too sweet and with the emphasis on the ginger without the ginger flavor being overpowering. A perfect partner for vanilla ice cream.  It was really fun and easy (other than the worrying about when to bring it out of the oven).  I will add more apples as they all but disappeared  into the batter and I will probably add more ginger. I like things spicy!

- Ash

Red Cabbage Salad

This is a super simple, crunchy, clear (no mayo) and bright coleslaw that I made for dinner a couple of nights ago. Especially in the winter, but really all the time, I think it is important to keep my meals colorful. Side dishes like this really do the trick.

You can just throw it together, without measuring and with any additions or substitutions you like.

Red Cabbage - Grated with a box grater

Carrot - grated with a box grater

Green Onions - chopped

Salt and Sugar - a pinch of each or to taste

Oil and Vinegar - I used Olive Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar, starting with a spoonful of each, mixing and tasting the salad and then adding a bit more of each until I got the flavor balance I wanted (In the end I had about twice as much vinegar as oil).

~ Ash

Crystallized Honey

I love honey.  I eat it by the spoonful.  I do like to put it in tea, but right off spoon is better.  If you keep your house cool in the winter you will notice your honey getting thicker and eventually a little gritty.  Gee, doesn't that sound appetizing?  I promise, it is.  Crystallized honey is so good.

Once it is time to turn on the heat I usually  keep it in the upper 60's.  Putting on a sweatshirt is cheaper than turning up the heat, and more environmentally friendly.  Yes, I am a bit of a tree-huger.  Back to golden delicious honey.  The cool winter temperature in my house means that my honey crystallizes quickly.  It does not mess with usability, it just gives it a new attitude, and goes great as a topping on something like this:

Greek yogurt (or regular) with strawberries, honey and a sprinkle of chopped nuts.  The honey can be normal or crystallized and it is still good.  Basically, yogurt and fruit are good, throw in honey and chopped nuts and it becomes amazingly good.  

Don't like crystals in your honey?  Just place your honey container in a bowl of hot water.  It will soften the crystals and go back to normal.

My belly needed something a bit less starchy and carbohydrate-y, also known as Thanksgiving leftovers.  Yogurt, strawberries, and honey is just right.  If you think this sounds good but you want something a little more substantial, try adding some granola or gramcrackers.
Oh-so-yummy

Cranberry Sauce - A Love Story

I love cranberry sauce!

However, it was not until I met my husband that I ever made my own. The first time the subject of cranberry sauce arose, we found ourselves on opposite sides. I explained to him that starting from my earliest Thanksgivings and Christmases, I  recall fighting with my brother over which one of us, the the children in the family, would exercise the privilege of opening the can  of cranberry sauce and plopping the quivering cylindrical mass out on to the special silver plate my family reserved for it and it alone. Further arguing would take place over who which one of us would get to eat the end piece, the one imprinted with the pattern from the lid of the can.

In retrospect, this was an odd tradition considering that my family were otherwise the make it yourself types, at times making all our own bread and even making yogurt and cheese from our own goats milk. But we were quite simply devoted to canned cranberry sauce, and it always had to be jelly style, no berries, or chunks as we called them. I laugh at myself now that I never imagined that I would like to taste homemade sauce, let alone make it myself for my own holiday meal.

Luckily for me, my husband (boyfriend at the time) insisted that he could not imagine a holiday meal without homemade sauce and so I agreed to give it a try (though I insisted on purchasing a can of my old favorite jelly style to have on standby). It only took making and eating it once, for me to be converted for life.

When I got started making my own sauce I used Allrecipes' Cranberry Sauce I recipe. Over the years I have modified it to a point I am quite happy with. It is thick,  tangy, sour and sweet.

 

Cranberry Sauce My Way:

Sugar - 1 Cup

Orange Juice - 3/4 Cup

Cranberries - 12 Ounces

Instant Tapioca - 2 Tablespoons

Heat the sugar and juice in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved.

Add most of the cranberries along with the instant tapioca. 

 Cook on medium heat, stirring frequently. When the berries have popped and you can mash them up a bit, add the rest of the berries and continue cooking until the most recently added cranberries are popping and soft. ( adding the berried in two stages allows some to cook down into a jam like consistency while others stay nice and solid). At this point transfer the sauce to a bowl and allow it to cool down before covering and refrigerating it.

I find it best made the night before, giving it ample time to thicken and chill in the fridge.

 - Ash

All photographs used in this post are my own.

Second Helping

It is the end of Thanksgiving weekend.  A time when most Americans give thanks for their blessings and eat lots of food.  Lots of food usually means at least some leftovers.  As great as Thanksgiving dinner is, it's not something I like to repeat for the next few days.  Besides, my belly only has so much room!  I like to mix it up, alter the leftovers.

My two favorite foods on the Thanksgiving table are cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie with whipped cream (not cool whip!)  Years ago I made the simple pumpkin pie recipe on the pumpkin puree can.  It was pretty good.  End of story.  This year, I made my two favorite things all by my self.  I used the Cooks Illustrated pumpkin pie recipe.  I cheated a little bit due to work/time constraints...I used pre-made crust.  It was still amazingly good.  Smooth, creamy, good.

The cranberry sauce was truly my first attempt. I know what I like, so I used that as a guide.  Basically, I would have been happy how ever it turned out.  When I was a kid I liked the cranberry sauce that came out of a can and stayed the shape of the can.  You know what I am talking about, I bet you like it, too.  It's ok to admit.  I was in middle school before I really decided to give the relish style an honest try.  I have been a fan since.

This year I decided to jump in and try to make cranberry relish.  I looked at half a dozen cranberry sauce recipes online and basically frankensteined a really yummy dish.  I used fresh chopped and cooked berries, mandarin orange, pecans, and fresh ginger.  Ginger and cranberry.  So good together.

I cooked half the bag:

I chopped the other half in the food processor.  (That thing is a great kitchen gadget by the way) I mixed half the chopped berries in the pot on the stove and put the orange slices in a bowl with the rest of the fresh chopped berries and a sprinkle of sugar.

Then it was time to mix it all in one bowl.  When I was a kid I think it was the nuts I did not like.  Now I do.  So I added pecans.

Fresh ginger was the perfect touch.  It was a wonderful balance of texture, sweet, tart, and a touch of spice.

Well, it's leftovers now and eating out of the fridge by the spoonful is good, but maybe there is another way to enjoy this ruby red stuff.

Yep, on top of a bed of spinach and baby greens with a drizzle of olive oil (the cranberries are acidic enough there is no need for vinegar) and an extra sprinkle of nuts.

I sipped on a nice port while eating this delicious salad.  What a great dinner!  Who says leftover have to be boring?!

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Cranberry Relish

12 oz bag fresh cranberries

1 can mandarin orange slices reserving the juice (or fresh)

sugar to taste

1/2 to 1 tsp freshly grated ginger

about 1/4 cup pecans or walnuts

Rinse the berries.  

Drain the syrup from the oranges into a sauce pan and add about 2 Tbs sugar on medium heat just to dissolve the sugar.  

Add half the berries stirring occasionally.  

They will begin to pop and the liquid will thicken.  

Meanwhile, chop the other half of the berries in a food processor with about 2 Tbs sugar (you can use up to 1/4 cup if you want it sweeter).  

Add half the chopped berries to the pot on the stove.  

Continue cooking until the sauce has thickened to your desired consistency.  

Cool about 5 minutes while you mix the orange slices and ginger into the fresh berries.  

Add cooked sauce and nuts to the freshly chopped berry mixture.  Stir.  

You can serve immediately or chill first.

Rabbit Stew

I am a reformed vegetarian, a former veggie, a girl who used to not really eat meat.  What ever you want to call it.  I used to avoid meat, but now I don't.  Don't get me wrong, I do not seek it out, but I do not pass up something on a menu just because it has meat in it any more.

A few years ago my husband got a job as a butcher.  He jokes that I almost had him converted to vegetarianism, but the job saved him!  We just weren't eating much meat at the time.  I did not have a draw to eat meat and he did not like to touch it (raw).  So once in a while I put chicken in the stir-fry.  Exciting, right?

With the new job came exciting new things to try.  Among the most adventurous: frog legs and alligator.  Most recently: rabbit.  We made pan fried rabbit and rabbit stew.  I actually took pictures of the stew, so here is the stew story.

It was good.
I guess you will want to know more than that though, huh?

My husband left the stew choice up to me since soup type food is not his thing.  I looked up recipes on line (foodnetwork.com mostly) in search of a thick, flavorful stew.  I found one with a roux base and wild mushrooms, mmmm.  It seemed to fit the bill.  I adapted the recipe a bit since I forgot to get port and I only had about half as much meat as was called for. I do not know how Emeril's version tasted, but I know mine was good!

It might sound funny, but I was most excited about the mushrooms.  I got oyster and shiitake mushrooms. The oyster mushrooms looked a little different than I remember.  They came from Kroger, who knows.  The shiitake was pretty.  It was so smooth, it cut like butter almost.

The rabbit looks like it has a lot of skin or fat on it, but when it is hot you would never know.

The meat is surprisingly red, especially considering how much it resembles chicken after it's cooked.

The spice of life!  The meat is seasoned and pan seared, but there is plenty more seasoning in the stew!

All the mushrooms, onions, rabbit and spice simmer away for a half an hour, and we can't forget the bay leaf. The bay leaf made the whole house smell amazing for almost an entire day!

I actually did follow the recipe for the cracked pepper biscuits.  In my opinion, they were a bit strong on the baking soda flavor, but otherwise good.  Use freshly ground black pepper though.  I promise it's better.

The taste of the biscuits is a good combination with the rich stew.  Throw a double cream stout in the mix and you have the makings for a pretty tasty dinner!

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Rabbit Stew

Adapted from Emeril 

4 pieces of rabbit (about 1 1/2 lb)

creole seasoning
2-3 Tbs flour
1 medium onion chopped
wild mushrooms
     ~2 hand fulls oyster
     ~1 4in shiitake
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 oz ham, finely chopped (use tasso if you can find it)
1/2 cup red wine
1 bay leaf
1 cup chicken stock

Heat a few tablespoons oil in in a heavy skillet.  Season rabbit with creole seasoning (I made Emeril's Essence which is what the original recipe called for.  It is just creole seasoning basically.)  Brown evenly on each side, about 3 minutes.  Transfer to a platter (or the cutting board next to the stove as the evidence in the very first picture shows) and set aside.

Add flour to the skillet stirring constantly.  Make a medium brown roux.

Add onions, mushrooms, salt, cayenne, and black pepper stirring constantly for about 3 minutes.  Add ham (or tasso) and continue stirring for 2 minutes.  Return the rabbit to the pan, add the wine and bay leaf.  Cook 2 minutes.  Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium and cook* 30-35 minutes, or until rabbit is tender.  Turn rabbit every 10 minutes or so to prevent it from drying out.
  *the recipe says uncovered, but I put a lid on mine at this point.  I think my roux was thicker than it should have been, making the whole dish rather thick. Use your own judgment as to covering or not.

The Essence and Black Pepper biscuits can be found here, along with the original stew recipe.

Introducing the Authors

Maybe it's the Autumn-y weather. Maybe it's because chili and cornbread are just so good. Maybe it's because we are friends that go together as well as chili and cornbread. We are not even sure we know why we picked the title, but they all seem like good reasons to name a foodie blog Chili & Cornbread.

There are so many variations of both chili and cornbread. Every part of the country has their own claim to the way they are supposed to be, even from one family to another in the same town! Apparently Texans are proud of their chili and anything made differently is soup with a tomato base. Funny.

...

Hi, this is Ash. Making dinner for my husband is one of my favorite things to do each day,  sharing good food with people I love is my definition of wonderful.

In most respects I tend to be a bit straight laced, I like things neat and carefully planned.  Cooking is my creative outlet. In the kitchen, I enjoy developing my skills and working to "perfect" my favorite dishes, but I am not afraid to experiment and get a bit wild with flavor combinations or invented recipes.

I am the "Chili" of "Chili and Cornbread". Chili describes me because I love to use lots of spices in my cooking and just as Chili is flavored with a combination of spices, quite a few ethnicities and cultures in my background  have contributed to who I am and what I like to cook. I have been blessed with Italian, English, Native and African American heritage, I was raised by bohemian parents who acquainted me with a number of health and ecology minded dietary styles that I take leave or adapt in my own cooking.

Just as you don't know how spicy, or how delicious Chili is until you take a bite, people don't often guess how passionate and even fiery I can be, until they get to know me. I am looking forward to sharing my passion for food through this blog.

...

Hi, I am JiMele.  I like to make food, I especially like to bake. Sweets to be really specific. I inherited a killer sweet tooth from my dad. From my mom, I think I got some of her ability to look in the refrigerator and put together a few random things and still be able to call it dinner. I think we can call this ability resourceful creativity. 

Ash and I had been discussing writing a blog together. We were kinda stumped on what to call it. We knew we wanted it to be about kitchen creations, but what to title it. I was wide awake in bed one night thinking about it. Silly right? What if we each picked a food that described us. At 2:30 in the morning when I should have been dreaming, cornbread seemed like a good food to describe me. I mean, first of all, it is a baked good and I like baking. OK, simple. 

Cornbread seems like a pretty simple thing to make. It can be, you just have to know a few things about the ingredients to make it turn out well. People think they have me figured out pretty quickly, but once they get to know me they understand my "ingredients". 

Cornbread plays well with others. Think about it, it goes great with a variety of soups, beans, or even just jelly or honey for a simple breakfast. I can get along pretty well with just about anybody, so that's kind of the same. 

Cornbread has many different flavor possibilities, this is part of why it is such a versatile side item. Basically, I am talking sweet or savory. Add corn to kick it up a notch. Add jalapenos for a little spice or crispy bacon and cheddar cheese for some fun. Like cornbread, I am easily adaptable. 

So there you have it, the explanation for why cornbread is a food that describes me. If it does not make sense, try reading this at 2:30 in the morning. Now I want cornbread. I will have to make some to go with the rabbit stew I am making this week!