14 thoughts on “Game #Whatever: Royals a lot, Twins blah blah”

1. Last night, my wife roasted some pork chops. She's got a great recipe where she puts a bunch of Italian dressing on it.
   Lately, she's also been baking whole chickens and saving the carcass to make stock. So I took the bones from the chops and tried the same thing, boiling them all night and into today. Then this afternoon, I added canned tomatoes, a chopped cabbage, half an onion, three carrots, three celery ribs, and some chopped-up chop leftovers. Various other leftovers and spices added, plus water and some vinegar.

   We'll see how the soup is in 10-15 minutes here.

   1. that sounds really promising, AMR. But how many pork chop bones did you have? I wouldn't think that the bones from ~4 pork chops would be sufficient to make a decent volume of stock.

      1. It was a family pack: 8 chops. Four were leftovers, but I cut the bones out of them last night. And I left a decent amount of meat on them. (If I do this all the time, it will let me get over how much meat my wife leaves on the bones.)

         Made the soup that would have been without it a bit better. But I just love cabbage in soup, so I'm easy to impress with my own cooking. CER liked it quite a bit. HPR said it was good, but he barely ate any. (He was really tired and ended up taking a late afternoon nap. I woke him shortly after 5pm, and then his mom let him have a snack.)

         I'll do it again.

         1. cabbage soup is awesome, I agree.

            I made this recipe for Andalusian cabbage stew a couple of months ago. It was awesome. But I'm also down with a pork-and-cabbage soup like you described. Yumm.

            I think I've mentioned this before, but I like to braise corned beef in apple juice, then de-fat the liquid and cook potatoes, carrots and cabbage in it while the corned beef is finishing in the oven. If you cut that liquid with extra water, that would make a great soup too (corned beef stock with potato, carrot and cabbage).

2. We're off to an auction to benefit Skim's school. We'll eat whatever they feed us...normally it's pretty awesome.

   My high school best friend's mother cooked chili with Coca-Cola in the batter. Is that a thing?

3. I like my chili over elbow macaroni. I have discovered over the years that that makes me kind of weird. But it's awesome.

4. I'm grilling chicken drumsticks tonight. Rice, pinto beans, and salad to accompany.

   Oh, and I'm rubbing my hands together with excitement to make pav bahji soon. That will get its own The Nation Has An Appetite posting (that's a tag, not an established category as of yet; I encourage any Citizen with authorship privileges to help him/herself to posting recipes/cooking stories with that tag).

5. This has to be the worst week of Twins baseball I've ever seen. I fear that Casilla's two triples have bought him at least another month at short, despite his obvious ineptitude there.

6. re: chili. I have two divergent approaches. One is lazy-man chili, with ground beef, etc. The other is dilettante chili, where I use chunks of beef (chuck roast, usually) and my own homemade chile colorado sauce from dried chiles and about a thousand other ingredients.

   lazy man chili can be really satisfying. Here's a basic recipe
   2 lbs lean ground beef
   1 lb hot italian sausage
   1 large onion, chopped
   4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
   1 tsp cumin seed (optional)
   1 tsp anise or fennel seed (optional)
   1-2 tbsp ground chile (optional, if you think the chile flavor from the red chile sauce is not intense enough; California and New Mexico are the most common; they are mild to medium heat and add good chile flavor)
   1 tbsp ground cumin
   1/2 tsp oregano
   1 large can chile colorado sauce or enchilada sauce (hot, medium or mild if you are a wimp)
   2 small or 1 large can diced tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted)
   2 cans low-sodium red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
   1 7-oz can chopped, mild chiles (preferably fire-roasted)

   brown the meat in a large skillet, in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. Drain and reserve the fat and juices between each batch, and put the meat into a crock pot set on high or soup pot (if you plan to eat within the next hour or two). Separate the fat, putting the defatted juices back into the meat. Using 2 tbs of reserved meat fat, saute the onion, garlic, fennel/anise, cumin seed and cumin. Add to the crock pot/soup pot along with the rest of the ingredients, or you can reserve the beans until an hour before you want to serve. Turn the crock down to low if you are doing this in the morning. If using the soup pot, bring to a boil and turn down to a gentle simmer. Let the flavors combine, covered, on low simmer for at least an hour, stirring occasionally.

   If the chile sauce isn't "chile" enough for your tastes, add the optional ground chile powders when you saute the onions and garlic.

   I've also made a super-lazy chile with just the meat, beans, onions, and most of a bottle of Costco salsa.

7. The only secret to my chili is using beer in place of water or broth for the liquid, but you all probably knew that already.

8. It turns out that A Fistful of Dollars was a million times better than following the Twins today.

9. I've been in charge of the SBG School of Law Chili Cook-off the last 2 years. It's a fundraiser for the Minnesota Justice Foundation: $5 all you can eat chili. The whole school smells awesome by 10:30 am and last year we sold about 40 gallons of the stuff. I do a Guinness (or generic stout) chili, but I have the recipes for about 40 other varieties. From Cincinnati to Chicken - you name it and I've probably seen the chili. My secret ingredients are coffee and cocoa powder. Also, beans are a must.

   1. Also, beans are a must.

      for a Minnesota "chili" cookoff, or personal preference, or religious statement?

      because, you know, I'm gonna protest that last one. My full-metal-jacket chile has no beans, nor should it. Because that would be a crime against the Natural Law.

      that said, I make chili with beans on a regular basis. Beans go with ground beef. Beans do not go with chunks o' beef, except as a side dish.

      1. Also, beans are a must.

         Personal preference I guess (I think I meant that to be part of the "my...ingredients" sentiment). As I noted, there are just a few varieties of chili out there including probably 15 or so from that list of 40 that "hold the beans". That's one of the best things about chili - most anything goes!

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