Dinner by Bestie

My best friend Steph and I met in college working in a not-to-be-named chain steak place. We roomed together after college and admittedly I never cooked as much as I do now. Fast forward 15 years. We are both married, with kids, busy careers and we live 3 hours apart. We don't get to see each other as often as we'd like so when she was in my town for a conference, I jumped at the chance to spend time with her.

We Christmas shopped. We had a girls night out with some of my other friends. We went to Whole Foods for lunch and then drinks. Then when it turned out she was free for dinner on Sunday, we decided on a home cooked meal.

She helped with the menu, asking me for ingredients for the goat cheese kisses and volunteering to make them and then requesting baby bok choy as a veggie. The weather was so warm we agreed grilling would be a great option for our main dish. I brought up the shrimp skewers I love and she suggested steaks to go with. Finally I decided on parsnips for our starch (a purée for sure!). I grilled the baby bok choy too....

This plate is the result.

Just as delicious as it looks. I loved cooking with her and I loved cooking by suggestion. Come back anytime Steph. I am happy to cook but next time I am buying!

Sunday Supper: Mom's Chili

I learned to make chili from my mom and a few years ago she gave me her recipe. She can't remember where she got it from but it's the chili she has cooked for years and I get to share the recipe with you!

Mom's Chili

Ingredients

• 2.5 lb ground chuck
  
• 2 cups chopped onion
  
• 1 chopped green pepper
  
• 2 cloves garlic pressed
  
• 3 Tbsp chili powder
  
• 1.5 tsp oregano
  
• 1 tsp basil
  
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
  
• 2 tsp ground cumin
  
• 1 tsp sugar
  
• 2 tsp salt
  
• 2 cans whole tomatoes, undrained
  
• 2 cans tomato sauce
  
• 1 can tomato paste
  
• 2 cans kidney beans, light and dark or both same
  

Cooking Directions

1. Cook meat until no longer pink and then drain. 
2. Reserve meat and add onion and green pepper to pan. 
3. Next add garlic and all remaining spices. 
4. Stir in the ground beef and the remaining ingredients except beans. 
5. Bring to a boil. 
6. Simmer 1 hour and then add the beans.
7. Cook another 15 minutes.
   

Simple right? Now me being me and The Cook Crook after all, I don't actually follow this recipe to the letter. In fact, since Sunday's meal was in fact chili, I started it this morning before we all headed to church. Once I browned my meat and reserved it, I sauteed both red and yellow onion and omitted the green pepper all together. My husband likes spice so too the mix I added some fresh chili peppers from this handy kitchen helper:

I live by these little tubes now!

Anyway, I then added 1 can of diced tomatoes and green chiles and a new product made by Hunt's that is tomato sauce seasoned for chili. The only change I made to the spices in mom's recipe was I cut back to 2 tablespoons of chili powder instead of 3 to account for the seasoned sauce. With no other tomatoes or suace added, this by itself would make wonderful hot dog chili!

Today the chili went into the slow cooker and I added the remaining ingredients and if you were in my house right now, you would definitely smell chili! Nothing like it when it cooks all day and those flavors come together!

I love chili and have won a few chili competitions just by experimenting with my Mom's basic recipe. Have any chili tips to share? Let me know! And as always send in your "cook crook" moments as I would love to share them.

Sunday Supper: Chili-Corn Chip Pie

Continuing with cooking new recipes out of Cooking Light I next attempted a recipe I really wanted to try: Chili-Corn Chip Pie. If you have never had the full fat version of this, with handfuls of corn chips (of course I love Fritos) in layers topped with beef chili and gobs of cheddar cheese, it IS delicious but of course not good for you. This recipe sounded like a good compromise since it still had the meatiness but just the flavor and crunch of the chips instead of handfuls of them.

The recipe starts with making just a simple skillet chili. I used ground beef instead of sirloin and while I understand the reasoning of using the sirloin, I had no issues with the ground beef.

Once you add the tomato paste, broth, water and tomatoes and chilies, it's a lot like making taco meat: waiting for the liquid to reduce down:

I found I had to add another tablespoon of tomato paste to get it to thicken to my liking. Once the chili is done, the assembly is a snap!

My step-daughter had two helpings as did I! We all enjoyed the quick chili so much we are already dreaming up other ways to use it. It could have also used a little more heat too but I think that also depends how we use it.

Sunday Supper: Cabernet Short Ribs with Parmesan Polenta

When I received this month's issue of Cooking Light magazine I was super excited about the section on cooking in a Dutch oven. I recently acquired a very nice seasoned cast iron one and have been waiting for the opportunity to break it in! The first recipe that caught my eye was the one for Cabernet Short Ribs with Parmesan Polenta. I love short ribs, but frankly have never cooked them so this was going to prove to be an adventure...luckily my Harris Teeter had these already on hand:

NOTE: I halved the recipe since it was just for me and hubby!

The recipe has several parts so I actually prepared my mise en place:

I could have eaten the short ribs after they were just browned in the pan:

Here is another case for smell-o-vision...I think I tweeted the night I was cooking this about how heavenly the house smelled. Just the ingredients through the rosemary smelled delicious, but the addition of the wine made everyone's mouth water:

Once the short ribs went into the oven, it was time to start the polenta. This is also something I have never attempted. The recipe called for "quick cooking polenta" and I bought this:

Once I read the package I realized I may have erred, but it turned out to be a simple fix. While the recipe called for 3 cups of milk and 1 cup of water, since the package said the contents could be reconstituted with 1-2 cups of liquid, I just used 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of water.

When the short ribs came out of the oven, I had to refrain myself from tearing into them right there:

After I strained the cooking liquid and used my fat separator, I returned the liquid to the pan as the recipe indicated...here is where I made another error: I let it reduce too much. the flavor was still fantastic but I didn't get the sauciness I expected or the recipe promised. But the dish was in fact beautiful and every step was worth it:

Turns out hubby is not quite the short rib lover (he has this thing about "fatty" meat) but I am using the leftover ribs (two per person was more than filling) to make a shredded beef BBQ I will be serving over the reused polenta, fried into cakes. If I ever have someone over for dinner I want to impress, these will make an appearance again.