good things i did yesterday.

That's actually Mara filling in her Official Absentee Ballot, but she filled in mine too (psst: I think I voted for the same person she did!). Now if I can just get off my lazy, dope-smoking, atheist, elitist, homosexual-loving, pacifist, socialist, terrorist-supporting, America-hating ass and get this to the post office today, maybe our votes will even count for something. Probably not: this is Georgia we're talking about remember.

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Maybe as a subconscious tribute/farewell to the current President of the USA, meat snuck back into the kitchen today in the form of chili con carne.

Naw, this was in reality a request from one of my regulars. And when requests for comfort foods come in to the kitchen, I find that they should generally be executed in their original form in order to actually be comforting.

This also gave me a chance to cook something out of a new cookbook, The Feast of Santa Fe by Huntley Dent. This was a souvenir from Klary's southwestern vacation (which you can read about here), and although initially I wasn't totally sure I needed another southwestern cookbook, this one is pretty distinctive in that it focuses on home cooking (vs. restaurant cooking), and is really about the way things are really done in Santa Fe.

So although I'm also not sure that this site needed another chili con carne recipe, I tried Mr. Dent's last night, and my adaptation of it came out, well...pretty much like my standard chili, minus a couple of extra spices I usually add. Here 'tis.

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santa fe chili con carne.

300 gr beef chuck, cut into 1/2-inch cube (I used biefstuk)
2 tbsp butter
2-3 tsp ground cumin
1 large sweet onion, chopped fine
1 red bell pepper, chopped fine
1 cup beer
2 cups beef or chicken broth
3 new mexican chiles, toasted, soaked, seeded, and pureed with 1/2 cup water
2 cans tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp adobo from a can of chipotle chiles, or 1 chipotle chile, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 cups cooked white beans

to garnish
1 red onion, chopped fine
1 cup fresh coriander, chopped
1 cup medium-hard goat cheese, shredded

Brown beef in butter, deglazing with a little extra beer if you need to and have some extra. Remove beef and lightly brown onion. Return beef and add the rest of the ingredients except the beans. Cook for an hour. Add the beans, cook for 10 minutes. Serve. garnished with red onion, coriander, and goat cheese.

These proportions would serve 4, I imagine.



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