Cooking: Chili con Carne

Valentine's Day is this weekend, and so on his warehouse store run, hubs got me two bouquets. But the flowers I think are just as much for him. When I first met him, the only decoration in this condo were the two bouquets of flowers he bought each week at Costco in a giant vase.

I wished I had asked him to get ground beef from Costco because I'm in the mood for hamburgers, but knew that there was ground meat of some sort in my packed freezer even if we were out of ground beef. The hubs and I both had our own late afternoon meetings yesterday, but I knew the day before to cook the next night’s dinner. I thawed American Wagyu beef that I had bought a 3-pack of on a lark. When I had previously made Wagyu hamburger patties and barbecued them in a charcoal grill, they shrunk to almost half in size because they're so marbled (picture too lots of flames and flare-ups), and so I also took out the beef chorizo chub I had in the fridge as well as the Fresno and half a Jalapeno Chile peppers I had left.

I wasn't sure if I was going to add additional Mexican chili and Chipotle chili powders because I wasn't sure how hot the fresh peppers were. They were hot enough but as I tasted my cooking throughout, I added what was left of Frank's Red Hot sauce and a little more cayenne power for more heat. Good thing I bought sour cream on my coffee run at the grocery store that morning. I sautéed the onion and then added the meat as well as chicken and vegetable broth I had left and a carton of beef bone broth as well as a can of diced tomatoes with green chile and garlic powder since I forgot to chop garlic. I also added the boiled pinto and kidney beans I had cooked earlier. And then let it all simmer down until 2/3 of the liquid was evaporated.

The chili looked almost done, and so I put it in the fridge for the next day. After a full day of reading and writing and Zooming and emailing students and talking to administrators and running the tasks of a school library turned into a learning distribution center and then a later afternoon social sciences council meeting, it was time to cook that chili down further for the beans to break down and thicken its sauce with its starches. Next time I gotta remember to add beer to the chili. Hauled out the fixings and chopped scallions and cilantro--those fresh herbs plus the Frito corn chips, shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream--make chili delicious for me.

I had given a bowl of the chili the previous night to a neighbor who said she had never eaten chili with Fritos before and to which I sent her a pic of a Frito pie I found on the internet: a single serving package of Fritos split open on which to spoon chili. And she asked that's a thing? Sure is, and maybe next time I'll cook a chili mac or a tamale pie when I make chili.

But last night it was just a comforting couple bowls of chili eaten with a cold bottle of Filipino beer.