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Jan 23

Adventures in chili and chilly

See that little play on words there?  I’m so clever..

I kept the girls home today.  It was frozen out there.  Literally, frozen.  The stairs were icy, the poor dog slid all over the walkway on the way to pee.  My car is crap in the rain, oddly enough.  Maybe there’s a cap missing or something is off somewhere along the line, because when I go thru a puddle, I lose power steering for a minute.  It’s not a long time, but when you’re hurtling along and suddenly can’t move the steering wheels for thirty seconds, it’s disconcerting.  The temp has gone up, so it’s probably not frozen, but it’s still pouring and pouring out there.  There was a two hour delay, and even after two hours, it was still icy and scary out there, so they really only missed a few hours.

We made chili on Sunday.  And by we, I mean me, because Marc was at the gym.  It was good, really good, but the beans never softened.  Which, to be honest, did detract from the overall experience, but I thought I’d try it again today.  On Sunday, I boiled the beans for two minutes, and then let them sit for an hour or two, maybe.  One.  It was woefully inadequate.  Last night, we soaked the beans overnight, for a good twelve or fifteen hours, but they were still hard this morning.  So I’m boiling them again, and hoping that if I now let them sit for a few more hours, maybe they’ll soften?  Maybe?

(edited to add) They did not soften.  So I boiled them again.  Then I added some baking soda, as the google gods assured me that it help.  But I didn’t read it right, and instead of adding a quarter teaspoon, I dumped in a heaping teaspoon.  Then I felt bad, and dumped the beans into a strainer, rinsed them, and then put them back on to boil, this time with the appropriate amount of baking soda.  Finally, the beans softened.

I added them to the meat/onion/garlic/diced tomato mix, and then thought to myself – tomato paste.  That’s what this needs.

It did not.  Then I had a really bright red, overly tomato-ed chili.  I tried sugar to cut the acid, which worked… to make it super bland.  Then I tried to eat it with white rice, because I love jasmine rice.  I threw a little cheese on there, and then I tried BBQ sauce.

I’m officially giving up on chili.

 

 

 

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