Notice; this posting does not include a photograph of a bowl of chili. Oh I have a shot of a bowl of chili only it just does not look like chili. I may be a lazy, cheap cook but I know pictures and that shot of a bowl of chili was not something that worked without smell-a-photo. Sorry
Big Pot of Chili
For any of you who have read my food posting in the past you know that I am a lazy, cheap cook. My mother taught me everything I know about cooking. Of course we had to bar her from the kitchen and make her promise not to feed the neighbors before or after . So is it any wonder that even though it is my job to do all the cooking in our home, I do not even think about what to cook until 5 minutes before mealtime. This usually means everything is frozen solid or normally requires slow cooking. Always an extra challenge, but one I can handle.
Being cheap and lazy I have come up with a few tricks. The frozen stuff is easy as long as my microwave is working. That and a little running water and I am good to go as long as you don’t want great taste. Lucky for me my wife is all about salads so if I do add in any meat I can always cover up the frozen taste with lots of dressing. However a slow cooking type of meals requires a little more imagination. Take yesterday as an example. My lovely, slim and trim wife decided she wanted a bowl of chili on this cold winter’s day here in Florida
Now before you start with all that “yuck” stuff, just hear me out. I used one can of chili with beans, one can of chili without beans, or No Bean chili that I keep around for my chili dogs, to this chili mix I added one can of diced seasoned tomatoes. Now while this was heating up on the back burner of the stove I grabbed a frozen hamburger patty out of the freezer and nuked it in the microwave just enough to thaw it out.
While the burger was thawing I chopped up some sweet onion and some bell pepper. Then onion, pepper and burger went into a sauté pan to which I added in red chili flake, chili power, and a shot of hot sauce. It is chili after all. Although Sharon and I are not big on hot spicy food we do like a little kick every now and then. At our age, hot but not too hot chili is about all the kick we can handle. So once the burger mixture was done I added it to the chili mix and let it cook for a few minutes while I chopped up some more raw onion and got out the grated cheese and a few crackers. I then put all of this on the table to enhance our chili experience. Of course my wife had to ruin a good thing by insisting I serve up a side of salad but if it makes her happy I guess I can put up with it once in a while. Which in this case is all the time; but I do love her even if she does eat funny things. Then again I cook funny things, don’t I?
