Big Pot of Chili

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 midnight. 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. Since we were dealing with an oxymoron anyway I went for the cans of chili.

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?                  

Do More Than Push the Button

It makes no difference if you take pictures just because you want to or you are simply taking a few shots for a friend. Perhaps you are a professional and get paid to take photographs. Not to be confused with getting paid for a picture you have taken. That makes you a Stock Photographer and opens up a whole other set of rules. No I am talking about anyone who picks up a picture taking device and captures an image with that device. If you are one of those types of people and going to take pictures you should follow the picture taking rules. Well rules number 1, 2, and 3 for sure.

Rule #1 is simply that you are in charge. Even if you are using your cell phone to get a shot of your drunken friends in a bar on Saturday night; it is up to you to stand in the right spot and hold the phone so that anyone, even you in the morning, knows the story behind why you took that picture. It is also your job to know about all the settings on whatever device you are using. You paid extra so your camera i.e. phone can zoom in and out. Don’t you think you should know how the zoom feature works? Bottom line you have the picture taking device in your hands, right? Does not this make you in charge?

Rule #2 after you have pushed that button on your picture taking device you are now in charge of getting the image from that device and putting it somewhere where you and others can see it. In my day, that would mean getting the film to the photo lab. With digital this means getting the image from the camera in to the computer. Once your image is in your computer you can then do, or have someone else do for you, everything I used to do at the photo lab. If you do not follow rule #2 there is no reason for you to follow rule #1 because nobody will ever see your pictures anyway.

To prove my point I want to show you a picture or two that was taken 68 years ago. Yes this lost camera story has been going around the internet and you may have already seen the pictures or heard the story. But what I want you to think about today is that you or anyone else would never have seen these pictures if someone today hadn’t follow rule #2 and rule #3. We’ll get to rule #3 in a minute. For now think about a sailor from the USS QUAPAW who 68 years ago took these pictures with his Brownie camera and then left that camera in the bottom of his footlocker. My point here is that you never know how important the pictures you take today may be to someone else at some future date. The attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 was my generations 9/11. I for one am glad whoever it was who found that camera had the good sense to follow rule #2.

Rule #3 you are in charge of getting the pictures you take to the people you were thinking about when you took the picture. Even if you only want to look at them yourself you still have to have a way to find them and look at them when you want to see them. You are also in charge of making sure that anyone else who may want to see or use the pictures that you took can do so without coming to your house to look at your computer screen. You have to know how to make your pictures available to those you want to see them in a useable format. If you do not follow rule #3 be sure to hide the fact you are taking pictures because someone at some pint is going to ask to see them or ask if they can get a copy of the shots you just took.

Now before you think that rule #2 and rule #3 is too hard to learn or get into, think again. You choose to take pictures in the first place, didn’t you? In my day there were a lot of photographers who only wanted to take pictures and did not want to mess with all that other stuff like rule #2 and rule #3. We simply had someone else do the work for us. That is why the photo labs were there. Computer photo labs are no different today. They will do the work for you if you can get the picture to them. This means you will have to do a little work after you take that picture. So remember, “The rules only say you are in charge of getting the work done,” they did not say you had to do it yourself. 

Photography can be a fun hobby. I know first hand that it is a great profession. But didn’t someone somewhere say that anything worth doing is worth doing right? If you want the most out of your picture taking experience, you should experience all the rules and be in charge. Or just put your picture taking device in a footlocker and wait 68 years for someone else to do it for you.     

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches. That’s right folks it is that time of year once again. All though for me it never felt like Christmas until we put up our Christmas tree. In our home it was always the job of the men folk to go out and get the tree, put it in its stand, and tie it to the walls so that the little ones could knock it over. The little ones in this case were my two sisters who were a lot younger than I was. It was also my job to climb behind the tree once it was up and pass around the lights to my mother who was now in charge of decorations. So with the tree in place, safely anchored to the walls because we always put our tree in a corner, and the lights wound around from top to bottom, my job was done. Mom and the girls took over from there.

Mom did most of the garland with the little ones handing her things. Although, both girls were allowed to pick out the Christmas balls and ornaments and put them where they could reach; of course one of us bigger people would lift them so they could put the decorations just were they wanted them. All that remained was the papier-mâché star on the top of our tree that mom or I put on. I say all that remained for the rest of the family because after cookies and milk all of us kids went to bed, me included. That was when my mother did her magic. She stayed up almost all night putting on the tinsel just so. We always referred to the tinsel as icicles because mom put them on one strand at a time and made our tree look like it was covered with icicles. No matter how goofy I thought the tree looked when I went to bed it always took my breath away when I came down in the morning to the most beautiful, breath taking tree ever. I always thought of our Christmas trees as mom’s special gift to the rest of the family. Thanks Mom.

There were other breath taking trees over the years other than ours. One of them belonged to my high school girlfriend. Her parents always strung their Christmas tree with nothing but blue lights and then covered everything with angle hair. That would be spun fiberglass which at the time no one knew that the hair from balding angles was harmful to us humans. All I knew at the time was that making out on my girlfriends couch, with only the glow of those blue lights through all that angle hair was as romantic as it gets for a teenage boy, or as romantic as I am going to talk about here.

Needless to say over the years I have seen lots and lots of stunning Christmas trees. There were trees reflected in water, scrawny Charlie Brown types of trees, and of course that gargantuan one at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. But the most unique Christmas tree I ever saw was at a store called The Mole Hole in Ft Myers Fl. Walking around doing my Christmas shopping one year I happened by the window of The Mole Hole when to my wandering eyes did appear a giant, upside down, fully decorated, rotating Christmas tree. Never had I seen such a site so I threw open the door and went in for a closer look. I still don’t know how they did it and don’t much care. I was only interested in the wonder of it all. So taken was I that I wound up doing almost all of my Christmas shopping at The Mole Hole that year; all because of that giant, upside down, fully decorated, rotating Christmas tree.

So take a moment and think about what starts Christmas for you? What was your favorite Christmas memory? Christmas trees aside, I know what my bestest Christmas memory is. That would be the memories I am going to make this year with my wife, dog, cat, and our little, sit on the table, artificial Christmas tree that Sharon and I both love so much. MARRY CHRITMAS EVERYONE.    

From the Kitchen; Stuff It

Are you now un-stuffed from the Thanksgiving Holiday? I hope so because I am about to stuff your head full of ideas about stuffing. That is assuming you like stuffing as much as I do and you too are a lazy, cheap, and won’t use a recipe, type of cook like me. That is not me calling you names. All I am saying is that a lot of you like to save time and money and are looking for a different way of doing things. See it is all in the way you look at it and how you present it that makes anything enjoyable or not; right?

Since I have always been an “out of the box” cook, let us do that very thing. Take a box of Stove Top Stuffing Mix out of the box and look at it. What you see is bread crumbs with lots of different spices and seasonings. The directions on the side of the box tell you to heat and add a liquid. So for all you non lazy cooks out there this tell you, you can use any type of dried out fancy bread crumbs you want and add in what ever spices and seasonings suit your fancy. For that matter you can add any type of liquid you want also. You could even try a nice dry white wine if you wanted to beef up your turkey dressing.

Notice I switched from calling it stuffing and referred to our mixture as dressing. The only difference is that stuffing you stuff into or onto something. While dressing you serve as a side dish. It is the same stuff no matter if it is stuffed or dressed. Here is something else you may or may not know. You should not stuff your turkey before you cook it because the poultry juices run into the stuffing while cooking. This means you should cook your turkey to 180 to make sure the stuffing is at least 165. A turkey cooked to 180 may be a little dry. To do it right you should pull the bird out around 155 and then put the stuffing you have already cooked into the turkey cavity. Cover the bird and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.   

Stuffing and/or dressing is not just for turkeys or chickens. There are all kinds of different stuffing’s that compliment almost any main course. Remember stuffing is nothing more than bread crumbs, something for flavor, and a liquid. Let your mind run free. Why, I even tried oyster stuffing once. I must say that even though I do like oysters, I have to be in the mood to eat them. So when I was served oyster stuffing in a Thanksgiving turkey I was less than impressed. That was until a few years later while sitting at a bar with a couple of my buddies we decided that Jack Daniels and us needed a little food. What we did was order one serving of every appetizer the restaurant bar had. One of the orders was 6 stuffed mushroom caps. The stuffing was some type of seafood stuffing that I later found out was oyster dressing. I found that I liked oyster stuffing or dressing when served with Jack Daniels, but not so much when served with Thanksgiving turkey.

With this in mind I set out to try my luck at different combos of stuffing. However you have to understand these findings are based on my taste and we have already determined I am lazy and cheap.

Starting with the bread crumb thing, I have found that once you dry out the bread, add in all that liquid and flavoring, no matter how fancy the bread was to start with bread crumbs all taste the same. So I stick with the cheap, quick and easy stuff that comes in a box.

The liquid also can make a big difference in the outcome of your stuffing i.e. dressing. Having said that I also found that while wine does add a distinctive fruity flavor so does cheaper fruit juice. Next to water, remember I am cheap; my most used liquid in stuffing is chicken or vegetable stock.

As for the flavoring I try to match it with the main course of the meal. My version of seafood stuffed mushrooms caps is made with a box of Stove Top Stuffing Mix, vegetable stock, and a can of Chunk Light Tuna packed in water. I add in the whole can, water and all, with a palm full of Grated Parmesan Cheese. This stuffing I place in the mushroom cap, sprinkle on some more grated cheese and put everything under the broiler until the mushroom darkens and the cheese melts. The shot of Jack Daniels is optional but one that I prefer.

Now a favorite of; Stuffed Sausage Burger on a English Muffin.

Start by mixing one third 80/20 hamburger with two thirds sweet Italian sausage. Mix and press into thin patties and fry.

The stuffing I make with my Stove Top, water, and some vegetables that I have chopped very finely in the food processor. The vegetables can be anything I have on hand; onions, peppers, celery, eggplant, or what ever.

Now on a toasted English muffin I spread on some homemade 1000 island salad dressing, one sausage burger patty, my stuffing mix, Cheese of choice, and another sausage burger patty. In this case the lettuce and tomato are optional as well as the Jack Daniels.

There you have it; Stuffing 101 as per little old me. Keep in mind when it comes to stuffing and/or dressing you can never go wrong. After all if you do happen to screw up you can always cover up your faux paw with lots and lots of gravy.