The Real Texas Chili to beat off the chilly weather

I used to work with a woman who was a wonderful cook.  I stole every recipe I could wrest from her grasp.  I even tracked her down about 5 years after I stopped working with her just so that I could get more recipes from her.  Unfortunately, I've lost contact with Myra over the years but there are a few recipes that I still hadn't tried [and it's been almost 10 years since I last stalked her].

Whenever the weather starts to turn nippy in LA [that would be 68 degrees or below] I start craving a hot bowl of Chili over rice.  I like the recipe I've been using for years [ground beef, tomatoes, onions, beans] but the recipe for thick chunks of chuck steak chili was crying my name.  Luckily, I still had this recipe from Myra that I never tried.

After doing some detective work, I figured out that this recipe was from Craig Claiborne, food editor at the New York Times [published in Family Circle June 1975].  I received a huge crockpot for Christmas so I really wanted to give it a try.  I wanted the meat to fall apart tender. It was wonderful, juicy, and had a great spiciness to it...just comforting enough to ward off the cold [served over a bed of rice, of course].

adapted from Real Texas Chili

by Craig Claiborne

3 pounds boneless chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

4 to 6 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

3 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon leaf oregano

2 cans [13 3/4 ounces each] beef broth

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Optional:

1 can [15 ounces] pinto beans

1 cup airy sour cream

1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Heat oil in a 4 quart pot or heavy bottom pan over medium heat.

2. Add beef, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon until meat changes color but does not brown.

3. Lower heat, stir in garlic.

4. Combine chili powder, cumin, and flour. Sprinkle meat with chili mixture, stirring until meat is evenly coated. Crumble oregano over meat.

5. Place beef mixture into crockpot, set on low

6. Add 1 1/2 cans of the broth and stir until liquid is well- blended.  Add salt and pepper [and beans if desired].

7. Cook on low until meat is fork tender [took me about 6 hours]

8. Cool thoroughly, cover and refrigerate overnight to ripen flavor.

Reheat and serve with garnish. [I couldn't wait.  and my garnish was rice.] 

Japanese New Year's

Every year from the time I was born [and before, since I'm the youngest grandchild], my first [and sometimes second] cousins would come together and celebrate the New Year's Japanese style with an Osechi Ryori.  When my grandmother was still alive, she, my mom, and my aunts would cook for days before hand to prepare the bountiful meal, each dish symbolic of something.

Over the past 10 years or so, my brother has been hosting our New Year's day party, inviting his in-laws, friends, and more recently, our clan of cousins.  My poor mom is still in charge of preparing the Japanese Osechi for the legion of people who attend the party.  I decided that it was time for me to step up and act like an adult [ie, no New Year's Eve partying for me] and help my arthritic mom out with the preparations.

I will be leaving my home at 5:30am on the 31st to head down to the LA Fish Company to pick up all of our sashimi and seafood with my brother & dad.  I get a little overwhelmed  and unfocused whenever I'm down there. The temptation to pick up a pound of masago or 10 pounds of tasty oysters is sometimes too much for me to bear.  Luckily, my brother giving me the evil looks of death really puts an end to my unrealistic hopes and dreams.

Unfortunately, because I've been facebooking so many of the things I've been making over the past several months, I've gotten myself into a situation where I promised many baked goods to appear at the New Year's Party.  For the first time at our New Year's party, I will be making a dessert table filled with goodies like SavorySweetLife Bacon Caramel Pecan Bars, Tartelette's Dark Truffles, La Fuji Mama's Caramels, The Pioneer Woman's no knead dinner rolls [my nephew's request], my own LAUSD Coffee Cake, Meyer Lemon Mini Cupcakes, and whatever else my teeeny little brain can bake up on Wednesday. 

But one thing that I have to remember is that it's not all about the food [and booze, gotta toast in the New Year's with Sake!] but about my [extended] family and friends.  This year, we're expecting all of my family members, ALL of my cousins and their kids, both of my brother's-in-law's families, friends of family, former high school friends, etc etc.  I feel so incredibly grateful for the abundance that we get to share! 

Happy New Year's from my family to yours, wishing you a very healthy, prosperous, and blessed 2010!

or as my people say it:

"Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu.  Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!"
[Happy New Year.  I hope to rely upon you this year as well!]

Winning Recipe: Bacon Caramel Pecan Bar

Just a quick update this Monday morning.

Thanks to Alice at Savory Sweet Life, I was won one of 3 prizes for our company bake off! Just check this photo out...oooeeeey, gooooeeey bacon-y deliciousness.  Bacon Caramel Pecan Bar and here's the recipe.

My Pres who was one of 3 voters at the blind tasting [he asked which one was mine so he could vote against it] was not amused when I jumped up & down and pranced down the walk way to wrest my prize from out of his death grip.  He said, "bacon?? that's gratuitous!"  

So what?  I won. Thanks, Alice.

Whole Grain Challah with Cranberries and Orange Zest

Oh my gosh. This is technically my 3rd time working with yeast. For the purposes of this post, we will not revisit my old high school Chem 101 phobia of yeast.  I just had a great time with this particular recipe.  It was easy enough for me to do, a newbie in the bread baking world.  I've made bread from Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois's book Artisan Bread in 5 and that was a [tasty] breeze as well! 

I wish I could say that I took photos step by step but sadly, I did not.  I barely clicked off my finished shot before I devoured [no pun intended] half the loaf.  I can, however, mentally recall the steps.  Well, at least the parts I was questioning.  You know how I love my questions. [for recipe, please visit our host, Big Black Dog]

 

Step 1:  Decide to half the recipe since I knew if I made the full 4 loaves, I'd eat it all and it would just show up on my @$$.  Mix in all the dry ingredients and realize that I kept the same amount of yeast as in the regular recipe.  CAREFULLY scraped out what I thought was 1/2 the amount of yeast.

Step 2:  Mix in the wet ingredients.  But wait. ..the regular recipe calls for 3  large eggs.  So, what?? Am I supposed to use HALF an egg? what the heck was I supposed to do with the other half?? Hmm...looked at the egg carton that said JUMBO on it.  Maybe that would qualify has 1-1/2 LARGE eggs...Ok, ONE jumbo egg, coming right up [and if it looked too dry, I'd just throw in another 1/2 a jumbo egg].

Step 3: Let it rest...2 hours later I'm nearly having a heart attack because it hadn't risen.  Oh wait. I forgot. It's really cold in LA right now...and subsequently in my house [YES, 40 degree weather IS cold for us in the City of Angels] as well.  I threw it into my oven and let it rise.

Step 4: Darn, too late to bake the bread tonight.  Stuck it into the fridge.

Step 5: Pull dough out of the container and and start rolling it out.  3/4".  Hmmmm...that sounds really small.  Or maybe it's that whole perception of what 3/4" really is.  I'm going with what I think looks right.

Step 6: Read the directions to braid.  Ok, I'm NOT retarded.  I know how to braid.  What do they mean not move the center strand?? how do you braid without moving the center strand?? HUH??  Hmmmm...I'm braiding it like I do my hair...if I still braided my hair, that is.

Step 7: Let rise IN MY OVEN [I'm dumb but at least I try not to repeat my mistakes] for 45 minutes.  In which time, I sat around waiting for the bread to rise.  No solutions to world peace, no christmas cards, no gift wrapping. Just sat and waaaaaiiiiited.

Step 8: Take the loaf out of the oven & pre-heated....waiting some more.  BEEEEP! oven is ready so I throw the bread in.  3 minutes later, I RUN back to the kitchen to pull out the bread to brush on the forgotten egg wash.  

Step 9: Wait another 30 minutes in which time I watched "Sing Off". Man. This is good stuff. I wish I could sing.

Step 10: Pull the loaf out of the oven and plate it. Take 3 photos and can not WAIT to dig into the bread.  I did not even wait 5 minutes for it to cool off.

I saw on Bread365 blog that she made cinnamon rolls out of them. TOTALLY going to do that! brills.  My co-workers may be getting a special treat tomorrow...If i don't eat it all first.  I'm such a little piggy.

 

Mochi Tsuki...

I remember being a little girl barely able to see over the floured table that my mom, her friend [Mrs S], and Mrs S's sister in law working quickly and efficiently rolling balls of mochi.  I tried to "help" by making a mess of everything I touched [ahhh...some things never change]. 

Over the years, I had gotten quite good at rolling the mochi but began to hate going.  The thought of having to stand and work from 6:30am to the late afternoon nearly sucked the life out of my body.  I stopped going from college years through to...well, this year.  My mom asked me if I could come in the morning to give them a hand.  Selfish brat that I am, all I could think of was, "I guess I could add that to my blog!"

I laughed when I got there and saw a girl who was a little younger than I was when I first started to help, tearing and pulling the mochi.  I recognized that boredom  that was beginning to set in.  I also saw her throwing some un-prepared mochi on to the prepared table.  I silently and stealthily pulled them off the table to redo while she wasn't looking.

The mochi that we made today will be used for the New Year's Ozoni which I will be posting a little later.  I'm still in a mad dash for Christmas cookies and stuff.  I forgot how much work it was. I have to give Mrs S' sons, Jack and Jesse a lot of credit.  They've been doing this every year for about 40 years without fail, helping their dad.  Now that their dad's gone, it's fully their responsibility to take it over.

Step 1: wash the rice and then set it in a steamer:

Step 2: Either pound or set the cooked rice through the machine [we're old...pounding mochi is WAY too much work for us]. On average, they have to run the rice through the machine abour 3 times:

Step 3:  Bring the mochi in to the house, dump on the well floured [with mochiko] table:

Step 4: Knead the mochi [much like bread dough]:

Step 5: Pull off large golf ball sized balls of mochi.

Step 6: take mochi and start pulling from outside edges, leaving the center are thicker than the edges.  Burn fingers on the heat of the mochi, playing hot potato with it.  The mochi is hot but still stretchable while it is hot...once it cools down it's a lot harder and stickier to work with. 

Step 7: If you are making mochi with Anko, take a ball of an and place it in the center.  Pull the edges together and twist the mochi together.  Sorry- i really wish I had taken photos of this but my mom & mrs S, while hysterically funny, are taskmasters and they don't have time for my photo snapping nonsense.

Two other types of mochi: one with beans:

and one with yomogi [mugwort] from my backyard:

Ok, i have to admit, I was tired, my back was sore, but I really had a great time talking about the past with my mom, Mrs S, Sharon [PTA mom from my elementary school...mother of 2 of the meanest boys EVER], along with the future generation of mochi kids!

Caramel Chex Mix

I have to say one of the easiest and most tasty things I make during the holiday season is Caramel Chex Mix.  When I bring this tasty treat into work, it's demolished within minutes.  I can sit down and eat this whole batch myself but I don't because I really need to fill those darn gift baskets with bulky items.

Caramel Chex Mix

On stove-top:

1 cup     Butter

1 cup     Light brown sugar

1/4 cup  dark karo corn syrup

Boil the above ingredients in a heavy saucepan

Stir continually while maintaining a constant boil for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in:

1/2 tsp    vanilla extract

1/8 tsp    baking soda

Mixture will get frothy

Pour mixture over:

6 generous cups popped popcorn [i use the unsalted/unbuttered one]

4 generous cups of Rice Chex

2 generous cups of Cheerios

1 generous cup of nuts [almonds, peanuts, macadamia nuts, whatever you like]

Stir well to coat and place in 9 x 13 or larger baking pan. Alice from Savory Sweet Life had this BRILLIANT idea of throwing the popcorn/cereal items into a large paper shopping bag, pouring the mixture over it and shaking it up in the bag!!

Bake in oven at 250 degrees for one hour stirring every 15 minutes.

Cool on wax or parchment paper.

Pistachio Cranberry Cookie

Ok, i guess the ingredients listing is a no brainer, right??  I mean, I pretty much spelled it out on my title.  Yup, that's me...marketing GENIUS.

I've been trying to come up with a cookie recipe that would win me $100. I'm not sure if this one will do it but judging from the 5 or 6 different batches that I've come up with, each one of them have been devoured by the office crew with a big thumbs up.  Then again, they're not voting.  My Prez is.  I'm also submitting this to my company's flower blog today [hence the Christmas product you see in the background!]

***UPDATE***
Ok, I've been totally asleep at the wheel.  I've discovered that In Jennie's Kitchen is co-hosting the 12 Days of Sharing to help end childhood hunger [as well as Rachael at LaFujiMama]!! For my 3 friends who actually read/follow my blog, I hope you'll consider helping end childhood hunger by clicking on the link below and making a donation to a very worthy cause.  None of us have had to suffer through hunger [clearly, as you've seen my expansive butt] and many of you have children - can you imagine them hungry for longer than a few hours?

If my entry wins in the Bake Off at work, I'll be donating the winning to Share Our Strength!

Shortbread

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup + 2 tbsp powdered sugar

2/3 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup ground pistachio [use 2 tbsp of the powdered sugar and ground with a food processor]

1/4 cup chopped cranberries

zest of one orange

Pinch salt

Optional Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup semi chocolate chips, melted [micro or over double broiler]

Cream together butter and powdered sugar.  Add salt, flour and pistachio flour and mix until crumbly.  Add chopped cranberries & zest of orange.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 25-30 minutes.  I used a tart pan for mine since it spreads so much.  You can also add the chocolate ganache to sweeten the deal!