Needs Tomato Chili

The table counterpart said over dinner last night that chili shouldn't contain tomato sauce or diced tomatoes. Chili should be chili based. What! A thousand years we have been together and chili always has tomato. Seeking to prove the counterpart wrong, Tomato Free Chili was made and promptly modified.

Modifications Made:

I am not even gonna go there with the modification being listed. Just hear me out as they are easier to read than type. To a dutch oven, meat was browned, set aside and drained. To pot, one small diced yellow onion, one half green, and one half red bell pepper were sauteed. Meat was added back to pot along with one tablespoon of minced garlic, one tablespoon of chili powder, one teaspoon of comino, and one cup water. Chili was allowed to simmer for one hour. Heat turned off and one can well rinsed and drained kidney beans were added.

Scaled for Likability: No, Thank You

Almost taco meat. Taco meat with the wrong beans. Runny taco meat at that.

Editor's Note:

The first picture (at the top of the page) was chili for lunch. Seeing how soupy (again) the chili was the table counterpart admitted to needing tomato paste. Two tablespoons of paste was added and allowed to rest at room temperature all day. Paste modified chili was warmed on low and served for dinner. The above picture was the dinner chili. See how the meat is coated in chili tomato good stuff. The chili could have been thicker but with the beans already added, cooking too long would cause the beans to break down.

Chili needs tomato base. Sometimes its nice to be right. Hehehe....

Better Than Campbell's Old Fashion Vegetable Soup

Went to the store with the hopes of gathering fresh produce for soup. With more than 45 people in line for two packages of any meat product and the produce section containing only avocado, orange, and most randomly, strawberries, I settled upon canned soup. Well not canned soup since that section was still void of food, too. Instead soup made from canned goods as the canned vegetable section had been mostly restocked. Soups like this 15 Minute Vegetable Soup are ideal in dire food situations such as current times. Modifications Made: Plain petite diced tomatoes omitted, frozen carrots instead of canned, green beans and corn undrained, peas omitted (gross, nasty little pods), one cup celery, three cups diced potatoes, one can tomato sauce, two beef and two pollo de tomate bouillon cubes, six cups water. Once onions were softened, carrots/celery/potatoes/juice of green beans and corn, sauce, bouillon cubes, water were added and allowed to simmer until carrots almost tender. Green be

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Sour Cream & Chive Scalloped Potatoes

Can't believe the Month of the Potato is over. There are so many more potato recipes saved. Guess I will have to work them into another month. Last week's scalloped potatoes were one of the best new recipes during the month of potatoes. With today being the last day in the Month of Potatoes, I decided to go out with a bang by cooking another batch of scalloped potatoes but this time sour cream and chive. The Best Scalloped Potatoes , or so they said. Modifications Made: Recipe was reduced by half. Mayo was omitted and one entire package of chives were chopped and added to sauce before pouring onto layers. Scaled for Likability: Good Betty Crocker Sour Cream and Chive Box Scalloped Potatoes were the standard for this recipe. These were a family favorite for years but have long since been discounted. Bummer. Trying to replicate this seemed easy enough. Alas, it was not. These had a nice texture but were too oily from the cheese and did not contain enough onion, garlic,

Eating Waffles

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