Southwestern Chili

What do you really want this Valentine's Day? A sexy, beautiful homemade treat or a hot and spicy, comforting bowl of chili? I choose comfy any day, in fact, I'm happily wearing sweatpants with fuzzy slippers and sporting a messy hair bun right now. Then, there's the delicious chili I made waiting for me to devour. I've tested this recipe twice so far, so I know it's a winner!

Southwestern Chili
Recipe adapted from Curtis Stone's What's For Dinner?
(Makes about 8 hearty bowls)

A handful of dried chili
8 garlic cloves, peeled
900 milliliters of reduced-sodium beef broth
Salt
2 pounds of lean ground beef
2 1/2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons of pepper
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
2 medium white onions, finely chopped
28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
2 19-ounce cans of red kidney beans, drained
Grated cheddar cheese
Chopped Scallions
Fries or tortilla chips

Boil hot water in a small saucepan.

I never actually measured how many dried chili I dump in this. It's roughly a handful or enough to fill a small bowl as seen in the photo above. I cut them in half and remove the seeds as well. There's still a very good spicy kick! If you love putting hot sauce and sriracha on your food, this is a good heat level. You can of course add more or less depending on your comfort zone. After the chili is prepped, put it in the saucepan with the hot water. Leave for 20 minutes so that chili softens. You can use a bowl or plate to place on top to keep the chili's submerged. During this time, peel your garlic cloves and chop your onions.

When the 20 minutes are up, place the beef broth, garlic cloves, chili, salt, and pepper in a blender, chop until everything is well blended. Set aside.

Place your pot or Dutch oven over high heat. Pour in the canola oil, once you see it shimmering, add the ground beef. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally to scrape the bottom and break up the meat. Add in the cumin, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Add the onions and cook for about 10 minutes or until tender. Stir in the chili-garlic-beef-broth sauce, the tomatoes, and the vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer, uncovered. Reduce the heat to low or medium-low depending on how strong your stove is. Cook for an hour and fifteen minutes, stir occasionally. After half an hour, add in the kidney beans. Chili will thicken, best served hot!

Don't forget to garnish!!! Grate some cheese and chop up some scallions.

Make chili cheese fries by topping the fries with cheese and pour on some chili to melt it. Garnish with scallions.

Gooey goodness. I love melted cheese.

Or, serve with tortilla chips for dipping. Go Tex-Mex by garnishing with cilantro and avocado instead! I don't know what the weather's like where you are, but Toronto is going through a deep freeze, it's currently -17°C and it's supposed to feel like -40°C tonight. So warm up with a hot bowl of chili. This only takes 3 hours - tops - to make!

My Pizza

My Pizza: The Easy No-Knead Way to Make Spectacular Pizza at Home
Written by Jim Lahey
With Rick Flaste
Photographs by Squire Fox

ISBN 13: 9780307886156
ISBN 10: 0307886158
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Hardcover: 192 Pages

This cookbook has been getting so much buzz, I knew I had to get myself a copy. Especially when Bon Appétit featured Jim Lahey's pizza on the cover of their March 2012 issue. Since then, I've been thinking about making pizza at home.

The recipe for his famous no-knead dough is available online, so you must wonder, what else does the cookbook provide? There is only one dough recipe and the rest of the book is dedicated to red sauce pizzas, white sauce pizzas, no sauce pizzas, toppings, toasts, soups, salads, and a small section of desserts. So really, once you have the basic dough down, you can do whatever you like. That's the beauty of pizza right? You can customize with any toppings you wish.

However, inspiration and ideas are sometimes hard to come by, so the cookbook offers great topping combinations. Like his bird's nest pie. I would have never thought of it! Or the honshimeji and guanciale pie. It looks so tasty! The spicy eggplant pie makes my mouth water too!

When I saw Lottie + Doof's post on Friday, I knew I would be making pizza the next day. I'm so glad I read his experience first. Because the dough did get crusty and felt a little dry to me. I made the dough on Friday night for it to be ready for Saturday's lunch. In the morning, I was ecstatic to see that the dough did rise (why I was doubting it?)!

I divided the dough into four balls and did my best to stretch each one out into a pie shape. They are personal sized, which is nice for a group of 3-4. Taking Lottie + Doof's advice, I went with the simpler pizza for the first one. I didn't have a pizza stone (we used to ... but gave it away), but a baking sheet works just as well (according to Jim). The oven was cranked to the highest we've ever set it to. This is how it turned out:

Not bad right?? The first pizza we made is an all time favourite pizza of mine. When I have a pizza craving, the simple margherita is so satisfying. Tomato, mozzarella, and basil.

If you prefer, add the basil after, but I like the basil nice and crisp. Yum, I'm craving pizza again while writing this post.

Howard's pizza is just loaded with goodness. Tomato, mozzarella, three kinds of mushroom, proscuitto, and more mozzarella.

Howard made another one, you didn't expect him to be full after one, did you?! This one has tomato, mozzarella, and three kinds of mushroom. After the oven time, we placed thinly sliced proscuitto on top with arugula. Absolutely delicious.

The last one we made for my parents. I asked my mom what she wanted and she took out a Vietnamese sausage and started slicing it. We also topped it with three kinds of mushroom. Then we added basil after it came out of the oven. My dad loved it.

Make yourself an appetizer to go with the pizzas. This one's not from the book, but inspired from one of our favourite pizza places in Toronto. Here, we kept it simple by assembling some arugula on a plate. Covered a thin slice of toast with goat brie and sprinkled diced green apple all over the plate. Lastly, drizzled on some honey.

If you have time, make your own crostini, if not, use Grissol Melba toast like us.

I'd say if you're a pizza beginner like us, My Pizza is a great introduction. It covers equipment, ingredients, adjusting to oven types, and even serving strategies. Overall a simple and thorough foundation for delicious pizza. Try it and you'll never want to go back to frozen pizza again!