Chilly, Chile, Chili - When its chilly get some chile and make some chili! - Here's a Recipe.

New Mexicans are very particular about their chile and no New Mexican worth their salsa would ever call our wonderful chile pepper chili. Chili is that Texas style bean and meat or lack of beans or lack of meat thick stew sort of concoction that you pour into a Fritos corn chip bag. Nothing wrong with chili but don't get it confused with chile.

As much as I love my traditional style of making chile and all the various chile sauces there are times when a big ol' bowl of hot steaming chili is just the ticket, add cornbread, avocado and sour cream and this is a bowl of winter heaven. 

Christo's Big Cowboy Chili

1 lb ground beef (or chicken or turkey)
1 large onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
3 Tbs cumin powder
4 Tbs (use as much or as little as you want for level of heat desired) red chile powder (get it from New Mexico) 
1 small can tomato paste
2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb dry of cooked kidney beans (I cooked a pound of dry beans in the pressure cooker you could use canned and it would probably work out to 2 quarts of beans) Make sure you have at least 3 cups of liquid with your beans
Avocado, sour cream and green onion for garnish

Brown the meat in a large skillet. When meat is brown add the onion and garlic and saute until soft. When the onion and garlic have softened then add the cumin and the chile powder and stir till everything is coated (if its not spicy enough add more red chile powder). When all of this is a nice deep red color then add the tomato paste and water. Simmer gently for 15 minutes. Add this mixture to your cooked beans and bean broth and simmer for 5 more minutes. Serve with your garnish and cornbread of you have it.

This is by far the easiest and tastiest chili you will ever have. No need to add any sugar as the onions add all the sweetness you need but if you do find that your particular can of tomato paste was extra acidy then add a squeeze of honey. Enjoy

A bowl of chili is a soothing, warming and an inexpensive way to bring lots of flavor and nutrition for you and your family, make some.

Nostalgia, New Mexico and Navajo Tacos

When this time of year rolls around I get incredibly nostalgic for my home state of New Mexico, The Land Of Enchantment. I think about the chile roasting everywhere you turn, I think about the New Mexico State Fair and all the fair food and I think about Navajo Tacos.

I make some dough and let it rest and rise while I get the rest of the ingredients together. This is going to be my "fry bread" and its the base for the taco.

Rehydrating some New Mexico green chile that I roast, peel and then dehydrate so it has a long shelf life.  Then I brown some ground beef and add in lots of garlic and other herbs and spices and beans to make a delicious taco meat. Today I had some radish greens so I sautéed them up till nice and tender.

Roll out, or stretch out some dough into a thin disc and fry it till its golden then pile on the toppings. I make my Navajo Tacos considerably smaller than what is considered the "normal" size since I like them to be more manageable - and - I want to eat more than one. Navajo Tacos - part of my youth, my adulthood and my memories of home.

Mish mash, doo dads and gobble de gook -

Amazing how time flies - 2013 went by day by day to total 365 days and 2014 will do exactly the same thing - nothing revealing about that revelation but how do we fill those days - that is more a feat than anything else. I probably wasted a good number of those days and I would make myself crazy if I tried to get a tally on that so rather than inflict myself with any kind of burden I will simply say that however many days I wasted last year I will do my darndest to waste less this year. I wrote 12 posts for Char-Broil and I will write 12 or more for them again this year - in fact I have one up already. Salt to taste is demystified - sorta - go check it out.

I have lots of irons in the fire and hopefully this year those irons will do a little more than just get hot. My foray into molecular gastronomy got no further than simply ordering and receiving some things but very little in the way of learning new techniques, that will hopefully change this year.

 Everyone's diets are changing so I am going to embrace that with more vegan. vegetarian and gluten free alternatives.

I can never abandon my New Mexico roots so of course there will always be lots and lots of chile. It looks like I have my year cut out for me - how about you?

choices

Whenever I am given a choice I choose seafood or food from my native New Mexico. Since it is now chile harvesting time in the Land of Enchantment and I have caring parents who have a food dehydrator I get the best dried green chiles you could ever imagine so I choose chile. You soak these in a little warm water just to soften and then chop em' up and you are good to go, they re-hydrate into the most plump and succulent chiles you could ever imagine. In a few weeks it is red chile season; after the green pods sit in the sun for a while they turn red, same chile - different flavor. There is so much you can do with chile, it is a fruit after all, but simple foods made with care are always the best.

A bowl of beans with a couple spoonfuls of chile is an excellent example, or the more popular 'texas chili' where you mix it all together and let it stew so that the flavors get a chance to know each other and eventually get married. I have posted chiles rellenos, which are roasted and stuffed fresh peppers with a chile sauce poured over. I have posted flat enchiladas, rolled enchiladas, I have posted burritos so whats left? Huevos Rancheros a New Mexico diner classic. ...And someone says it makes you sleep better... cool. (thanks anonymous)



Chopped green chile ready to go. This is good just like this in a quesadilla.



New Mexico green chile with meat.



snapshot of red chile dryng in the sun.



One plate of Huevos Rancheros. Pinto beans, green chile with pork and blue corn tortillas topped with a sunny side up egg.

New Mexico Red

You can take me out of New Mexico but you cant take the New Mexican out of me. I have to eat chile regularly. And when I mean chile I dont mean chili. Chili is that tex mex product with beans and ground beef and it also comes in cans, many people make many kinds and it is stew or soup like. For me chili is a sauce that gets poured over things like eggs or steak or even mashed potatos. Chile is a staple. This is something that most people have probably seen and even enjoyed - rolled cheese enchiladas with red chile.

Update with an egg. It has corn tortillas that have been warmed then dipped in the chile and rolled up with two types of cheese - a mexican cheese similar to mozzarella and sharp cheddar. It then gets a generous ladle of chile and is topped with more cheese and then melted under the broiler and finally topped off with sliced scallions. I could eat three plates just like this.