Guilty Pleasures: Cincinnati-Style 4 Way!

For me, one of the the quirkiest regionalisms in American food is the Cincinnati style of "chili"-- especially as offered by places like Skyline Chili. Complex spices in the sauce include cinnamon, bay leaves, whole cloves and allspice, worcestershire and even baker's chocolate. And you eat it atop thin spaghetti noodles or hot dogs in buns under heaping mounds of shredded cheddar cheese (3-way!) and if you like, diced onions (4-way) and even under beans (5-way!). I've had a hankering these past weeks, so I've whipped up a batch and ate it 3 meals in a row. I'm down to just a little left...just enough for a midnight snack!

"I Can't Believe It's Not Skyline" Cincinnati-style Veggie Chili

2 c. water

1 12 oz. bag of frozen ground "burger" crumbles

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves smashed

1 Tb. cider vinegar

1 tsp. anchovy-free worcestershire sauce (with none on hand, I substituted 1 tsp. of A-1)

1/2 oz. unsweetened chocolate (chopped finely)

1 bay leaf

3 whole cloves

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

dash ground allspice

1 1/2 - 2 Tb chili powder

In a large pot, boil water. Add veggie-meat, tomato sauce, garlic, and onion. Simmer 5 min. Add all remaining ingredients. Simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until everything is well-combined. I usually put a lid on it so the liquid doesn't evaporate.

While this is going, boil your thin spaghetti and/or veggie hot dogs (we love Yves The Good Dog). It's also good to get your shredded cheese to room temperature. I use the pre-shredded Mexican blend, but Skyline uses mountains of finely shredded mild Cheddar cheese. When you're ready to serve, steam your hot dog buns (or put them in the microwave with a cover for 30 seconds). To serve, top hot dogs/noodles with chili sauce, then cheese, then onions. To do it all the way, eat with oyster crackers and some generous doses of Louisiana-style hot sauce (Skyline uses Frank's Red Hot). It's an acquired taste. But one I whole-heartedly embrace!

New Soup: Zuppa di Zipper

It's the week before payday again and I have the added hitch of having been teaching for 5 weeks now without somehow having been *hired* for one of my classes. So I received only 2/3 of my paycheck and am s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g my resources. In rooting through my pantry, my fridge shelves, and scouring recipes online, I decided to concoct an Italian-ish garbanzo soup that I figured would be high protein, low fat, comforting, and absolutely not costing me a dime. Everyone's really happy with the results, so I give you my

Zuppa di Zipper (Starving Artist Minestrone)

Saute 1/2 diced yellow onion with 1 minced garlic clove in about 1 tsp. veg. oil.

Add

2 medium peeled, diced potatoes

1 qt. vegetable broth

1/2 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes. I squished them in my fingers as I added them to the soup and also added half of the juice from the can.

1 can garbanzo beans (drained, rinsed)

1 carrot, diced

1 rib of celery, diced

1" whole sprig of fresh rosemary

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried thyme

Simmer these for 10-15 min. until the potatoes and carrots are tender. I also added about 1/4 cup of leftover cooked penne pasta noodles that I cut in half. Once these are heated and all the veggies are cooked and the herbs all mingle, you're ready to go. Garnish with fresh parsley, salt and pepper to taste, and maybe toss in a little parmesan cheese. When I do it again, I hope to have some zucchini in the fridge (or breadsticks!), but this will tide me over just fine!

Baby it's c-c-c-cold outside (Happy Lunar New Year!)

It's record-breakingly freezing in southern New Mexico. We have our second snow day from the university-- not necessarily because of the weather itself, but because of the power company's inability to support keeping us all warm. During our two hour rolling blackout last night, all I could think of was what could I make to eat when the lights came back on. We lit candles all over the house and I laid under a blanket with a cat purring on my lap and though of soup.

So I decided to come up with a vegetarian variation on a Vietnamese comfort food: chao ga, or chicken and rice soup (also commonly made with crabmeat and corn, and also often called congee in English). When I traveled to Vietnam with my Vietnamese mother nearly eight years ago (almost exactly-- we were there for lunar new year!), I got sick with a persistant hacking cough (maybe it was SARS?). I loved rice soup. I haven't had it again since, so I sleuthed around for common ingredients and came up with my own.

Chao Chay (vegetarian Vietnamese rice soup)

3 c. vegetable broth

1/2 " piece of fresh ginger (cut into slices)

1/2 clove of fresh garlic (leave it whole so it can be taken out)

1/2-1 c. frozen corn

1/2 c. quorn chik'n pieces (or cube some naked cutlets)

1 Tb. soy sauce

1 Tb. corn starch

1/2 tsp. garlic chili sauce (sriracha)

1 egg (optional)

1 c. cooked jasmine rice

white pepper to taste

chopped cilantro

chopped green onion

Add ginger and garlic to veg. broth and bring to a boil. Add corn, chik'n, dissolve cornstarch in water separately and whisk into broth until clear and thickened a little. Season with soy sauce and sriracha to taste. Scramble raw egg in a bowl and drizzle in to the broth while stirring (pretend you're making egg drop soup). Add rice and bring to a simmer. When you serve, add white pepper, green onion, and cilantro. **note: the rice will suck up all the broth, so if you have leftovers, you'll want to add more broth to get it soupy again.

I googled "chao chay recipe" before posting this and used the translate function on a recipe. My favorite portion of the clunky translation was at the end:

Cook for instance, remove the seaweed and fried tofu and oyster mushroom give up no end. Tasting eating and asked to draw a bowl add pepper, and coriander on top for flavor. This soup is very cool food and supplements!

Wish appetite.

Wish appetite! ngon lam! and Chúc mừng năm mới

A Sad End to my New Quilt

This has already been the craziest winter I've experienced in a while. In the fall I taught four classes while writing and finishing my dissertation. I drove 1600 miles cross country for my dissertation defense, and then AGAIN for my graduation. For the remainder of my winter break, I did very little aside from eating, watching movies, and getting back into quilting (modern quilting). The two trips and the expense of participating in commencement and buying a very serious-looking diploma frame embossed with the university logo (hey! how many Ph.D.'s am I gonna get?) forced us to have a modest Christmas and I wanted to make something nice for my parents gift. So I went through all my books, scoured the internet for a good-lookin', do-able pattern and found this tutorial for a quilt called Tunnel Visions, a nice simple pattern with measurements I could tweak for my crib-sized batting. So I pared it down to 20 blocks (5 across, 4 down), pulled out some leftover off-white squares and triangles from my first quilt, and cut some corresponding colors.

As it is here, all laid out, is how I had wanted it. I never anticipated I could mess it up. The darks and lights and the sort of three-D box repeating pattern makes sense to me. I even carried the pieces square by square to the machine, and row by row, so I wouldn't mess it up.

But no sooner did I start sewing than I started messing up my own plans. I messed up the positioning of the middle 1/3 of the blocks in an entire row. I sewed one row together vertically instead of horizontally, I sewed the blocks together backwards. Everything. Probably compounded with the fact that I was going to gift this to my meticulous mother! I just kept going and eventually had a quilt top that was (mostly) as perfect as I could get it.

Of course the fun part of quilting is making the top. The rest of quilting-- the actual "quilting" part is where everyone stalls (including me). I suck at basting. I'm too impatient (like my baking skills!). Zipper and Mini love to chase the tail of whatever thread I'm using, making all of my careful smoothing and taping and un-bunching of the layers completely useless.

But I did it. I made it. I finished and did the binding and made up my own quilting style.

Here's Bijoux enjoying its luxurious, colorful comfort under his paws.

When I presented my parents, who live three hours away, with my freshly finished quilt, a gift, after all, for Christmas, my dad shrugged and suggested my mom would probably be the one to use it, since she's the one who lounges under blankets on the couch (let alone brightly colored ones). While both of them were standing there, I self-deprecatingly told them not to look at the back, since that's where its pucker-y imperfections are the most visible. They promptly looked unfolded it and looked primarily at the back. Then my mom asked if I had washed it yet. I hadn't (I just finished it the night before). She took it, folded it back up, and put it in the laundry hamper in their bedroom.

Zips has half a mind to drive up there and get it back. I'm just going to keep sewing one for myself instead. It'll be even better, and more perfect. And I know Zips will love it and appreciate my hard work every day.