Why They Sound Like That

Cassie plays the bassoon, so I have to poke some fun. I've discovered the secret to that unique bassoon sound.

Habañero Death Chili

Okay, so here's one of those recipes I promised. This is my own. I looked up a bunch of chili recipes and decided to make my own out of stuff I like in some recipes with none of what I don't. It's my recipe, I can do what I want! And what do I like? I like spicy. The spicy you can only get with habañeros. What do I don't want? Tomatoes. Tomatoey chilis are good, but I'd rather just have the beans, meat, and peppers. One recipe I found had three different meats, so I started there. Here's my recipe:

Habañero Death Chili:

1/2 lb bacon
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow onion
6 jalapeño peppers
6 habañero peppers
6 anaheim peppers
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp beef bouillon
2 (16oz) cans kidney beans
2 (16oz) cans black beans
2 (16oz) cans pinto beans
1 (12oz) bottle beer
2 cups water

Finely chop onion and peppers (the hotter the pepper, the finer it should be chopped). Fry the bacon until it is crispy; blot the grease and chop fine. Cook the ground beef and pork until half done. Drain grease, add chopped bacon and vegetables, continue cooking until meat is done. Place meat and vegetables in cooking pot. Drain and rinse beans, add to pot with water and spices. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer 20 minutes. Add beer, simmer additional 20-30 minutes.

If you have reservations about cooking with alcohol, use a cup of water or broth instead of the beer, or add it earlier to let more of the alcohol cook off. It is a popular ingredient common to many chili recipes. I've made a couple of these, and let the alcohol cook off (most, not all, cooks off, but the remaining amount is not significant), and it adds a good subtle flavor to the chili. At the recommendation of a friend, I used Fat Tire, but almost any non-lite beer will have enough flavor to work well.

If you prefer less heat, use fewer habañeros. Nearly all the heat in this recipe comes from those. The other peppers don't add a noticeable amount of heat, only flavor. Cheese and sour cream also serve to balance the heat a bit.

Orphan meat may be used as a substitute for ground pork, as it has a similar but richer, juicier flavor. It is hard to come by, though, and illegal in some states.

It goes really well with macaroni & cheese!

Or, better yet, a macaroni chili dog. Yes. I made one. Here it is. It was the best thing ever.

Feel free to play around with it and offer suggestions. If you make it, please give me feedback!

New Year, New Blog

Well, my blog apparently died again three months ago. But it's back! With a new look! I decided I wanted a new picture, and with some of the new design tools Blogger has implemented, I was able to take a photo of the Eagle nebula, darken and stylize it so it's not unreasonably hard to read text over it, and here we go! I even got to use about the same color scheme as before, which is good.

So what's next?

I've tweaked the layout of the links on the right. As you can see, I only have two links so far under "Good Recipes". This is going to change. I've come up with my own really hot chili recipe, and as soon as I name it, it's going on the list along with other foods I've been playing with lately.

I've split the movie review list into two categories: Good Movies and Bad Movies. I prefer to review good movies, since that's what I'd rather see; but when I see a bad movie, I like to get something positive out of the experience by trying to decide what exactly went wrong. Also, some movies are so bad I need to rant about it, and some movies that are quite popular are actually terrible and it's up to me to let everyone know, of course. Duh. So the Good Movies list will likely stay much longer than the Bad Movies list, expect them both to grow this year. I've seen a bunch that I've been meaning to blog about, but I've been busy being lazy and procrastinating. Priorities first!

Expect more music talk, including hopefully in the not quite so near future some recordings I plan to make. I've been picking up Bach's cello suites on the bass Trombone and would like to get some of them recorded.

There'll be more politics, too. I must admit, I've never been more frustrated by the topic. It's hard to organize my thoughts, but I've got some new stuff to rant about. All are required to read my rants and agree with me.

That's all for now!