Smokey Hot Hearty Halloween Chili

Quick to eat so you get to the party or homes before the “good” candy disappears!

Smokey Hot Chili Topped with Cheddar & Onions

3 pounds ground beef chuck

1/4 cup olive oil

2 diced onions

2 red bell peppers, diced

3 jalapeno’s, seeded and diced

1/4 cup tomato paste

3 cans (28 oz.)diced tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped garlic

1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder (optional)

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

1 12oz. bottle beer, medium ale preferred

8 oz. clean water (Kangen water preferred)

3-15 oz. cans of pinto beans

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

To taste Kosher salt

To taste black pepper

To taste Tabasco™ sauce

1-8 oz package of sharp Cheddar cheese

1 sweet onion, diced small for garnish

Heat a large cast iron skillet to high heat and add your ground beef chuck. Sprinkle with some salt and black pepper. Continue to cook until the beef is fully cooked and has rendered off it’s fat. Place your cooked beef into a colander and drain off the fat.

In a separate soup pot, heat your olive oil to medium heat and add your diced onions, red bell pepper and jalapenos. Cook until the vegetable are shiny in appearance then add your garlic, chipotle powder, chili powder, oregano, smoked paprika, tomato paste,salt and black pepper. Cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the following: diced tomatoes, beer, pinto beans, water, Worcestershire sauce. Bring just to a boil and turn down to a gentle simmer for 30-40 minutes. Adjust your seasoning with salt, pepper, Worcestershire and Tabasco™.

Served in a large soup bowl and top with grated cheddar cheese and diced sweet onions.

When Is It Done?

“When is it done?” is the most asked question when cooking meats. Since I”m a results-kind-of-chef, I don’t like equations that calculate the time per pound of meat.
What I do like is removing the meat from cooking when the internal temperature tells me to do so.
But many times, just when you need it, those handy (but easily lost) instant read thermometers seem to disappear.
So how do kitchen professionals tell the doneness of meats, poultry and fish on the grill? Well it’s been attached to you all along. It’s in the palm of your hand, well to be exact, it is the palm of your hand.
Look at the first image with the hand completely open. The finger is pointing at the place where you push down upon to gauge firmness.

Gauge "feel"

The second image, with the pinkie finger curled up, shows to the touch a “rare” doneness.

Feels like a rare steak

The next image, with two finger curled up, shows medium rare.

Feels like medium rare

Three fingers curled up feels like medium and four fingers curled up feels like a medium well.

Feel like medium doneness

And this feels like a medium-well doneness

Oh and if by this point you need and understanding of what is well-done, just touch the bottom of your shoe to get and idea of what overdone feels like!:-)
So how it works is like this. When your grilling a piece of meat, let’s say a fine beef filet and you want to cook it to a medium-rare doneness, curl up two fingers on your hand like in the second image, bounce your other hands finger on the meaty part of the hand to get a good reading of what medium-rare feels like. Then go to the grilling beef filet and do the same bouncing motion on the meat. When it feels similar to your hand temp indicator, give a go and try it.
Note: this is a skill and like any skill, once you have the mental instructions on how it works, it takes continued practice to get better at it. Also, you’ll learn through practice that different cuts of meat have a slight different feel. So keep on practicing and don’t worry about not finding that instant read thermometer!

Demo vs Hands-On Cooking

I’ve always been torn between what is more effective, demonstration cooking classes, where the students watch, listen and learn from observation or hands-on cooking where you jump in and do it yourself.
Then the other day I had this epiphany, why choose? Think about it, it’s like asking what is better, Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream or creamy chocolate? Without causing a conflict, it’s all good! Both satisfy that creamy, cold and sweet sensation, so they did their job.
Well the same is with demonstrative and hands-on cooking, it’s all good. In fact, the other day I worked with a group that hired us for our team building expertise. Our culinary team building experiences are almost always hands-on, no demo at all. There is a training reason behind it that matter (no, I’m not going to get into that right now 🙂 ). Well the client asked for 20 minutes of set-up before their culinary team building. So I gave them the “Mindset of a Professional Chef” bit before hand and it paid off in their finished outcomes tremendously!
So as I said it’s all good, demo, hands-on or even a hybrid of both.
What do you think about that?

Let’s Get Cook’n!

Welcome to the launch of our sister blog “From the Back Burner”.

Our focus is all about food, cooking, entertaining and all of those chef secret hints and tips that will enhance your life in your kitchen for your family.

We want to free you from the bonds of the typical recipe and share with you real cooking methods and techniques. But what we really want you to do is start thinking like a professional chef so as to make your life easier, to give you more time to spend with your family, to feed them more nutritious meals and bottom line, make cooking time fast, fun and delicious!

So stay tuned for more upcoming blogs!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!