It's a Little Chilly, Let's Have Chili!

Although I'm a New Orleans girl at heart, I live in Texas now, and Texans love them some chili! Once you move here from a place like New Orleans, you learn to cook all over again, because you can't get your usual ingredients (seafood!  pickle meat!  Blue Plate mayonnaise!*), so you get some new favorites, like King Ranch Chicken, Texas Caviar**, and good ol' Texas chili.  I tend to like my chili considerably spicier than most Texans, it seems, but I've had to temper it down for my kids (though they enjoy a little kick, too!).  Some trial-and-error provided me with this yummy recipe.

Today was our first good "cold snap"*** of the season, and everyone rushed to the grocery store for chili fixin's (yes, I spelled that right).  I still can't bring myself to serve it over Fritos****, but I do like some cheese with my chili, and my mom always served chili over elbow macaroni, so I decided way back when to serve mine with baked macaroni & cheese.  Ohhhhhh, my, it makes such a delicious, rich, creamy dish out of standard Chili Mac!  I occasionally serve it with cornbread, but tonight it's going to be biscuits***** ... mmmmm!

Mmmmm ... can you smell it?  Yum.

TEXAS CHILI

Ingredients:

4 lbs. ground beef

2 onions, chopped

2 tblsp. minced garlic

2 15-oz. cans of tomato sauce

1 sauce-can of water

2 tblsp. cumin

6-8 tblsp. chili powder (be generous!)

2 tblsp. paprika

1 generous tsp. cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Brown the ground beef, drain, and set aside.  In the same pot, saute the chopped onions and minced garlic until the onions get translucent.  To the onions in the pot, add all the ingredients except the cayenne pepper and salt. Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes.  Add the cooked and drained ground beef and the cayenne pepper (less if you're a sissy!) and simmer on an extremely low heat until you're ready to eat it.  Just before serving, taste it and add salt if needed,

I line my pan with foil for easy clean-up.
This is a service to my family, because she who cooks does not clean up.

BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE

Ingredients:

1 large package elbow macaroni

shredded cheddar cheese (lots!)

2-3 cups of milk

1/3 cup flour

1 tblsp. sugar

2 eggs

Cook the macaroni according to package directions.  Pour half of it in your baking pan (greased or lined).  Generously sprinkle the shredded cheese to completely cover the pasta.  Pour the other half of the pasta on top, and top that with even more shredded cheese.  Now it's time to make the custard that holds it all together and makes it creamy, rich and a little bit sweet!  In a mixing bowl, combine 2 to 3 cups of milk (just estimate how much it'll take to come up 3/4 of the way in your pan with your mac), 1/3 cup of flour, 1 tblsp. of sugar, and 2 eggs, and whisk it well.  Pour immediately over your macaroni and cheese layers.  Bake in a 375° oven for about 30-45 minutes, until the liquid has stopped bubbling and the cheese is beginning to brown on top.

Scoop out and serve in individual bowls and top with chili.  Mmmmm.  Comfort food.

Oh, you can go all out and round this out with a green salad, but I call the onions and tomatoes in the chili my veggies for the meal and just have some kind of bread (like I said, tonight it'll be biscuits!) and some Turtle Pie****** for dessert.  Y'all enjoy -- we will!

*I can actually get good ol' Blue Plate at HEB now, so I don't need to import it anymore!

**I'll post those recipes in the future!!

***Seriously, that means that the high was 60°.  Any colder, and people freak out instead of enjoying it.

****They call it Frito Pie.  I've actually tasted it and it's not too bad, I sort of like the crunch!  But I just can't deal with serving Fritos and telling my kids it's dinner.

*****Yeah, they're Pillsbury Grands.  No recipe forthcoming.  Homemade biscuits are delish, but I just didn't have it in me tonight.