Recipe Post: Things You're Allowed to F* Up

So, this is a random recipe post, since I'm bored now with the feminist kick I've been on - which is not to say that I'm not a feminist, but we all need breaks.  I got bored with my Christian-postings kick, too.  This is why no one will ever follow my blog, because it's not coherent at all.  I'm also not super happy with my last post, for a multitude of reasons.  Ah well.  I'll get back to all these things, because they're important in my life.  For now, though: a post on recipes you're allowed to fuck up (learned from experience).  Because we all need permission, from time to time.

Thing 1: Chili

Chili is easy: toss some shit in a pot, add crap tons of tomatoes, stew.  And don't talk about white chili. Chili isn't white.  It's chicken-and-bean-chowder, it's chicken-and-bean-stew, I don't care, but it's NOT chili.  Can chili have beans?  Traditionally no, but I love them, so yes.  My criteria for chili: a tomato-based stew.  It has to be thick, with big chunks of stuff in it.  I don't care what most of those chunks are, as long as lots of them are tomatoes.  Case in point:  Supper last night.  I made this as soon as I got up, since it had to stew all day, and I was feeling pretty lazy.  The result of my futzing is a lovely chili, and the spaghetti sauce makes it kind of creamy, while the Chipotles in Adobo make it smokey.  I'd add a whole other can of those guys if I wasn't too chicken.  Here's the recipe, with my substitutions:

Spicy Slow Cooker Beef Chili Recipe
INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 medium yellow onions, medium dice
• 1 medium red bell pepper, medium dice
• I used green, because who's really going to shell out for red peppers?  They're way more expensive.  Screw that.
• 6 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped 
• LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO CHOP GARLIC.  Buy one of those huge tubs of minced garlic - great investment.
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 pounds lean ground beef
• Or whatever kind of ground beef is cheapest at the store.  If you get the fatty kind, you can cook it and save the fat for other things - which is even more thrifty and adds the delicious flavor of beef to your stuffs.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (14-ounce) can tomato sauce
• Forgot to pick it up at the store, used spaghetti sauce.  My husband expressly forbade this, but You Know Nothing, Husband Joe.  He can't tell the difference in the end, and what he doesn't know doesn't hurt him.  He wants perfect, on-recipe cooking, he can cook it himself.
• 2 (15-ounce) cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• Pintos.  Look, beans are beans.  While black beans are the best beans, the variance between beans is slight enough that it doesn't matter.  What does matter: using canned beans.  Again, LIFE IS TOO SHORT for dried beans.  Seriously.  Yes, they're cheaper, and I've tried, but after 24 hours of soaking and 4 hours of stewing, they still won't be done and you'll be sobbing into your chili, "Where did I go wrong?"  Just buy canned.
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped pickled jalapeños or green chiles, drained
• I had Chipotles in Adobo in my cupboard because chipotles in Adobo are the sort of thing that everyone should always have in their cupboard.  So I used those - chopped them up, poured them with their sauce in there, it was glorious.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onions and bell pepper, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes.
2. Add the garlic, chili powder, and cumin, stir to coat the vegetables, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the ground beef and measured salt and cook, breaking the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until the beef is no longer pink, about 7 minutes. (I cooked the beef seperately so I could save the fat.)
3. Transfer the mixture to the slow cooker, add the diced tomatoes and their juices, tomato sauce, and beans, (and hot peppers) and stir to combine. Cover and cook until the chili thickens and the flavors meld, about 8 hours on low or 6 hours on high.
4. Stir in the jalapeños or green chiles. (Do it at the beginning! Live on the edge!) Taste and season with salt as needed, and serve with the cheese, scallions, and sour cream.

Thing 2: Homemade BBQ

First things first: THIS is now your ribs bible.  Don't argue.  We know what's best for you.  His indoor ribs recipe is perfection itself, as is every other thing written on this website.  The story behind this section is that I was making ribs and I felt industrious and also out of BBQ sauce, so I thought, "I'll make my own BBQ sauce!  I have all the ingredients!"  Turns out I had about half of all the ingredients.  This is what happened (and it was delicious).

Kansas City Classic Barbecue Sauce
Makes. 6 cups.
Takes. 45 minutes if you take a phone call

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons American chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 cups ketchup
• I thought I had this, but I only had like half a cup, so I made up the rest with extra vinegar and - that's right - spaghetti sauce.  It worked better than you think, I promise.
• 1/2 cup yellow ballpark-style mustard
• Unless you run out of that, too, in which case, fake it with dijon, until you run out of that, then switch to mustard powder and more vinegar
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
• If you run out of this as well, go ahead and use more steak sauce, since it's pretty much the same thing
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• Oops...lime juice
• 1/4 cup steak sauce
• 1/4 cup dark molasses
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 1 cup dark brown sugar (you can use light brown sugar if that's all you have)
• I don't stock brown sugar, since brown sugar is just white sugar mixed with molasses, so I just stock sugar and molasses - it takes up less space and doesn't clump hard as rocks.  I highly suggest this method.
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 medium cloves of garlic, crushed or minced

Optional. If you are cooking indoors, or if your meat does not have a lot of smoke flavor, or if you just want more smoke flavor, you can add 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke.

• I had this!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a small bowl, mix the American chili powder, black pepper, and salt. In a large bowl, mix the ketchup, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire, lemon juice, steak sauce, molasses, honey, hot sauce, and brown sugar (or whatever random-ass ingredients you were able to throw together). Mix them, but you don't have to mix thoroughly.
2. Over medium heat, warm the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and saute until limp and translucent, about 5 minutes. Crush the garlic, add it, and cook for another minute. Add the dry spices and stir for about 2 minutes to extract their oil-soluble flavors. Add the wet ingredients. Simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes with the lid off to thicken it a bit.
3. Taste and adjust. Add more of anything that you want a little bit at a time. You can use it immediately, but I think it's better when aged overnight. You can store it into clean bottles in the refrigerator for a month or two.

The thing with these recipes is that they're both such a combo of lots of things that you can futz it up a bit and no one notices.  Also: this is why it's difficult for my husband and me to cook together.  He's a recipe-follower (and a rules-follower in general, Good Lord Save Me), and he simply can't comprehend the levels of kitchen madness that happen when I cook.
So go forth and fuck up.  Deliciously.