Seizure Salad

Outstanding Chicken Chilli

It's that time of year...break out the chilli!

Chicken Chilli

1 tbsp oil

2 lbs ground chicken or turkey

Chilli powder to taste (I use a LOT, about 2-3 tbsp)

2 tsp ground cumin

Salt and pepper

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

Smoked Spanish paprika (can leave out but it’s smokey goodness)

Chipotle hot sauce, to taste (

Tabasco

makes a good one, or check the Mexican aisle)

2 chopped carrots

1 chopped red bell pepper

1 chopped green bell pepper

1 medium chopped onion

2 cloves chopped garlic

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 can white or red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 large cans whole tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste

¼ cup beef, chicken or vegetable stock

1 tsp red wine or balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp peanut butter (seriously, don’t leave this out even though it sounds weird. You will not regret it)

In a large thick-bottomed pot, brown the ground chicken in the oil with the onion, garlic, green and red pepper, carrots, chilli powder, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. Break up meat with a spoon and turn occasionally. When there is quite a bit of browning (but not burning) going on, add everything else. Don't skimp on the browning, you will be rewarded with flavour. Spices and hotness are to taste obviously so taste a bunch of times and see if you need more of anything. I like it hot but not melt-your-face off hot.

Simmer for a long time, the longer the better. An hour at minimum. Even better is refrigerating and eating the next day, it will taste even better. Don’t leave out the peanut butter! The finished product doesn’t taste peanutty, it just adds thickness and a certain complexity of taste. I kid you not. Total secret weapon.

If you're in the mood for beef and you have a food processor, don't use hamburger. Buy a cheap cut of steak or stewing beef, cut in 2 inch cubes and give 2 or 3 whizzes in the processor (don't turn it to mush, you want some very small and some slightly larger pieces.) You  won't believe how much better this is than hamburger.

Substitute tempeh, tofu or TVP if you are vegetarian.

Mashed Potatoes Wouldn't Make Good Security Guards...

...because they have nowhere to keep their guns. (or something like that) - courtesty Deja Voodoo.

Gawddamn, I have the most overpowering craving for mashed potatoes right now. With gravy. Before lunch. The corporate corridor I work in has lots of sushi, thai, fancy samiches and such but nowhere for a 'tater loving girl to feast. What to do?? Mashed taters, mashed taters - I cry for you. Creamy. Mashed. Taters.

No-Knead Bread: the sequel

Not too darned bad.

Click to de-smallify.

The texture is sourdough-ish, lots of small holes and the texture reminds me more of an english muffin than loaf bread. Ever so slightly doughy, not unpleasantly so. It rose very well and the crust is exceptionally good, really crunchy. I think it could have benefited from a little more heat in the initial baking, I chickened out and dropped the oven from 500 to 475 degrees because the pan was smoking. Next time I'll keep the oven at 500 as recommended. This is my fourth bread experiment, and I still have not been able to top the very first loaf I made, which was droolingly good. Can't seem to replicate whatever I did there.

Pirate Festival was fun, but weird. There were more than a few swashbucklers who seemed...a little too into it, if you know what I mean. A few Johnny Depp types were wandering around trying to catch the eye of certain buxom wenches. Geordie was slated to read from his book at a bad spot in the evening, late in the night when things were getting rowdier and louder. He did a really admirable job of keeping a bunch of drunken pirate-wannabees engaged for five minutes or so, but he lost them in the end due to nothing but his placement in the night. He had asked the organizers to let him go on earlier in the line-up, but amongst the hub-bub I think his request got lost in the shuffle.

Walking around Fort York with all of the merch tents, face painting stations etc. really took me back to a certain chapter in my musical past. I spent a few years in a band called the Fletcher Valve Drummers, and most of our gigs at the time were at outdoor festivals exactly like this one. Having our drum heads de-tune themselves in the humidity and trying to locate electricity so we could unleash the hair dryer on them, trying to top "Doodlebops" or "Barney" on stage at some kid-oriented thing, having some Phish/Deadhead type lad get so excited during our set that he jumped onstage and grabbed my drum out of my hands and started playing it, various and sundry substances imbibed in ... good times. Weird times. One of my favorite memories is showing up at a (post-Garcia) Greatful Dead concert* we were booked at, having been told to report at "the teepee". Much wandering in and out of teepees ensued, asking stoned biker after stoned biker where we could find "Jim", or whoever the organizer was. We never found Jim and never played.  In that band of crazy characters I had my first proper studio recording experience and my first real on-stage performances. That band also represents my first feelings of the pure bliss that is improvising with other musicians when the chemistry is hot.  Damn, that's hard to find.

Nowadays, I rock out with these folks  and it's a whole  different thing.  Much more sensible ;)

*Re-reading the last few sentences, I feel it imperative to note, for the record, that I am not now nor have I ever been a Deadhead. My Fletcher Valve Drummers time was a brief window into that world and I left with more disdain for that culture than when I entered it.  As someone more clever than myself once said, "you can't rock in Birkenstocks".

The Great Wasabi Plague of Summer 2007

I know it's not one of the Plagues of Egypt * but to me, it's just as serious. I think there is a plague affecting sushi restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area if not beyond.

Wasabi - it used to burn. Eyes would water, sinuses would clear. Loud cries of "wheewww" could be heard.
I can't recall exactly when it started, perhaps as early as late spring, but wasabi is just not hot anymore. We're spreading this stuff on like caulking now, to no effect whatsoever. What happened? Is the stuff coming over from the East really cardboard powder with green food colouring - has there been a bad wasabi growing season?

Has it happened to you?

* to refresh your memory: Nile running with blood, raining frogs, lice, flies, dead livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, death of fistborn.