noodles with peanut sauce

So I am a big back logged on the recipes I have made recently, but in an effort to catch up, I will go out of order and just post the one I made last night for my Monday dinner. Of course, recipe from SK and it turned out delicious. I was sort of nervous because I haven't really cooked Asian cuisine in any way before, and of course getting the ingredients in Bulgarian is a bit of a toss-up, but it all turned out well. I don't know if I got the exact right noodles, but they looked similar and were in the Asian section (very small that it is) and they tasted good. It was a cold dish which I don't normally like with pasta, but it was quite tasty. I added broccoli and mushrooms and less peppers because I prefer those vegetables.

For peanut dressing
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup warm water
1 tablespoon chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 medium garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes or a splash of the hot sauce or chili paste of your choice

For noodles
3/4 lb dried soba nooodles (dried linguine fini or spaghetti will work in a pinch)
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1 head of broccoli, cut up and steamed
4 mushrooms, cut up into slices
Half a seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
1 cup tofu, cut up

I put the dressing ingredients in a bowl and then used the immersion blender until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until tender. Drain in a colander, then rinse well under cold water. Whatever pasta I made cooked really quickly, so if it is the soba noodles or whatever, I would advise having everything ready before putting them in.

Add pasta, scallions, bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, cucumber and tofu to dressing, tossing to combine. Serve immediately.

parmesan cauliflower quiche cake

This is the recipe I made for last Monday night's dinner. Of course, it was from SK and tasted pretty darn good. It was definitely different from anything I have had or made before, but it turned out pretty well. She calls it a cake, I call it a quiche cake because it does have a lot of egg and this way people sort of know what the are getting themselves into. The texture is different, but once you adjust your expectations for it, I think it's pretty good. My roommates liked it too, and I ate it for lunch the next two days.
One of my roommates, ready for dinner:

parmesan cauliflower quiche cake


1 medium cauliflower (1 1/2 pounds, 23 to 24 ounces or 650 to 700grams)
1 large red onion, peeled (I used white because we didn't have red)
5 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
10 medium or 8 large eggs
Handful (3/4 ounce or 20 grams) basil, chopped
Scant 1 1/2 cups (180 grams or 6.3 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 cups finely grated parmesan cheese (200 grams or 7 3/4 ounces - I used 150 grams) or about 1 generous cup of grated Romano cheese
Salt and black pepper
Butter, for greasing pan
2 tablespoons black sesame seeds (I used white)

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C) degrees. Break cauliflower into medium florets (this will cause less mess than chopping it). Place floret in a pot with a teaspoon of salt, cover them with water and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until quite soft. (I think it took mine longer than that, so worry less about the time and more about getting them soft). Strain and let drip in the colander for a few minutes so they dry and cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the batter (I actually started on this while my cauliflower was cooking once it was longer than 15 minutes). Halve your red onion and cut a few thin rings off the end of one side; set them aside. Coarsely chop the remainder of your onion. Heat all of your olive oil in a saucepan and saute the chopped red onion and rosemary together until soft, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Whisk eggs and olive oil and onion mixture together. Stir in basil. Whisk flour, baking powder, turmeric, cheese, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (use 1 teaspoon if you are nervous about this amount) and many, many grinds of black pepper together in a separate bowl and add to egg mixture, whisking to remove lumps. Stir in cauliflower gently, so most pieces remain intact.

Line the bottom of a 9-inch (24cm) round springform pan with parchment paper. Butter the sides generously. Put the sesame seeds in the pan and toss them around so that they stick to the sides. Pour in the cauliflower batter, arrange the reserved onion rings on top and bake cake in the center of the oven for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Before you serve the cake, be sure to run a knife around the pan.

Okay, this is just my salad - but it was yummy! Spinach, cyrene (like feta), tomatoes, sesame seeds, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette (balsamic, olive oil, salt, pepper, onion, garlic)

vegetable soup, cheddar apple scones

I haven't been cooking, really, lately because of my trip to Athens last weekend. The week leading up to the trip, I made my Italian host mom's vegetable soup for my Monday night dinner and then cleared out my fridge and pantry so nothing would go back while I was out of town (only for 3 days, but I don't really stock up on much). We got back plenty early on Monday for me to go to the grocery store, but I decided to be lazy and lounge around the house instead. I made Pia's tomato sauce, always simple and delicious, and SK's pizza dough with the alteration of 1/2 cup of wheat flour instead of the 1/2 cup of white flour. I then spent the rest of the week eating peanut butter on rice cakes for breakfast, lunch in the cafeteria, and my roommate's meals for dinner. Thus, it wasn't until Saturday that I made it to the HIT and got groceries (after a delicious stop at the bagel place for bagel sandwiches, oh America, and 12 dozen frozen bagels to go!). I picked out a recipe to cook for dinner tomorrow, which I will post about once it's done, and the cheddar apple scone recipe. It was fun to sort through SK's recent recipes and pick out which ones I want to make. Autumn is a wonderful time to cook.

***

Briefly, Pia's vegetable soup. It is so simple, healthy, and delicious; I love having it as an anytime option. Essentially, you chop up whatever vegetables you want to use, throw them in a pot, pour in a can of diced tomatoes or paste, cover with water (an inch over the top, ignore the floaters), add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and boil. Once the vegetables are all soft, use an immersion blender to puree everything into a smooth soup. Season to taste - I found that it makes a lot of soup and I need a lot of salt to get the flavors to be evident, but I just kept sprinkling and adding until I got there. Add a handful (about 1/4-1/2 cup) of small pasta per person and bring back to a boil for as long as it takes to cook the pasta in the soup. When the pasta is cooked, serve! I like it because it uses potatoes and tomato paste as a base and then you can add in whatever vegetables are around and that you like. It tastes really healthy but still yummy, and was a hit with my roommates. It also made quite a bit of soup, so even after seconds, I had it for lunch for the next four days.

recipe, as I made it on Monday - I starred the items that I added to her basic recipe

2 cups peas
2 medium onions
3 potatoes
3 carrots
1 stick of celery (I didn't include this)
*1 lb chunks of pumpkin
*1 head broccoli, cut into florets
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
water (enough to cover and a little above vegetables)
½ cup tomato paste (I used canned diced tomatoes because it was available)

Pia's instructions (translated):

if water goes down, add hot water while cooking
cook/boil for 30 minutes (until soft)
mix with electric mixer
when its mixed and boiling again, add handful of small-type pasta for each person,
cook until ready

***

Now, onto the cheddar apple scones from SK. 

I followed her recipe except that I used whole milk instead of heavy cream, because I have yet to find heavy cream here (or maybe I just don't know where to look and how to translate it) and I just used some regular cheddar instead of sharp cheddar because our non-cyrene/kashkaval options are pretty limited. I also was terribly disappointed in myself for my first batch - I don't know what all the symbols on our oven mean, and I must have been on the wrong one because it burned the outsides of the first scones (not terribly but enough to be brown and make me sad) even though they hadn't even cooked the full 30 minutes. I kept a close eye on the second batch and they turned out fine, so that was a relief. And they were quite delicious. 

2 firm tart apples (1 pound or 2 454 grams)

1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces or 195 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons for sprinkling (total of 2.2 ounces or 63 grams)

1/2 tablespoon (7 grams) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (3 grams) plus additional for egg wash

6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams)unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes plus additional for baking sheet if not lining it with parchment

1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 65 grams) sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, I assume for aesthetics)

1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream

2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and core apples, and then cut each into 16ths. Line a baking sheet with parchment, place the apples on, and bake them for 20 minutes. SK says until dry, but mine were pretty juicy - I am not sure if I should have let them go longer or if it was because I used a different type of apple, but they were fine anyway. Set aside to cool.

Sift and whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. 

In a separate bowl, mix cubed butter, 1 egg, grated cheddar, heavy cream, and apple chunks. I couldn't tell from her instructions exactly the order for all of this, so I put them all in a bowl and mixed them together with a wooden spoon. Then I poured in half the dry ingredients, mixed it a bit, poured in the rest of the dry mix, and mixed it until it came together. It started out really dry, but after some patient mixing, ended up being a sticky wet dough. In my experience, that is pretty standard for scones.

Roll the dough out into a thick circle and cut into 6 (I made 8) triangles. Mix second egg with some salt and brush on top of scones. Sprinkle with sugar. 

Bake on either a parchment lined or buttered baking sheet for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, you don't want yours to burn like mine did. Enjoy!

mmm bread

so i've been wanting to make bread lately, but i'm too lazy to go get yeast and then worry about whether or not the yeast is bad if my bread doesn't come out as expected. enter: irish brown bread. apparently the authentic version of irish soda bread, this bread doesn't involve yeast, only requires fifteen minutes to throw together (including pulling ingredients off shelves), and is full of whole wheat goodness. the recipe i used comes from the lovely blog kiss my spatula, and can be found here. it was a good recipe for my first attempt at bread. it came out a little on the crumbly side, but still had great flavor and was very easy (and not time consuming) to make.

my version:

preheat oven to 350.

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

4 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1 1/3 cups whole milk

1/3 cup apple-cider vinegar

put the milk and apple cider vinegar together in a bowl and let sit for 10-15 min, until the milk is thickened [you can also use storebought buttermilk. i used low-fat milk and it came out just fine]. mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a large bowl. cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until the mixture resembles coarse meal. stir in oats [the recipe called for finely ground oats, but i only had regular quaker oats. if i had to do it again i'd buy the finely ground oats because i think the size of the oats might have made the bread more crumbly when baked]. pour in the thickened milk and mix until the dough just sticks together. knead the dough 4-5 times on a lightly floured surface. shape the dough gently into a round loaf, roughly 6in in diameter. place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper, and cut an x into the top of the loaf with a sharp knife. bake, rotating halfway through, until the top is golden brown and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, approximately 45-60 min.

a few more tips:

• don't use salted butter. i cut out a half tsp of salt from the recipe, and even using unsalted butter i found the bread a bit salty. (and i like salt.)
• the bread cooked much faster in my oven than the 1 hour stated in the recipe, make sure to monitor your bread starting at 40 min into baking.

it's a very hearty bread, very delicious, and extremely easy to throw together. i'll be making this again soon, and hopefully will be able to correct the crumblyness of the bread.

epic chocolate peanut butter cake

This cake was quite a production, not least of which was because we had meetings until 4:00 or 4:30, I had to finish some grading because it is just driving me crazy to have so many assignments on my desk, I got home just after 5:00, and we were hosting the Bulgarian Ladies' Book Club (BLBC!) at 7:30. Lindsay was already hard at work on her half of the hosting duties - chopping veggies and fruit, making hummus, guacamole, salsa, and setting out chips, crackers, cheese, bonitsa, and the like. I started cooking right away (well, mixing) and the cake was served at around 9:45. There is a lot of waiting time with this cake, but it definitely spans a good 5 hours to make it depending on your oven space and other issues.

Of course, I got the recipe from SK and this time, I followed it exactly as I have no experience baking cakes and as the process went on (read: when I reached the icing stage), I realized what an endeavor it is to bake a cake.

The first set of ingredients are for the chocolate cake only, which is three 8-inch layers (or not, if you are me and things are never quite that perfect). Following will be the recipes for the peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache. Oh, this baby is rich!

Chocolate Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup neutral vegetable oil, such as canola, soybean or vegetable blend
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

1/2 cup coarsely chopped peanut brittle (I skipped this)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cakepans. SK recommends that you line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper. I didn't do this for my first two and regretted it when they still sort of stuck to the bottom of the pans. On the third one, I put in the paper and it worked like a charm.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water. Blend in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and be sure the batter is well mixed. Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans. For me, I only had one pan, so I baked one and let it sit, used a different size cake pan for the second, then took the first out and used the same pan for the third. The cake still tastes the same, so even though it doesn't look perfect, I haven't heard any complaints.

3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Invert onto wire racks, carefully peel off the paper liners, and let cool completely. (SK note: These cakes are very, very soft. I found them a lot easier to work with after firming them up in the freezer for 30 minutes. They’ll defrost quickly once assembled. You’ll be glad you did this, trust me). I don't have wire racks, so I just let them cool for 20 minutes, turned them onto a plate (after scraping the first two off the pans), and then put them in the fridge for another 20 minutes before moving them to the freezer.

4. To frost the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread 2/3 cup cup of the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the next layer. Place the last layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. (SK note 1: Making a crumb coat of frosting–a thin layer that binds the dark crumbs to the cake so they don’t show up in the final outer frosting layer–is a great idea for this cake, or any with a dark cake and lighter-colored frosting. Once you “mask” your cake, let it chill for 15 to 30 minutes until firm, then use the remainder of the frosting to create a smooth final coating. SK note 2: Once the cake is fully frosting, it helps to chill it again and let it firm up. The cooler and more set the peanut butter frosting is, the better drip effect you’ll get from the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze). I found the frosting process very frustrating as the frosting was really thick and often grabbed up pieces of the cake. I even did her little thin layer first trick, but couldn't get it thin enough and hard enough that it was too much easier after that. I was able to spread a little bit more frosting a little easier on the bottom, which I am sure is due to her technique.

After the first layer of icing, before going into the fridge. 

The second layer of icing before the glaze was a little smoother and well covered. 

This was frustrating me a bit and I had to take a few chill-out-and-relax breaks

5. To decorate with the Chocolate–Peanut Butter Glaze, put the cake plate on a large baking sheet to catch any drips. Simply pour the glaze over the top of the cake, and using an offset spatula, spread it evenly over the top just to the edges so that it runs down the sides of the cake in long drips. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes to allow the glaze and frosting to set completely. Remove about 1 hour before serving. I found that my glaze was pretty liquidy and ran way beyond the cake, but it was still pretty thick and delicious and had the drip effect. I put it in the fridge for about an hour and then served it right away and that was fine.

Peanut Butter Frosting
Makes about 5 cups

10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter, preferably a commercial brand (because oil doesn’t separate out)

1. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

8 ounces seimsweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup half-and-half

1. In the top of a double boiler or in a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

2. Remove from the heat and whisk in the half-and-half, beating until smooth. Use while still warm.

A few more pictures because I was really trying to capture what a production this thing was and how deliciously rich it tasted. Also, it makes me feel justified in the amount of time and effort I put into it:

The Ladies of the BLBC liked it, I liked it, and I have leftovers, so at the end of the day, I am a happy lady.

half a bushel of apples is a lot

so. what's the easiest thing you can do with half a bushel of apples? applesauce.

apples cook down quite a lot. for this recipe, i used about 25 apples--a mix of macoun and macintosh--and ended up with somewhere between 6 and 8 cups. tart and slightly sweet.

the beauty of applesauce is you can pretty much do whatever you feel like. i will, however, recommend that if you are going to make applesauce regularly and you don't like chunky applesauce that you should invest in a food mill. homemade applesauce tastes about 82735834 times better if you leave the skins on when you are cooking them down. the skins really have a ton of apple flavor in them.

as you can see, i found this out the hard way. i peeled, cored, and diced the apples and put them in a big stockpot.

then i added about a half a cup of brown sugar, two tablespoons of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of nutmeg, and a dash of ginger. the apples should contain enough water to allow the apples to cook down without burning, but if you're at all worried add in a dash of apple cider to accelerate the process.

then all you do is put the pot on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the apples are mushy. that can take anywhere between .5 to 1.5 hours. i like my applesauce chunky, but if you want it to be smooth, stick it in a blender a few cups at a time or in a food mill.

blueberry muffins, cornbread, and vegetarian chili

I have been studying for the GREs lately (which has been a series of ups and down, frustrations, and sobbing calls home to my stepdad and mom), so not cooking too much lately, but I did make blueberry muffins on Friday as a therapeutic release from my workweek. I have been grading like crazy for the past week and a half and I can't seem to recover. I know I am the one assigning the work, but they need to do it, and then, however cursory my grading is, it still takes me an hour or two to grade one assignment so I am constantly handing back work in a timely fashion but accumulating things nonetheless. Anyway, I have had a few things to cook either by necessity or for a few moments of pleasurable focus and attention.

Friday, I made blueberry muffins and Monday, for my dinner, I made vegetarian chili and corn muffins. So here are the recipes and some pictures. Tonight was the first actual book club meeting for our first book, and Lindsay and I hosted, so I will make a new entry for my epic Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake which is definitely cavity causing and so rich it hurts.

***

Like all my recipes, all the ones I used were from SK and I'll go in chronological order. First, her "perfect blueberry muffins" were a nice treat and definitely had a slightly different texture and flavor than most blueberry muffins (thicker, hint of citrus). I really appreciated the various measurements for each thing because I cook largely measuring in grams, living abroad, and am constantly consulting our yellowed conversions page from a cookbook taped inside a cupboard door.

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

I pretty much followed her recipe without making too many adjustments and changes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (or whatever celsius it was that I crank my oven to). Beat butter and sugar with electric mixture until fluffy - for me, this did not seem possible at first, but I kept throwing chunks of butter and sugar around until they did, surprisingly, come together. I added in the egg, beat everything together, and then my yogurt and lemon zest (I didn't measure, just grated it in, eyeing the pile). I use Greek yogurt whenever I cook and since some things aren't available - substitute it for sour cream, creme fraiche, anything of similar dairy texture. The yogurt in this recipe is what facilitates the thickness of the mixture and weight in the muffins, which SK mentions holds the blueberries better in the muffins instead of having them sink to the bottom. After the yogurt is mixed, sift the dry ingredients in slowly (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt), mixing intermittently, until batter absorbs all the flour. Gently add in the blueberries and the batter is somewhat like cookie dough and feels sticky and thick. In a greased muffin tin (I save my butter wrappers, which I quickly accumulate, for rubbing on baking sheets and such and find it a useful replacement for a cooking spray and satisfies my Irish need to use everything to the last drop, so to speak), pour/glob in the batter. I filled a standard 12 muffin tin with the recipe and I think just over half full tins led to full, standard size muffins, so don't worry if it looks a little scant - they rise well. They bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. I really enjoyed mine warm with some nice lightly salted butter. They were also good reheated later in the microwave with, of course, some more butter. They lasted less than 24 hours, but I did take them to a dinner party and pawn off 7 or 8 there.

***

My Monday night dinner, as mentioned, was cornbread and vegetarian chili. Lindsay had made meat chili on Sunday night and I figured we would have leftovers of meat chili and I would make a vegetarian version for the vegetarian housemate (clever, aren't I?). For the cornbread, I followed the recipe pretty closely. I actually didn't love it as much as the classic and simple Jiffy cornbread, but they were good and were eaten within a day, so still met my standards for cooking.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil (sunflower oil was what I had in my kitchen)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup corn kernels (I used canned, rinsed)

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Separately, mix the buttermilk (I just used full fat milk), melted butter, oil (I used sunflower oil because that is a Bulgarian product and readily available), egg and extra yolk. Pour liquid over dry ingredients and mix together quickly but gently. Stir in the rinsed corn kernels (SK says you can use fresh, but I didn't, so I don't know how that would affect the recipe), and your lumpy batter is ready to go. I greased up my muffin tin again and poured them in. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes until golden brown. I served them with chili, but also had out butter and honey because that is how my mom usually tops them, though we also regularly had cornbread with applesauce. Apparently, this isn't common practice, but I have always found it really delicious and comforting.

***

For the vegetarian chili, I used SK's recipe as a guideline, but definitely improvised with what was available and didn't really measure my spices and just sprinkled them on throughout the process. I went ahead and adjusted the ingredients to what I used, but go to her site if you are interested in her recipe, which has a few more ingredients and specific measurements.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
1 15-ounce can of white beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-ounce can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup corn (canned, rinsed)
1 15-ounce can whole tomatoes
1 cup water with bouillon cube
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

I sauteed the onions in the vegetable oil first, not until completely transparent and soft, but so that they developed some flavor and caramelization on their own first. Then I added in the garlic briefly, so as not to burn (done that a few times), and then poured in the water and bouillon cube to get it to dissolve first. Then I added the drained beans and tomatoes with their sauce, and jabbed the tomatoes a bit to break them up. Our bean selection here is limited, so I only had kidney and white beans, in her recipe she calls for black, pinto, and kidney, which I would have used given availability. My chili turned out well, though, and didn't feel lacking with just the two varieties. I measured out the cocoa and then just added chili powder, cumin, and coriander as I felt appropriate (mostly just continued shaking them in intermittently throughout cooking because I wanted to make sure it wasn't boring and had a kick because my roommate likes spicy food). I also added some of the corn left over from my cornbread muffins as well as some salt and ground pepper. I let it cook for about 30-45 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally. I thought it turned out really well and the great thing about chili is that it just gets better with time, so it is one of the few foods I enjoy having leftovers with because the flavors just continue to develop and intensify in the fridge or freezer.

I generally make my dad's non-vegetarian chili and I will have to cook that sometime and post it. He usually serves his chili with rice and I like that, but I sort of ditzed out and forgot to make it with this recipe, so we just had it topped with cheese (necessary) and served with cornbread muffins. I think everyone felt pretty satisfied with that.

I didn't take too many pictures of the chili (read: one) because it just doesn't photograph that well. Much more delicious than visually appearing, and one of my favorite fall/winter comfort foods.