Take the chill off spring with a special chili

Somehow, I’ve managed to write this blog for four years, and I’ve never shared the recipe for Cincinnati-style chili. How could that be?

This unique chili brings back great memories of living in Ohio in the early ’90s. Competing quick-serve restaurants Skyline Chili and Gold Star Chili serve this tasty treat at location primarily in Ohio and Kentucky. I indulge in a bowl whenever I’m near there.

What makes it special is the spices. This chili has no beans but includes cinnamon and unsweetened chocolate. Honestly, the flavor probably isn’t what appeals to me — it’s the presentation. The “soup” (which is more of a sauce) tops a pile of spaghetti noodles and a huge pile of finely shredded cheddar cheese tops the whole concoction, and who doesn’t like cheese? Former Minnesotans certainly do.

I warmed up with Cincinnati-Style Chili on this kind of chilly spring day (sooo tired of this weather, but I hear we’re in for a warmup this weekend). When you make Cincinnati-Style Chili at home, you can serve it with a beer (the franchises in the Cincinnati area don’t have liquor licenses, though in my decades-ago experience, college kids like Cincinnati-style chili after hitting the bars). And I used gluten-free quinoa noodles.

Don’t let the long list of ingredients stop you from trying this recipe. It’s delish.

Cincinnati-Style Chili

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped fine
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons chili powder (I used 1 tablespoon mild, 1 tablespoon hot)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-1/2 teaspoons beef bullion
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 ounce square unsweetened chocolate
• 8 ounces spaghetti
• For topping: finely shredded cheddar cheese and chopped white onions

Directions:

1. Saute onion in oil in large saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add beef to brown, breaking up into small pieces.
3. Add wet ingredients. Add spices and chocolate. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for at least an hour.
4. Meanwhile, prepare spaghetti noodles. To serve, remove bay leaf from chili. Mound spaghetti in low bowl. Top with generous portion of chili, then cheese (also generously) and onions. This is called 4-way (spaghetti + chili + cheese + onions). Really die-hards add beans for 5-way. Serves 2-4.

The way to her father’s heart is through his stomach

My stepdaughter is staying with us, kicking back for the weekend.

After watching (I would have said “enjoying” if it was true) “This Is 40,” she volunteered to make her father’s favorite treat:

They really are Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies.

I just don’t have the heart for stomach

Minnesota Transplant tried something new today: Pho.

What is pho? A Midwesterner of Scandinavian and German descent might describe it as beef noodle soup. Only the beef includes parts like tripe (that’s stomach to those of you who aren’t conversant in Middle English) and tendons, the noodles are made of rice and instead of carrots and celery for vegetables, pho offers basil and bean sprouts.

Pho is a Vietnamese dish, and I enjoyed a bowl for supper at Pho Ha in Glendale Heights.

I like to fancy myself as an adventurous eater — I eat sushi! — but who’s kidding who here? After watching tonight’s episode of “Survivor” featuring the food-eating challenge that included half-formed duck embryos and pig’s brain, eating quinoa and knowing what a caper is does not make me adventurous.

My pho was flavorful — I was reminded how much better real broth tastes versus the reconstituted stuff — but I ate around the tripe and tendons. Too chewy for my taste (it reminded me of a bowl of menudo I tried while in south Texas earlier this winter — I couldn’t stomach the stomach then either). Our waiter informed us we could request those items be omitted in the future.

I’m sort of disgusted. With myself. I realized I’m like so many other contemporary Americans who are most comfortable being far removed from the source of their food. Seeing body parts in one’s soup, rather than having them generically ground into a preformed patty, covered with cheese and served between slices of highly processed wheat, jolts one back to the reality of the dish.

So while I didn’t particularly like my pho, it did remind me that I was consuming the body of another once living and breathing being, and I ought to be thankful for its sacrifice to nourish me.

Let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

Pondering the Easter menu

“So, what are you doing for Easter?” my mom asked me today as we were catching up over the phone.

“Nothing. We’re going to church, and then after that, nothing,” I said. “And that’s just fine by me.”

“Us, too,” she said of my father and herself. “Maybe we’ll go out to eat.”

“Not me,” I said. “The crowds are more than I can take on Easter.”

“Oh. Well, I like the buffet at the Pine Cove,” she said.

“Yuck, I hate buffets,” I said. To be fair, the Pine Cove supper club is among the best options for dining out in my hometown (the reception for my first wedding was held there, among the deer-in-the-woods murals and gold lantern lighting), but then it’s competing with Hardee’s.

“Good buffet” is an oxymoron in my mind. Buffets are like casinos — the house always wins. So the promise of “all you can eat” is fulfilled with the cheapest volume possible, usually white in hue. Lots of salt, pasta, bread, potatoes, sugar and chicken fill the sloppy trays at a rousing buffet.

When you’re 16 and bottomless, a buffet is appealing. But when every calorie counts in perimenopause, you’re loathe to waste them on glop flavored with low-common-denominator spices.

I wouldn’t eat at an Old Country Buffet anymore if it were the last restaurant on earth. But you can bet there’d be a line!

So I won’t be enjoying a buffet on Easter Sunday, but I won’t be eating ham either (at least ham isn’t white). If my mother likes a good buffet, my mother-in-law could eat ham three times a day (ham-and-cheese omelet for breakfast, ham salad for lunch, ham sandwich or ham and scalloped potatoes for supper), but I don’t need ham for Easter any more than I need an Easter egg hunt.

So what’s it going to be on Easter? No buffet chicken? No ham? No hard-boiled eggs?

Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs, anyone?

What’s on your Sunday menu this year?

Best abide the ‘no smoking’ sign

Here’s how we color Easter eggs at Minnesota Transplant’s house:

We smoke ‘em! Practically to dust! We have none of those namby-pamby pastel colors around here! We go for aged burnt brown!

OK, I am pulling your (chicken) leg here. We acquired a new smoker, and we experimented with smoking eggs in the shell. Smoked eggs, thought we. Wouldn’t those taste divine in potato salad? An egg salad sandwich perhaps?

The result was, shall we say, less than optimal.

Well, you said you wanted HARD boiled.

Those “whites” there were a bit chewy.

Like true scientists attempting to prove a theory, we tried again. This time, a little less heat and a lot less time. And appropriately, we smoked our eggs while smoking a chicken, grilled our favorite way: With a beer up its butt.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

The chicken turned out great. But the eggs? Well, the whites were still white and I was able to peel them normally. So I whipped up a batch of egg salad to see if we could taste the smoke.

The verdict?

Stick with boiling your eggs. If you want smoke flavor, add some barbecue sauce to your chicken salad.

To my readers who will celebrate this week, happy Easter!

Everyone knows: Meatballs and sneezes don’t mix

Homemade meatballs over quinoa spaghetti noodles (infinitely better than those rice or corn gluten-free substitutes). All covered with cheese. Alas, the garlic bread is made of wheat.

The meatball song has been repeating in my head for two days.

Don’t know the meatball song?

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball
When somebody sneezed.

That one?

Well, when I was a kid walking uphill to school both ways, it was popular.

I made meatballs on Sunday and served them on Monday, so it’s been the background music in my subconscious for two days.

It’s a parody of “On Top of Old Smoky,” a traditional folk song once recorded by The Weavers about lost love. “I lost my true lover, for courtin’ too slow…” Apparently Tom Glazer created a hit with “On Top of Spaghetti” in 1963. Perhaps hip parents in the ’60s sang it to their toddlers when serving meatballs. Not sure how I heard it so much, I can still repeat the stanzas up to the mushy demise of said meatball. But so you don’t have to wonder whatever happens to the tasty ball of meat on its sneeze-induced journey, here are all the words:

It rolled off the table
And onto the floor,
And then my poor meatball
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled into the garden
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball
Was nothing but mush.

Oh, the mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And early next summer
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered
With beautiful moss.
It grew lovely meatballs
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball
And don’t ever sneeze.

DIY salad jazzes up lunchtime

When I’m trying to eat right, I eat a salad for lunch.

That’s Rule No. 2. Rule No. 1 is fruit and eggs for breakfast. Rule No. 3: Everything in moderation the rest of the day.

Those are my diet story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

In any case, a salad for lunch every day gets boring if your only choices are chicken Caesar and chef salad. So I collect salad recipes, and I build crazy combinations around whatever leftover protein I have on hand. Here’s the DIY version of a tasty salad:

• Protein: Chicken, ham, tuna or beans of any sort.
• Greens: Romaine is my go-to green.
• Chopped vegetables for flavor and color: Green onions, cherry tomatoes and cucumber get into almost every salad I prepare, but carrots, peppers, celery and fresh herbs like parsley or mint are nice, too.
• Cheese: Try parmesan, feta or mozzarella. Avocado is a good-fat alternative to cheese.
• Something sweet: Some kind of fruit like dried cranberries, grapes or oranges adds a flavorful counterpoint, but sun-dried tomatoes or a dash of sugar in the dressing is nice, too.
• Something crunchy: Pepitoes are my favorite, but croutons, nuts or corn chips add texture, too.

When you’re looking for a particularly hearty salad, a whole grain carbohydrate is a good addition. I love quinoa.

I made a delicious lentil and barley salad earlier this week, but today’s protein to build around was barbecued pulled pork. My Beloved can eat only so many pulled pork sandwiches, and I can’t bear to throw away what’s left. WordPress’s Photo Challenge this week is “Lunchtime” so I’m sharing it with you.

Pulled Pork Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• A dash of each: Ginger, allspice, salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup or so of last night’s barbecue pulled pork
• A couple of cups shredded romaine
• 1/3 cucumber, peeled and sliced
• 1 green onion, sliced
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Pickled baby corn, sliced
• A canned peach half, chopped
• About 10 roasted almonds, chopped

Preparation:

1. Stir together dressing: Vinegar, oil and spices.
2. Assemble romaine, vegetables and peach on plate. Top with dressing.
3. Warm up pulled pork in the microwave (about 45 seconds on high), and arrange on salad.
4. Top with almonds.
5. Eat and feel virtuous.

A new indulgence, no questions asked

My Schwan’s man stopped by today for the first time in nearly three months, and I greeted him at the door with, “It’s so good to see you!” As he handed me the latest catalog/menu planner, I asked, “What’s new?”

“Well, the chicken strips you like are $2 off. And we have two new flavors of ice cream.”

“Great, I’ll take the chicken strips. What are the new ice cream flavors?”

“Ah, salted caramel–”

“I’ll take it!”

He scurried off to gather my delicious frozen foods while I scribbled a check. When he returned, he stammered, “Um, when I said ‘salted caramel,’ I neglected to mention ‘cashews.’ It’s Salted Caramel Cashew flavor. Is that OK?”

In a microsecond, what flashed through my mind was “it’s Schwan’s ice cream,” “Schwan’s is delicious,” “creamy ice cream,” “sweet caramel,” “I’m not allergic to nuts” and “who could turn away any flavor of Schwan’s ice cream?”

All that remained unspoken. Instead, I smiled and said, “You had me at ‘salted caramel.’”

Familiarity breeds contempt, but seasonal familiarity … now we’re talkin’ enthusiasm

Absence makes the heart grow fonder certainly applies to Girl Scout cookies.

If they were available year-round, those tasty Do-si-dos would be just another Nutter Butter. But when they’re available only once a year, I go into hoarding mode.

Of course, there’s a certain nostalgia attached to Girl Scout cookies for me. I sold them once (more about that here). Even if they tasted like crab grass, I’d invest in a box or two just because a sweet little girl was selling them.

Other seasonal foods just don’t have the same magic. Fruitcake? Useful for jokes only. Cadbury Creme Eggs? I always think of my sister when I see these, because she loves them, but I think they’re entirely too sweet. Shamrock Shakes? Yuck. I’m not a big fan of mint chip ice cream either.

But a gooey, coconutty Samoa? Give me a cup of coffee and a lull in the afternoon to enjoy with it, and I’m satisfied. During the Girl Scout cookie season anyway.

How about you? What’s your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Or seasonal treat?

Impressive bright pink seeds

My best friend, Jill, is the sort of amazing hostess who can prepare a complicated dish from a two-page magazine recipe, while simultaneously chatting about life, work and spouses and drinking a glass of red wine.

She’s multi-talented like that.

I admire her for tackling all kinds of Bon Appetit-esque recipes I would never be willing to try.

One time several years ago, she made me a fancy salad with pomegranate seeds because she knows I like entree salads, and she was willing to tackle seeding a pomegranate, a complicated six-step procedure involving cutlery and a bowl of water (interested in the how-to? You won’t find it here on Minnesota Transplant because though I watched Jill successfully accomplish this task, I’ve never tried it myself. But check it out here.)

All this to say: I found pomegranate seeds at the farmer’s market on Sunday. Not pomegranates, just the seeds. Someone had already done the hard work.

So I enjoyed them on my oatmeal yesterday, and it was delicious!

The yummy oatmeal has raisins, chopped pecans and cinnamon in it, topped with plain yogurt (sweetened with Splenda). Garnish with pomegranate seeds.