For some reason, I feel compelled to write about chili before I write about all of the other things I’ve cooked lately. I think it’s probably the cold, breezy weather we’ve had for the last week. It’s definitely soup weather.

Chili seems to be one of those foods that people are a little particular about.

Whether the chili has beans or no beans seems to be the largest concern. Some people (mostly those that hail from Texas, in my experience) are very anti-bean. Their chili is essentially a bowl of spicy sauced meat. I’ve nothing against meat or sauce (or even spice) but my chili needs to have more. Yes, I sit on the pro-beans side of the fence. This should not be a surprise since I’m not from Texas. Nor have I ever been anywhere near Texas. I do not want to eat a bowl of chili without beans. In my book, it’s not chili if it doesn’t have beans.

I think that how you like your chili depends a lot on what kind of chili you grew up consuming. Some people (again, those from Texas mostly) will scoff at the thought of adding a lot of chopped vegetables and beans to their chili because that’s not what their parents made. I, on the other hand, grew up eating chili with lots of onions and celery and beans…I think there might have been green peppers as well but I’ve blacked that out as I hate green peppers. I’ll pick around them in any form in any food. I digress.

I’m also a little picky about chili. I will eat other people’s chili but I don’t think they ever compare to my own chili. My sister held a chili cook-off last weekend. I didn’t make chili (as I was too focused on making dessert) but I ate chili. The four chilis at the party were all good but none of them compare (in my mind) to my chili. I’m so full of myself that I’m pretty sure I would have won had I made chili.

The recipe I’ll add below is only a rough approximation of what I put into the chili pictured here. This is because I’ve never made the same chili twice. I’m not sure anyone in the world has ever made the same chili twice. Even if I added exactly the same amount of spice each time, I think it would taste a little different. I make my chili just a little bit spicy and I add a little sugar to offset that heat.

So, here’s a list of what I put in my chili and some basic directions. Use steak instead of ground beef if you prefer. Skip the celery if you don’t want it. Adjust the spices to your own personal taste. Just make sure you add the beans. You’ve gotta have them (if you’re not from Texas).

You should also make more chili than you plan to eat in one sitting. It’s one of those foods that without question tastes better the next day. Even when I was staunchly anti-leftovers, chili made the cut.

Credit for the basis of this recipe goes to my dad. I make my chili mostly like he makes his chili. I’ve taken a few creative liberties over the years but it’s pretty much the same chili he made in my childhood.

Beef & Bean Chili

Ingredients

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 large sweet onion, chopped
• 2-3 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small can chopped green chiles or jalapenos
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cans dark red kidney beans
• 2 cans diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
• water
• 1 can tomato paste

Directions

1. Brown beef. Drain and rinse well.

2. Saute garlic, onion and celery until soft in olive oil in a large soup pot.

3. Add all remaining ingredients except tomato paste.

4. Add water to nearly cover ingredients in pan.

5. Bring to boil.

6. Reduce to a simmer and cook for at least an hour.

7. Add tomato paste to thicken to desired consistency. Simmer chili a little longer.

8. Taste the chili. Add more spices, salt and pepper depending on personal preference.

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Quote from American writer and poet James Whitcomb Riley.

I had lots of grand plans for peaches over the summer. I was going to pick peaches from one of the local pick-your-own farms. From there, I planned to make lots of peach preserves and freeze a ton of sliced peaches to use all winter…not to mention the things I wanted to bake with some fresh ones. Sadly I did not get a chance to pick any peaches. Life (including moving) got in the way of my peach plans.

I did, however, find some fairly local Virginia peaches on sale last month at the Whole Foods that recently opened in Richmond. They were only 99 cents per pound…so I bought enough to bake a peach pie. I should have bought a ton more of them but I wasn’t thinking ahead while shopping at Whole Foods. I was too busy trying to get my stuff and get out as the place was more than kind of a zoo.

The peach pie here was baked with some of Penzeys Apple Pie Spice and a bit of their Baking Spice. Other than that, I followed a recipe for blueberry crumb pie found in Sweety Pies.

The bottom crust is phenomenal….it’s so flaky. The crumb topping is pretty good as well.

I’m not going to type all of the directions for making and forming this crust as they’re pretty verbose. But I will give you the ingredients list and basic instructions for the flaky bottom crust.

Flaky Pie Crust

Recipe from Sweety Pies

Ingredients (for 9-inch double crust)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chilled vegetable shortening
• 5 to 6 tablespoons very cold heavy cream

Directions

1. Sift together the flour, sugar and salt.

2. Using a pastry blender, cut the shortening into the flour mixture until it resembles small peas.

3. Sprinkle in cream one tablespoon at a time and toss with a fork. It’s better to add too little cream than too much. Continue to add cream and toss with fork until the dough holds together when pressed lightly.

4. Loosely gather dough into a flat ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling dough.

This is where I won’t instruct you on how to make pie crust anymore. The directions for this particular crust go on for another page. That’s just too much information for a blog post. If you want to make a crumb pie like I did, simply halve the recipe above.

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I wanted tiramisu. I haven’t made it in over a year. I make a mean tiramisu.

I didn’t make tiramisu. I made this trifle instead. I had eggs and cream and espresso and assorted liqueurs. I had all of the ingredients for homemade ladyfingers. But I needed one other ingredient and that ingredient is the reason I made the trifle.

Mascarpone cheese was what I needed and quite frankly I was too cheap to buy it. At the grocery store I stopped in on my way home from work, it was $5 per package and I needed two packages of it. I didn’t want to spend $10 on mascarpone cheese…so I made this hazelnut trifle as it didn’t require anything I didn’t already have at home.

For the record, I can now buy mascarpone for $3 a package at our newly opened Trader Joe’s. There will be tiramisu in the near future…and when I make it, I can spend that extra $4 on a cheap bottle of wine from Trader Joe’s.

My trifle is adapted from a recipe in Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. It’s the first thing I’ve made from the book because most of the recipes in that cookbook seem ridiculous, expensive and over-the-top…and their trifle is no exception. Yet I still made it. I think it was the lure of Kahlua whipped cream.

Their recipe called for hazelnut pound cake. This sounded excessively heavy to me so I made ladyfingers. They’re pretty easy to make and much better than the store bought ones could ever hope to be. Not that I’ve ever knowingly eaten a store bought ladyfinger. I’m better than that…and anyone reading this should be better than that, too.

To assemble the trifle, I sandwiched ladyfingers together with Nutella. I then dipped them in a mixture of Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, Kahlua coffee liqueur and espresso. On top of the ladyfingers, I added alternating layers of chocolate pastry cream and Kahlua whipped cream as well as chopped hazelnuts.

The pastry cream was made with Nutella, melted chocolate and Frangelico. The whipped cream was made with Kahlua and espresso powder. Yes, this trifle was a little rich and boozy…but what’s wrong with that?

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