For a cold day: cherry chipotle chili

Its a new year: time to eat healthy(ier), keep up all those good habits, and also experiment with some new recipes. Today, I'm trying all three with this very surprising chili, with cherries and chipotle! 

For some reason around the house, we had extra cherries lying around, and due to their high water content, cherries go bad fairly quickly. Therefore, I needed a recipe that would use cherries, but I didn't really want to make a pie (remember those resolutions?). There aren't a ton of savory cherry recipes lying around, but I found this one from Epicurious and veggie-fied it. It could also easily be done the original way as well, which is with ground turkey. 

I use Quorn brand veggie ground beef style crumbles because they are soy free, high in protein as well as fiber.  Not that I have a problem with eating soy, but as a vegetarian I feel that I eat a lot of soy anyways, and some research says that eating too much soy isn't good for you (what isn't these days). Therefore, why not try some other plant-based proteins? 

If you don't have canned chipotle chilies, you could easily just roast some of your own. I think any pepper would do well, maybe a serano chili? To do this, just turn your gas burner on, and using tongs, hold the chili over the open flame. Turn and roast it until the entire thing is burned and looks like it might catch on fire at any moment. Then, place it in a paper bag and use a chip clip (or whatever you have on hand) to close the bag. Keep the chili there for 10 to 15 minutes. After that, take the chili out of the bag and use a paper towel (or hands) to remove all the charred skin. Then, cut the chili open and remove the seeds, and then chop the pepper and add it to the chili.

Cherry Chipotle Chili

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 and 1/3 cups Quorn Brand veggie "ground beef"
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (preferably kosher)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes
• 2 cups pitted black cherries
• 2 canned chipotle chiles, diced, plus sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 can (15 ounces) white beans (such as cannellini or navy), rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt (optional garnish)
• Chopped fresh cilantro (optional garnish)

In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook meatless crumbles with salt and pepper, stirring, until thawed and browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Add carrots, onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in chili powder. Add tomatoes, cherries, chipotles, bay leaves and 1/2 cup water; bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cook, stirring once or twice, until chili thickens, 15 to 20 minutes. Add beans; cook 2 minutes. Flavor with chipotle sauce to taste. Remove bay leaves. Divide chili among 4 bowls. Top each with 1 tablespoon yogurt and garnish with cilantro, if desired, before serving. This chili would go really well with a hearty cornbread and crisp salad, if you're feeling adventurous.

new glarus brewery, wisconsin

If you ever end up in Madison, Wisconsin with a couple hours to kill, go here. New Glarus Brewery is in (duh) New Glarus, which is about 20 miles southof Madison. If you are from California, it is almost just like Solvang, except instead of being a Danish tourist trap, its Swiss. Therefore, almost every building/hotel/restaurant is really tacky and named "Pumple's Olde Tavern" or something like that. They are also obsessed with painting plastic cows.

There is a gem though, and that is New Glarus Brewery. It is situated in rolling green hills about 7 minutes down the road from the main part of the town. When you go there, you can pay a few bucks and do 4 tastings. My favorite is definitely the Raspberry Tarte , the Belgian Red ale is also amazing, which is made with local Door county cherries. Their other famous ones are the Spotted Cow and Fat Squirrel, which are both solid beers. You can go on a self-guided tour of the brewery, which is shiny and very clean. The best part is watching the guy fill kegs, because it looks really funny. New Glarus is one of my favorite breweries that I have been to because it is really beautiful to sit on their patio and overlook the driftless zone of Wisconsin. Also, it was the first craft brewery to be opened by women! woo hoo!

"beer has dispelled the illness which was in me"

So last week, there was a great reunion of both parts of c and c in New York. Landing on monday, I naturally made Crystal go with me 3 hours later to the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. We took their tour, which is $8 per person, and is very worth it, as you get to taste almost all the beers that they have on tap, some of which never leave the brewery. Crystal's favorite was their summer seasonal, the "Summer Ale". It was really light, and would be perfect for a hot day, as it was that day, and pretty much the whole time in New York. My favorite was their current "Brewmaster's Reserve", "The Concoction". The brewmaster'sreserve is a beer that Brooklyn Brewery produces that is only available for a short time, on tap, only at the brewery. This particular one was very potently gingery, and there is almost no way you could drink more than one bottle as it was so flavorful. Almost too flavorful, but it was really good to me. I think our tour guide said he hated it. Oh well, more for me!

Then we went on the tour, where what we saw was what is pretty much your standard craft brewery. They weren't bottling that day, so there was none of the cool whizzing equipment that you see at a brewery that was up and running. After the tour, you can go back to the bar, and with "tokens" that you buy from them, you can purchase beers and hang out for an hour before they let the regular joes in again.

City of Politics, Government and Great Food

Hello C&C LA Followers!

Thank you for your interest in our D.C. Edition of great, affordable eats. We have two days, two legs, and two stomachs to fill ourselves with 14 places.

Hey, we’re determined people! It’s not about the size of your stomach that allows you to eat, it’s your advantageous muscles that help you digest (says the Japanese world renown contesterTakeru Koboyashi hot dog eater). Well. We are going to take you up on that Takeru!

Here are the list of savory places:

We were very surprised by the wide variety of cuisines offered at our nation's capital. We discovered lots of Ethiopian and Korean eateries and a few sprinkles of Indian, Middle Eastern and Soul food. As we know, Maryland is the home of Dungeness crab legs so we were expecting more seafood. There are a few here and there so we’re going to visit Red Hook Lobster Pound and the Maine Avenue Fish Market.

D.C. is not only Obama’s playground, but college students as well. We see on Yelp there are quite a few food trucks so we will tune you in on Facebook and Twitter with some ratings.

D.C, I hope you’re ready for our taste buds!

With Food and Love <3,

C & C D.C.

Ricotta Chocolate Chunk Cookies

So, we ended up with having about six pounds of ricotta cheese in our house, all at once...it happens. Therefore, I was willing to try and recipe that had ricotta in it, especially if it wasn't lasagna. This recipe was good too, because I could therefore give the cookies away to people that had sent me grad presents. Hopefully they like ricotta, but the flavor is not really there, its mainly for the nice puffy-ness that these cookies get. Putting them in the freezer also makes them more puffy instead of getting flat when you cook them. Try them out if you one day also have tons of ricotta to use!

Adapted from La Kocinera

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 bar dark chocolate

1/2 cup dried cranberries

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar, whipping until well blended and slightly fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla.

To the wet mixture, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mixing well to combine. Take a sharp knife and cut up the chocolate bar into smallish hunks. To this mixture, add the chocolate bar chunks and cranberries (or any dried fruit you like), again stirring until well blended.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Once chilled, form the cookies into balls (about the size of golf balls) and put them on the greased cookie sheet, or as I used, a Silpat (which you don't have to grease). Cook them for about 14 minutes, maybe a little more, depending on your oven. I cooked them for seven minutes and then rotated the cookies sheet so that the ones in the back didn't get too brown, then put them back in for 8 more minutes. There will be about 24 cookies.

Father's Day special

What to serve to the dad that loves all things lemon? Well a lemon brunch, of course! I'm thinking lemon waffles or pancakes, and then later of course a lemon dessert! Yum! Lemon cocktails, perhaps?

Look's like it'll be lemon meringue pie! This is dad's favorite kind of pie, and I have never tried making it before...

I borrowed Martha Stewart's pie recipe, from her 1985 edition of "Pies and Tarts"

AMERICAN CAKE

I made this cake for our last quarterly party. Yes, its true usually at keg parties there is not cake provided, but I always hate being disappointed by the fact that cake and keg sound vaguely familiar...therefore, the america cake!

Vanilla Lime Poundcake: adapted from here

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 limes, zest and juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease and flour a standard 9-inch loaf pan. Set aside. Or, if you want to make the flag cake, use a rectangular pan that's a little bit bigger.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla extract.

Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Note, you can add baking soda (1/2 tsp) if you want it to be a little bit fluffier. However, this makes it pretty poofy at first, so do not be alarmed.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Bake for 60 – 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (or with a few wet crumbs). Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 – 10 minutes. Then, take the cake out of the pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.