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Lazy Mexican Chili
This one is for all of you foodies out there, ahem, Vyv (but read it anyway even if you are not a foodie, because I used jokes). I may not make cupcake Frankensteins, but I do treat my kitchen like a science lab on occasion. When I began blogging, I was on a serious cooking kick. I could bust out a stuffed chicken parme-something or a stuffed bell pepper without even looking at the recipe.
Lately? Not so much. I can barely find a clean cup to drink out of let alone put some Julia Child shit on the table. And, as I have mention before (in a post long ago), cooking for one can be … discouraging. So, how did I make it better? I experimented. Ultimately, Lazy Mexican Chili was born.
What you need:
1 lb ground beef
1 can sweet corn
1 package taco seasoning
H2O
Salsa
Sour cream
Mexican shredded cheese (not shredded by actual Mexicans)
Tortilla chips (optional)
A feline companion or Tequila
What to do with your junk (not your naughty junk):
Brown your ground meet. Drain it and try not to burn yourself with beef grease. Say beef grease out loud because it sounds hilarious. Say it louder so your neighbors and/or significant other can hear you and laugh too. If you have neither, tweet it to your internet friends.
Get back on track and warm up the corn in a separate pot. Put your pan with drained ground beef back on the stove and add in 2/3 cup water and the taco seasoning. Imagine your worst boss’s face in the bottom of the pan and have at it with a ladle or something. This will help break up the meat to allow for better chewing during the consuming process.
Give the beef about four minutes to get its taco on while you crumble some tortilla chips in a bowl. Once your beef is all seasoned up, put some in the bowl with the tortilla chips and start mixing in copious amounts of salsa, sour cream, corn, and cheese. Felicidades! You have made Lazy Mexican Chili. Put on a sombrero and eat it.
If you did it right, you will look something like this and a cigar will manifest itself.
NOTE: It dawned on me after writing this that the title of my dish may sound as if I am implying that Mexicans are lazy. I am not. I am implying that this recipe is lazy. I’m lazy. I am not Mexican. Glad we settled that.
There is something different about 25toFly since yesterday. I wonder what it is?
Related articles
- [Guest Post] Tacos, Enchiladas, and Mole: Mexican Culinary Staples With A Twist (thecultureur.com)
- Shredded Pork Tacos (annashortcakes.wordpress.com)
- Chili – Jamie Alexander (fox8.com)
How NOT to Cook Dinner – 20 Painful Steps
I think I am a little… off these days. I have nothing else to offer you other than specific instructions on how not to cook dinner.
Expectation
Reality (minus consoling male figure)
*All instructions are direct results of thorough investigation and experimentation by scholars of the 25tofly cooking institute on 11/26/2012 at 6:00pm.*
Nah, actually these instructions result from my lack of fluid motor skills and general cognition without wearing my LJs and consuming alcohol while cooking. If you learn anything from this, it is that you never deviate from standard protocol.
1. Buy all ingredients for a slightly unconventional Thanksgiving meal because you never got to eat any leftovers at your parents house. Include a rotisserie chicken in place of a turkey.
2. Get home and put that chicken (plastic container and all) in the oven just to keep in some of the warmth. Leave oven off.
3. Make candied yams that look like baby food mush because you bought the wrong canned yams. Ignore this and add brown sugar to feel like you are still making it the correct way.
4. Set sweet potato slop aside and cut veggies for stuffing while slicing fingernail in half. Be thankful it wasn’t your entire finger.
5. Begin mixing the stuffing even though you realize you don’t have enough sherry to complete the recipe.
6. Forget about turkey chicken in oven and preheat to 400 degrees.
7. Add way more melted butter to the stuffing than you usually do, because the stuffing is acting like Rain-X to all moisture attempts.
8. Realize you left the chicken in the oven.
9. Panic and spill your apple cider.
10. Pull out mutated, and now surely radioactive plasticken.
11. Turn off oven and try to separate chicken from plastic container.
12. Try a piece, almost choke, and realize you will have to discard all of the chicken skin.
13. Place sides in the oven to bake for twenty minutes, but burn your hand while you are at it.
14. When the timer goes off, pull out your sides being careful not to burn your other hand.
15. You turned the oven off in step 11, dumbass.
16. Preheat oven again after you step in that drink you spilled but forgot to clean up. Your socks are now properly wet and gross and sad.
17. Bake sides for another twenty minutes while you stave off starvation by eating half of the rotisserie chicken.
18. When sides are finished baked (for real this time LOL), make yourself a plate.
19. Top it off with a roll that you smashed while trying to butter with cold butter.
20. Congratulations, you are no longer hungry. Now, put everything in tupperware, and do the dishes in scalding water to make sure you irritate your burn.
I’ll be ordering take-out tonight. You should too.
Related articles
- Make-Ahead Tips for Novice Thanksgiving Cooks (readramble.typepad.com)
- Let Your Kids do the Cooking this Thanksgiving! (cdmfun.wordpress.com)
- Thanksgiving Recap: Sweet Potato Bake (youfoodisnotsogreat.wordpress.com)
Cookies for One
[I have a thing I like to do. They call it cooking. There are a few favorite things I enjoy whipping up, but ultimately I enjoy all recipes, even if it only requires separating perforated cookie dough squares and arranging them on a pan.]
Last night I made quite the southern dish of rice and gravy with a side an entire plate of cookies. There were also some mashed potatoes involved, but I swear they weren’t instant. I wouldn’t be a real chef if I dared to make something so atrociously easy. Oh yes, that’s right, I am in fact not a chef. Thank you Idahoan loaded style instant mashed potatoes. Without you, how would I ever have gotten all of those chocolate chip packed squares divided in time? Whew.
After I clicked the last burner knob into the off position, I realized I hadn’t the slightest intention of eating anything I prepared. From the cookies to the ridiculous vat of rice and gravy, I had enough food and dessert to easily feed a family of four. Sadly, I am but one measly person. Why did I make an entire package of cookies? I don’t even eat cookies. Like ever. At least, I rationalized, the rice and gravy was not a lost cause seeing as I could eat off of that all week. But, the cookies? The cookies were futile.
I suppose what happened there was the result of my subconscious attempting to create a sense of false comfort by having a plate of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. When you are young, single, and living in a tiny apartment where you can hear the next door neighbor blinking, it is easy to lose that i’m-at-home feeling. I must have absent mindedly come up with this cookie ploy while lost in the dairy aisle somewhere between the milk and I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-egg… or whatever. While I have yet to eat any of the cookies, maybe, just maybe, the maintenance guy will steal a couple while I am at work. That would be fantastic. I must go take cookie inventory now, but I have left last night’s non-meal recipe below. Bare with me, however, I am not good with specifics when it comes to seasonings. Just throw that shtuff in there until it tastes like Channing Tatum’s abs. Read the rest of this entry
Concocting Your Life Recipe
The world is now a hungry food critic and you are a chef whose knowledge, skills, work experiences, and the like are now ingredients for a meal. Go.
Everyone owns a very specific and unique set of ingredients to offer the world. The world, in turn, is a hungry place. It has plenty of Ramen Noodles already stock piling in its pantry, and it certainly won’t tolerate canned corn beef hash. The world constantly yearns for new recipes. It doesn’t mind if the recipe is a classic, say spaghetti, as long as it has just the right taste. The world, also a daring eater, is willing to try exotic dishes just as long as they aren’t potentially fatal (think blow fish).
I personally don’t believe in the ability to concoct brilliant meals using just one or two ingredients. Read the rest of this entry
A Long Overdue Date With My Kitchen
If you have been reading any of my posts, you may know that I am not only in love with my bed but also my kitchen. Until about a year ago I knew how to make two dishes:
1. Baked chicken (I know, hold your applause).
2. French Toast.
After getting out of school and starting my job, I had a pretty good shock to the system while converting myself to a budget. I knew I would have to start making a go at cooking meals during the week to save some paper. A lot of families around here cook rice and gravy and gumbo as cheap fixes that last for days. So, I took my first cooking crack at the rice and gravy. Don’t let the name deceive you. It is not simply making some rice and adding some gravy. There is beef involved along with a tedious process for making the gravy from scratch. It is actually pretty easy to screw up (which I did… twice) if you don’t have some practice under your belt.
From there, I began Googling different recipes, downloading recipe apps on my phone, and eventually I was introduced to the almighty Pinterest. Needless to say, I’ve become a roux making, chicken stuffing, baking, sauteing boss. Fine, I am not a boss of anything, but I can certainly crank out a pretty decent tasting and aesthetically pleasing meal. The picture above is from my cooking endeavors last night. There are a few items I must have present when showing my kitchen some TLC. Magazine for browsing while I wait on the oven to preheat? Check. Alcoholic beverage (last night I went for vodka tonic with fresh lime)? Check. Music? Check. Ingredients ready to go? Check.
[Hey, is that a diploma photo bombing my ingredients? No, I strategically placed that in the picture so you will all know how smart I am. Joke! I am not allowed to hang things on the walls of my pad, so it chills in my kitchen.]
I had only cooked once in my apartment since I moved in about a month ago, so I decided I was long over due for firing up the burners. Read the rest of this entry
Bacon: The Candy of Meats
(click for DIY for bacon roses)
This morning I woke up and realized I forgot to eat dinner yet again last night. I tend to do this when I am distracted by weekend activities. Famished, I slid to the kitchen and flung open my refrigerator. The contents of my fridge included bacon, milk, cheese, turkey, and pickles. I suppose I could have opted for a sandwich, but instead I cooked an absurd amount of bacon. Because it is Sunday and I am a sloth in training, I cheated a bit and cooked it in the microwave. Six strips nuked for about 4 1/2 minutes is the winning combination for the perfectly crunchy consistency that I enjoy.
Then, Standing over the stove, I dressed each auburn strip with a perfect ration of maple syrup. It is key to strategically allow the syrup to gather in the gorged parts of the bacon. Then, I washed them all down with ice cold milk. The amount of milk I chugged down was quite absurd as well. Being that the milk’s expiration date is today, I believe it was justified. Does anyone else cringe at the dried milk flakes that occasionally accumulate on the top of the jug? This shit just makes my skin crawl. I can not explain this phenomenon.
This is how I eat my bacon. Every. Single. Time. How do you like your bacon? I bet this guy could give you some tips.
As I write this I am having a conversation via text with a musician friend of mine. He is informing me about his upcoming tour in six weeks and inviting me to go meet some people down near New Orleans backstage at the Cowboy Mouth show this evening. Sadly, I had to decline because of that little thing that is ruiner of all things fun called work tomorrow. Then, to make things worse, I realize I have just written an entire post about bacon. Oh yea, and wasn’t I supposed to be at the beach right now? Sigh. If there is one thing that can get me through this, its going to be the bacon. Definitely the bacon. Back to the microwave.
Related articles – AKA Articles about all the bizarre bacon products there are out there.
- Bacon casket for dead bacon lovers (cnews.canoe.ca)
- Fresh Step Organic Bacon Scented Cat Litter (bacontoday.com)
- Love It or Hate It? Bacon Lip Balm (bellasugar.com)
- The Better Bacon Book: Bacon On Bacon On Bacon On IPad (gizmodo.com.au)
- Bacon Candy Necklace (neatorama.com)
- The Bacon Milkshake (bacontoday.com)
