Obama Family Chili Recipe

I forgot to take a picture until the very end. Guess everyone liked it!

I tripled the following Obama Family Chili Recipe for our Inauguration Party and made it with ground turkey meat. Due to time constraints, I used canned tomatoes. I chose not to purchase oregano or ground basil, served the chili with non-fat, pre-grated cheddar cheese and skipped the rice. The recipe doesn't include timing elements, but essentially, once you've got your meat browned, you're in good shape. Overall, it's about an hour to make and was very tasty, though a little heavy. The heaviness was balanced well by our Make-Your-Own-Salad-Roll bar.

Ingredients
-1 large onion, chopped
-1 green pepper, chopped
-Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped
-Several cloves of garlic, chopped
-1 pound ground turkey or beef
-1 can red kidney beans
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
-1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/4 teaspoon ground oregano
-1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
-1/4 teaspoon ground basil
-1 tablespoon chili powder

Directions
-Saute onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft.

-Add ground meat and brown.

-Combine spices together into a mixture, then add to ground meat.

-Add red wine vinegar.

-Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down.

-Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes.

-Serve over white or brown rice. Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream.

Make Your Own Salad Roll

"We can't allow any idle hands," President Barack Obama has been quoted as saying, which is why there was a make-your-own-salad-roll bar at our Inauguration Party. The prep is a lot of work, so my hands were definitely not idle that day!

Salad rolls are a fun way to shake up a regular bowl of lettuce, especially if you eat salad all the time and are bored by the same ole-same ole. They're also great for getting dinner party guests to interact (well, at least to interact with the food, if not each other).

Ingredients & Directions
-Choose a sturdy lettuce, like Iceberg or Romaine, wash and dry it, then trim into pieces a little larger than your hand, thinning thick lettuce ribs when necessary.

-Dice your favorite salad ingredients very very small (this is the time-consuming part, for me at least). I like tomato (deseeded so there's less runny mess), Kalamata olives, cucumber, and yellow pepper, for example.

-Put the lettuce on a tray, and the veggies in bowls with individual spoons.

-Spoon some goat cheese (or another spreadable cheese) into a bowl as well.

-Fill a small pitcher with your preferred salad dressing. Include salt and pepper, and if you want to cater to Obama's tastes (and mine), hot sauce, on your salad bar.

-I typically like to make the first roll to show guests what to do: take lettuce, spread with goat cheese, sprinkle vegetables, top with a dab of dressing, roll the lettuce, and chomp.

Best to eat over a plate!

Rock of Pie

Jennifer: "What is this?" Chew, chew, chew, smell, glare, sigh,
take a big swig of red wine, chew, grumble.

Jon: "Not pizza." Swallow, swallow, swallow, flip the channel to check the basketball score, growl, swallow, sigh.

Jennifer: "Do you think Bret Michaels has any hair under that bandanna?"

We agree he doesn't.

Jennifer: "What is this?" I ask again as I finish my last slice of undersauced, undergrilled, underflavored cardboard.

Jon: "Not pizza. We won't be trying this place again."

We can barely look each other in the eye. It would've been quite apropos if "Another One Bites the Dust" was a Poison song, but it's Queen.

I was truly hoping for a new explanation that time, like an introduction to some trendy new food I should've known about.

The not good to very bad pizzas we keep trying are kind of like Bret Michaels' reality show. I keep watching because I hope he'll find the woman who'll finally satisfy him, and the journey is entertaining. And I keep ordering because I hope to find the pizza that will be the cherry on the sundae that is New Orleans. Pizza is one of the few things that I miss about living in New York (though the weather's been so warm Pinkberry's started to slip back into my thoughts...).

But then, just like NYC's pizza is so much better than Nola's, one note from Freddy Mercury's beautiful mouth was better than any album Poison ever produced. So maybe the two shouldn't be compared.

Similar to some of the women who appear on Michaels' "Rock of Love" series, after trying at least four different "pizza" shops in Nola, I've started to get desperate. To the point of considering booking a trip to La Guardia, cabbing it straight to John's, eating a 12-slicer myself, and then bringing a few pizzas home with me to freeze.

I can just imagine it:

"What's that great smell, did you make homemade pizza?!?" Jon will say as he walks in the door from work.

"Ur, um, yes, and, I'm sorry about the grocery bill but the pizza ingredients cost $350 roundtrip...but try a bite, it'll 'rock your world'!"

"What do you mean 'roundtrip?'..."

Cue "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

And scene.

Auld Lang Syne, Southern Style

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, this year I made Skippin' Jenny instead of Hoppin' John, since I cooked the traditional Southern New Year's Day dish on January 2nd instead of the 1st. Incidentally, collard greens are still called collards no matter what day of the year you make 'em.

Whether you call them Jenny or John, the combination of black-eyed peas, celery, onion and green pepper simmered together then served over white rice is healthy and delicious, and purported to bring good luck.

For a change, I tried pre-seasoned, partially cooked turkey breasts for the protein in the Hoppin' John and also in the collards. The turkey was flavorful and tender, but next New Year's I'll return to using the traditional ham hock (that link takes you back two years to the first time I made this meal for Jon, just before the seed of possibility that we'd move to New Orleans was planted), which gives both dishes a smokier flavor.

I chose pre-soaked black-eyed peas at the grocery, which I won't do again. Part of the joy of making Hoppin' John is simmering the dish for hours. The instructions for the peas said only to simmer for 40 minutes, and though I cooked them longer than that, they just didn't turn out the same as the usual bag of black-eyed peas you soak overnight.

If Hoppin' John (or Jenny) is said to bring luck, and collards are supposed to bring money, then I'll start my very own superstition right here, and say that my accompanying cornbread muffins (from a mix), which I added canned creamed corn to, brought satisfaction.

Indeed, Jon (no h) and I (went by Jenny in 2nd grade, but never again!), as well as my visiting sister-in-law, were each very satisfied by the meal. I know that part is fact and not superstition, because we all had second helpings, and soon all the muffins were gone.

8 of the Best Slices I Consumed in 2008

(A traditional King Cake in all its sprinkled, iced glory.)

1. My last meal as a New Yorker: As the terrific friends who I met and grew with during my years in New York came in from the January cold to John's Pizzeria, my favorite pizza shop, the waiter continued to add extra chairs to our table. Though many goodbyes were said that night, amidst the bittersweetness a happy discovery was made, and a new tradition begun: the meatball and garlic pizza. I was always a toppings purist when it came to eating at John's, but a smart foodie friend asked the waiter what he recommended, so we ordered one pie with meatballs and garlic. And then another. And maybe a third. In spite of the cold, as was always my tradition, the pizza was followed by a stop next door at Cones for gelato.

2-3. First Parkway Bakery po-boy, and a slice of King Cake: Less than two days after my John's goodbye dinner, Jon picked me up at Louis Armstrong airport and whisked me to Parkway for a po-boy. I washed the warm, well-fried oyster, mayo, lettuce, and tomato sandwich down with root beer, and another new tradition, of root beer with po-boys, was formed. I've since discovered that root beer is very popular in New Orleans, which makes the city even more popular with me, as it's always been my favorite soda.

Next we went to a thrift store, where I found a 70s-style outfit to wear later that night to a friend's Mardi Gras-themed wedding. After the traditional church ceremony, everyone changed into costumes, and we danced to Iko Iko and did the Second Line, beads swinging, white napkins waving. From the buffet, I ate pieces of sweet, sticky, glistening King Cake, which is a dessert associated with New Orleans, mostly during Mardi Gras. During the years that I worked for the travel magazine, the New Orleans Tourism Bureau sent copious King Cakes each Mardi Gras season. Of all my co-workers, I was the one who especially liked them, which I'll take to be one of the signs that I was meant to live in New Orleans one day (and/or that I have a very sweet tooth).

4. My first Sazerac: Whoa, Nelly. All I need is one, and I'm seeing double. Two, and I might be on the floor. Come to think of it, I should probably only drink two of these whiskey, bitters and anise liquor-heavy drinks per year. This year, my first was at La Petite Grocery, and my second was at The Columns. It's definitely time to start thinking about where to imbibe my first Sazerac of 2009.

5. Beef Jerky on my wedding day: On my wedding day, the starving bride-to-be, plus a bag of buffalo beef jerky equaled an energized bride, and a new appreciation for canine teeth. I'm sure I looked quite odd chomping on the jerky in my full wedding hair and makeup at the salon while waiting for my Maid of Honor's hair to set!

6. Pesto from my garden: In 2008, I wasn't able to make a final summer pesto from my basil garden due to the evacuation for Hurricane Gustav, but that's not going to stop me from trying again. This spring, I'm going to grow a garden on my back patio and plant more varieties of herbs, along with tomatoes, peppers, and flowers. Ooohhh, maybe edible flowers...

7. Greek Shrimp (click here for recipe): This was Jon's favorite meal I made in 2008, though my recent dinners of Macaroni and Cheese and Roasted Salmon with Yams, Swiss Chard, Cabbage, and Red Wine Sauce (from Bon Appetit as well) were similarly savored. I first made the shrimp to celebrate a friend's birthday at our house, and then I made it again a few weeks later when my Dad visited. The dish is savory yet sweet and gives you that warm, cozy, everything's-gonna-be-alright feeling.

8. Pepitas: It's so simple: heat up a pan with olive oil, throw in your green, hulled pumpkin seeds (pepitas), salt and pepper them, and stir frequently until they start to pop. It's up to you how dark you want them, and also how you serve them. Ground to become pumpkin seed pesto? In a salad? As a snack, maybe sprinkled with curry powder? They're simple, healthy, tasty, and my new favorite ingredient.

Cheers!
(Salted pepitas on the left, curried on the right.)