Chili And Cornbread: Ain't Nothin' Wrong With That!

Tonight, Kendra and I are over at our friends' house for dinner and board games. We're planning to play Agricola, but we'll see if they are actually up for it after this hearty meal. It's not a simple game.

Yesterday, Kendra started out by making this awesome cornbread recipe. I'm a much bigger cornbread fan than she is, and sometimes I'll make a double batch and then eat nothing but cornbread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for several days. Then I'm sated and don't want cornbread for a few months. Here's the recipe:

• 1.5 cups corn meal
• 2.5 cups milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a small bowl, combine cornmeal and milk, let stand for 5 minutes.
3. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
5. Mix in the cornmeal mixture, eggs, and oil until smooth
6. Pour batter into prepared pan
7. Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cornbread comes out clean

Depending on how thick you make it, you may need to leave it in substantially longer. I find that when the cornbread is too thick, it won't cook all the way in the middle until it's almost burning on top. But that's OK. I don't mind undercooked cornbread, and I usually use egg substitute anyway, so no worries on that front. Since we used real egg this time and we're serving it to others, however, I made sure it was nice and dark on top. I like to eat it with butter or honey. But it also goes well with chili.

Speaking of which, today Kendra made Kurt's Super Deluxe 8-Can Vegetarian Chili. Here's what you'll need:

• 2 cans diced tomatoes (you can use the "chili ready" kind if you want)
• 1 can light red kidney beans
• 1 can dark red kidney beans
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can pinto beans
• 1 can whole kernel corn
• 1 can garbanzo beans
• chili powder
• cumin
• cayenne pepper
• 1 large onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 12-16 ounces of fake hamburger bits (I usually use Boca ground burger, but we had this Yves stuff from Trader Joe's on hand).

Not all of these ingredients are strictly necessary. If you leave out the fake meat, you lose the "Super" modifier. If you then leave out the fresh veggies, you lose the "Deluxe" modifier. No garbanzo beans takes you down to 7 cans, and losing the corn takes you down to 6. So consider this a recipe for everything from 6-can chili to 8-can super deluxe chili. I only had dark red kidney beans, so I used two of those. I also had some onion left over from dinner two nights ago, so I used a little extra.

1. Finely chop the onion and bell pepper.
2. In the bottom of a large pot, pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil and turn to medium high heat.
3. Sauté the onion and pepper for a few minutes or until the onion is translucent. This shouldn't take long if you chopped the onion finely enough.
4. Add the fake meat.
5. Add cumin and chili powder. I don't know how much. It probably varies according to your tastes, but I usually add quite a bit, until the whole mixture is pretty deep red. You'll probably use less if you have "chili ready" tomatoes. If I had to guess I'd say somewhere between 1 and 3 tablespoons of each.
6. Carefully add some cayenne pepper. I use a lot, but I like spicy food. Maybe a teaspoon or two.
7. Stir and let cook another minute just to get the flavors into the onions and peppers and fake meat.
8. Before it gets too dry, add the tomatoes, including all the juice in the can. Stir well, making sure there aren't any clumps of spice. You should be able to tell now by the smell whether or not you added enough spice. It should be pretty potent.
9. Drain all the remaining ingredients in a colander. I usually throw them all in together and rinse a little to get some of the icky scum in cans of beans out.
10. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot. It is OK if the liquid level seems a little low. Flatten out the solids and just make sure the liquid level isn't more than an inch or so below the top. There is a lot of liquid in the ingredients that will come out when you simmer, and you can always add more later.
11. Simmer on medium-low heat for 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
12. Taste test to make sure you have enough spice/heat for your liking.
13. If it's too thin, you can mix a little corn starch with warm water and toss that in. Just make sure to dissolve the corn starch completely before mixing it into the chili.

Et voilà! Serve with any number of fixin's: sour cream, shredded cheese, minced onion, etc.
We had ours with a cheap Gewürtztraminer we picked up at Safeway as part of a case discount.

Mmm, seconds on cornbread.