This week, I figured that, since we are making a couple dishes for Thanksgiving, we could take it easy on the cooking for daily meals. So, I didn't plan a menu, I just bought a few simple items to throw together. Except, I didn't buy enough -- we had nothing to eat for dinner tonight or meals tomorrow.
Not to worry. Since yesterday, I'd been itching to cook something. Mid-afternoon today, I got a craving for chili. I looked in all my cookbooks and didn't really see a recipe I wanted to try -- until I got to Veganomicon.
I found the recipe for Manzana Chili Verde, and I was interested. The recipe called for a pound of Yukon gold potatoes, and I just so happened to have a 3 pound bag, of which I only need 2 pounds. Cool. I wrote down the list of ingredients and headed over the store.
Oh yeah -- I also only had about 2 hours in which to get the ingredients and cook the chili because The BF had a class to get to. Listed cook time for the chili? One hour. GO!
Mistake #1: I somehow always manage to forget something on the list. This time, I had vegetable broth written down very clearly, and I didn't get it. Never mind that I was crossing stuff off -- I obviously didn't see that it wasn't. Thankfully, The BF offered to go back and get the broth.
Mistake #2: I've never cut up chili peppers before, so I just went right on ahead and treated them like bell peppers. I cut them up, plucked out the seed parts, and sliced them with my bare hands. What kind of peppers? Jalapeno and poblano. It would be a while before I realized what I had done.
Mistake #3: As I read through the steps for the recipe, I noticed yet another ingredient I had somehow forgotten -- cumin. This one didn't even make it onto my list! Terrible!! I grabbed one of my cookbooks that lists substitutes for spices. The substitute for cumin was chili powder. I thought I had that... but no -- I had cayenne pepper. That should be ok, right? The recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of cumin. Something inside me said that I shouldn't use that much cayenne. So I only used 2 teaspoons.
Mistake #4: Following the directions again, I realized that it was time to put the cilantro in -- only I hadn't prepped it yet! I grabbed it and started plucking. It felt really... grainy. Ugh. I hadn't washed it! Gross.
The rest of the cooking went fine. I didn't screw anything else up -- I couldn't afford to! With minutes to spare, I served the chili to The BF (and served a bowl for myself).
Thank goodness for the avocado garnish, because this stuff was HOT! I don't like terribly spicy food in the first place, but this was ridiculous. My mouth burned and I was sweating from my forehead. I also got a terrible headache. I couldn't finish it, and my poor BF had to eat it so quickly before class. He was nice enough to say that it tasted good, despite how hot it was.
From what I could tell, it tasted fine, but I don't know how the heck I'll make this edible for me. I'm afraid it will burn through the glass bowl I saved it in -- you know how the flavors set in. Ugh! I think I might try to add a can of corn to it.
Oh, and my hands are BURNING!
Never. Again.
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