Eastern Spicy Stew

Because I didn't have time today to write up anything very interesting, here's a recipe for what I was cooking.

Eastern Spicy Stew

This is a recipe I made up while trying to come up with a healthy recipe that was a pretty complete meal except for starch, which I could cook a lot of and freeze. I was trying to make chili based partly on a weird Eastern concept of chili I got from my mother from Philadelphia, and partly on vauge notions of Mexican cuisine. It ain't chili, but it's fairly popular with my friends. You will need a large stock pot for simmering it and a big frying pan for browning the meat.

2 lbs canned dark red kidney beans (2 16oz cans)
2 lbs canned pinto beans
2 lbs canned cans black beans
5 lbs canned diced tomatoes (2 28oz cans)
6 cubes chicken boullion
2 pounds ground venison, bison, or lean beef (in order of preference)
3 pounds chorizo, sliced or crumbled
2 green bell peppers, diced
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 yellow or orange bell peppers, diced
9 jalapeño peppers, sliced
2 spanish onions, diced
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 pound frozen sweet corn
1 bulb garlic, peeled and crushed/chopped
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Start:
Drain the beans and start them simmering with the tomatoes and the cubes of chicken boullion.
Stir every 15-20 minutes.
Now is a good time to slice the chorizo, peppers, and onions.

After 1-1/2 hours, brown the ground meat and add it, then brown the chorizo and add that.
Finish slicing the peppers and onions if you haven't.

After 2-1/2 hours (another hour), add the peppers and onions, bring it back to a simmer.
Peel the garlic and chop the cilantro.

After 3 hours (another half-hour), chop and add the garlic, cilantro, corn, cocoa, cumin, and cinnamon. Stir and taste; if it needs salt, add more boullion cubes. Stir every 10 minutes.

After 3-1/2 hours total, it's ready.

It's best when the cilantro is fresh, but it's still good frozen and microwaved; adding fresh cilantro would probably help. This recipe is not delicate in terms of quantites and proportions; if you double the amount of this and halve the amount of that it still turns out pretty well, at least when I've tried. This is what a restaurant out here in the East would call medium spicy; it would probably kill my mother outright but it's not challengingly spicy for anyone who puts jalapeño slices on other food.

Goes well with cornbread or over brown rice. Tortilla chips, a beer, and a sprinkling of cheese on the top are nice accompaniments.

Garlic Breath Pesto

In lieu of philosopy or confessions, here's a recipe. It is delicious in a vicious sort of way. I made some before I got sick and it's something you can taste through a clogged nose no problem. Make sure anyone you intend to get close to eats some too, I'm not kidding about the name.

Ingredients:
2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
Olive oil
1 bulb garlic (not a clove, all the cloves in a bulb)
1/2 cup pine (pignoli) nuts
4 oz parmesan cheese

Put the basil in a blender. Add olive oil until you've got just enough for the blender to chop up the leaves. Peel the garlic, add it, chop it up too. Add the pine nuts and parmesan, grind it all into a thick mixture. Should barely pour; I prop the blender pitcher over a bowl and leave it for an our, then scrape out the rest with a long-handled spoon. Let it sit in the refrigerator for three days (eating it sooner it has more bite and less umami). Serve over hot pasta.