New Year’s Day 2014

It’s the first day of 2014. I hope your NYE was fun. I fell asleep in front of the TV. I woke around 2 or 3 AM and went to bed.

This morning I went to the store to buy a salad and the requisite New Year’s black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas on New Year’s day is a Southern tradition. The peas originated in West Africa, but now they’re cultivated around the world. While at the store I impulsively bought a Bell pepper and a sweet onion. Then I thought, what can I add to these vegetables to make a meal? Why, ground beef and puréed tomato. Then I thought, that’s basically the ingredients for stuffed pepper. I don’t want stuffed pepper. And so, as the forecast is calling for rain and snow tomorrow, I decided to make chili con carne with beans, or as I call it, chili. I winged the recipe – I change it every time I make it.

If you’re interested, here’s the recipe for my latest chili experiment. If you’re not interested, skip ahead.

1 pound ground beef (92% lean)
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium sweet pepper, diced
1 15 oz can of each:
    dark red kidney beans
    pinto beans
    diced tomato with jalapeño, cumin, red pepper
    diced tomato with ground red pepper, dried chili pepper, cumin
1 tsp ground chili pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon-sugar mix

Brown the ground beef and add the other ingredients. Stir. Bring to a simmer. Cook until the onion is cooked and no longer white. Serve in a bowl and garnish with shredded cheese and a spoonful of light sour cream.

This chili has a little heat but it’s not nearly as hot as my usual chili. If you like your chili spicier, use a Tbsp of chili pepper and maybe 1/4 tsp of black pepper. You can also buy canned diced tomato with green chilies. They’re fairly zingy. Or you can add diced jalapeño or serrano pepper. I added no cumin because both cans of tomato had cumin in them.

Next I decided to drive to a nearby gas station to purchase 5 gallons of K-1 kerosene to run my little stove for the next couple of days. But an Indian lady who works there said their kerosene pump was broken, and I didn’t know of another gas station that sells K-1. I drove up the road to a large WaWa, but they didn’t have a K-1 pump. It seems fewer and fewer gas stations sell K-1. 

Leaving the gas station, I noticed that my Vehicle Information Center (VIC) was alerting me that the driver’s door was ajar. Except, the door was closed. The VIC beeped a few times and flashed a red, open door symbol on a little screen mounted between the dashboard and the driveshaft hump. The VIC uses a jamb-mounted switch to detect an open door. I tinkered with the switch, pushing the button in and out several times to see if it was just a matter of a dirty contact, but the door-ajar warning continued flashing. Oy. A trip to the shop seems to be in my near future.

It’s getting dark – time to close the blinds and turn on some lights. I hope you have a happy and prosperous 2014.