Chili Cook-off!

Ok, so there appears to be a bit of good natured rivalry on the count of all parties when it comes to chili recipes.  B thinks his is the best chili ever, I think mine is (of course), and the neighbor has a pretty darned good recipe, too.  Pup got caught in the middle :-P  We recruited him to be an impartial judge.  Bless his heart LOL.  He doesn't want to say whose is best, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Oh, and he doesn't want to get left out of any chili nights.  The kid could eat an entire pot of chili in a week and want more next week.  :-)

I have a TON of chili left over.  Can a small batch of chili ever get made?  Really?

 What you see - on the bottom shelf you see two large containers of leftover rice beside a really large container of leftover chili.  Above that, you see a large container of homemade salsa in front of an even larger container of leftover chicken stew, bacon, eggs, and a container of leftover cheese grits.

The cheese grits got popped into ramekins, topped with slices of provolone and baked back to cheesy-gritty goodness.  The salsa got eaten on huevos rancheros.  Since everyone is learning that the secret of fried rice is to use leftover rice, that's what the rice became.  I was going to put it in loaf pans, top it with chili, and make chili-rice bakes, but fried rice sounded better ;-)  I sauted some flank steak with onions, bell peppers, and carrots in sesame oil, spiced with tamari and some Japanese hot pepper powder mix that I can't tell you the name of since it's written in conji.  It turned out really well.  The stew became pot pies, but that's for a later post. The chili is still in the fridge.  I am going to have to freeze it tonight or tomorrow, because it's been about a week.  Chili lasts seemingly forever, but I don't want to push my luck.

This is Fin's daughter.  She likes her mom's chili a lot LOL.  She ended up getting a water-hose bath right after this, because she had it absolutely everywhere.  You would think that smearing chili all over your face would be a bad idea, with the peppers and all.  But she didn't seem to mind it.  As far as kids go, this has to be one of the cutest I've been around, and she's really sweet.