Black Bean Chili Recipe
Today I tweeted that I put on a pot of chili and I was asked for the recipe by Matt. The easiest way to share the recipe was to share it here. I usually cook by feel, and recipes are never quite the same each time, but I’ll try to standardize it here. It will probably be more like a blog post than a recipe, but that’s how I think.
1 bag of black beans
Oil
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 lb of beef, cubed (you can also use chicken or turkey, but use cubed, not ground. It’s a texture thing)
1 large can of whole tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Cayenne Pepper
Oregano
1 bottle of dark beer (optional, if you need more liquid)
I always start with dry beans. This means you need to plan ahead, as they need to soak overnight. Rinse the black beans in a colander. Add the beans to a stock pot and cover with water. Keep in mind that the beans will absorb two to three times the volume of water, so there needs to be plenty of water to cook the beans. Cover and let sit overnight.
Finely chop the garlic and saute in a small amount of oil. Coarsely chop the green pepper and onion add to the pan, occasionally stirring. If you are using fresh chilis or jalapenos for spice instead of cayenne pepper, you can finely chop them and saute them with the rest of the vegetables. When everything is cooked tender, or caramelized in the case of the onions, dump contents of the pan into the stock pot.
Cube the beef and cook in the pan you just used for the onions, peppers and garlic. Add a touch more oil if needed. Add some salt, pepper and cumin to the meat as you are sauteing it. When the meat is fully brown, add it to the stock pot. Pour entire can of whole tomatoes into the pot, including the liquid. If there is not enough liquid, you can add a bottle of dark beer.
Add some salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin and oregano to the pot. Since this is by taste, after the chili is cooked, you can fine tune these spices by taste. None of these spices cook in the chili, but the cumin will make it smell like you are cooking chili.
Turn on the heat to bring water to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn down the heat to simmer, stirring occasionally. Simmer uncovered for at least 2 hours. The longer you can simmer, the better it will be. Cook until the beans are tender, the tomatoes have cooked down and the liquid has been reduced. Taste and fine tune the spices, especially the salt and the cayenne pepper.
Serve over rice or with cornbread. Cube sharp cheddar cheese to put on top.
NC Girls Rock Camp 2010
Grace attended NC Girls Rock Camp for the 2nd year. It is a great experience where young girls learn to work together in bands by writing a song, making posters and performing at the end of the week. Grace’s band was called Black Rose and here is their performance. The lyrics to their song, Back Off, are reprinted below with permission.
Back Off by Black Rose
Yesterday I got bullied by a boy
I’m obsessed with chocolate
I tried to hold it in, and it just got worse
I’m obsessed with pie
I came back to him and I said
BACK OFF
BACK OFF
I’m a girl and nothing can stop me from doing anything I please
Cause I have power, it’s not just power
It’s GIRL POWER
Wooh
Today I sailed the seven seas
Climbed a mountain
And drank two cups of tea
Because I’m obsessed with a dog that eats pickles and cheese
I came back to him and said
BACK OFF
BACK OFF
I’m a girl and nothing can stop me from doing anything I please
Cause I have power, it’s not just power
It’s GIRL POWER
Wooh
WE ROCK
WE ROCK
Here is the final performance of all the girls.
What Father’s Day is About
The kids and I went out for brunch for Father’s Day.
Durham Skate Park
This past weekend I took my daughter to the Durham Skate Park in downtown. She loves skateboarding, so she was pretty up for it. The funny thing is that she doesn’t really know how to ride. She knows the names of all the tricks, but can’t even really ride on a flat surface. I figured taking her to the Skate Park would provide some inspiration and she would get some practice riding along the edge of the park. She really didn’t ride at all, but she was very interested in shooting some video. The above video was completely shot by my 9-year old daughter on a Kodak ZI-8, handheld HD camera. I cut it together using iMovie, but with some simple direction regarding cutting on action and creating a narrative thread, she organized the shots, and even discarded a few that didn’t work. This kid is not your normal 4th grader. She really gets this stuff. We will definitely be shooting more video, and soon she will be managing the editing software too. Oh, and we scored it in Garage Band and she made the choices in that too.
Call All Santas
My nine-year-old daughter still gets presents from Santa Claus. It is hard to tell if this is true or not, but this year she has gotten concerned with contacting St. Nick himself. Her mom has always told her that parents communicate with Santa by fax or email. Well recently her 11 year-old brother convinced her that she could actually call Santa herself, and his number is 1-800-NORTHPOLE.
Tonight she dialed that number and was so shocked by the response, she hung up. She quickly realized that she did not dial Santa. She is still pretty innocent and doesn’t use bad language. She had to whisper the words to her mom. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Please hold, a hot porn star will answer your call shortly.”
Peter Climbs Rocks
Last night Peter had a lock-in with his Scout troop at a local indoor rock climbing place. That means they got there around 9pm and were able to climb until 2am. After they were done climbing, Peter stayed up until about 4:30am. They got up at 7:00am to leave. I expect he will be a bit tired today, but he hasn’t shown signs of it yet.
Sleeping Grace on the Couch
I used to take pictures of Grace while she was asleep. Click here to see all of them. Anyway, the other night she said she wanted to sleep on the couch. I’ve never slept on the coach before, she said. So I let her, and I had to take a picture of her.
Peter and Grace in Florida
Here are Peter and Grace on our Thanksgiving trip to Florida. I didn’t take too many pictures on the trip, but here’s a link to the ones I did take.
Help Me Celebrate Movember
About 3 months ago I shaved off my goatee that I had for about two years. It was getting pretty grey and Grace, who never liked it, encouraged me to shave it. Before that I had full beards on and off for many years. Primarily I have either been clean-shaven, as I am now, or bearded. I will count a goatee as a beard. One of the few times in my life that I just had a moustache, besides the early peach fuzz that I first shaved for my Bar Mitzvah at 13, was at the request of the McDonald’s Corporation. I worked at McDonald’s for 6 weeks after graduating from high school and beards were not allowed. And yes, I had a full beard my senior year of high school. I shaved my beard, leaving my moustache that summer. I arrived at college as a freshman with a cheesy moustache as evidenced by the college ID photo at the left. While it is not what I remember, but apparently I spent most of college with a moustache, as the picture on the right is my grad school ID photo. Still moustachioed, but not as cheesy. It was a much more serious time, so I had more serious picture.
So why all this talk about moustaches and what is Movember anyway. This is a global movement that is bringing much needed attention to cancers that affect men. I’m growing a Moustache this month to support this cause. My commitment is to grow a moustache all November and I am hoping that you will support my efforts by making a donation. The funds raised go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG).
What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men aged 18-35. Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved.
Click this link to go to my personal donation page and donate online using your credit card.
All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.
The Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund:
• The LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40.
• Research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.
Tonight’s Homework
My daughter Grace gets a list of spelling homework choices at the beginning of the week and must choose 5 of the options each week. Tonight as she sat down to do her homework, she got out the computer and started working on something. After a few minutes I noticed her obvious frustration and asked if I could help. She said she was trying to find what English letter each letter of the Hebrew alphabet stood for.
I found a site with the Hebrew alphabet and started going through the letters, but told her that they did not all have an English equivalent. I asked her what she needed to do. She read me the choice from her homework sheet that said she needed to write 10 words in a foreign language and those same words in English. She told me that everyone was doing Spanish, and someone had already done Chinese, but she wanted to be different. Hebrew is very different.
So next we looked for simple Hebrew vocabulary sites that listed words in Hebrew and English. I showed her a few that I knew, like mother and father. She sat down with the computer and started looking through the words. She told me she wasn’t finding her spelling words in the lists. At this point a lightbulb goes on over my head. She doesn’t need to translate 10 random words. This is her spelling homework. 10 of her spelling words are what is needed.
At this point I showed her Google translation tools and we typed in 10 of her spelling words. I selected English to Hebrew and clicked translate. Lo and behold, Google returned 10 Hebrew words. And now it was up to Grace to write them down. Quite a challenge for a half-Jewish kid who has barely seen Hebrew, let alone tried to write it.