Monday, May 24, 2010

The Korean Improvision: Chili and Cornbread

So, the meal is a success.  The pressure cooker chili is missing something, but it's definitely passable and it's so nice to have something new and different.  The cornbread turned out so much better than we had hoped for.  It's certainly not my Mom's, but it works.  I've got three hours of lost to watch, so all these images are straight out of the camera (not that they're usually all that edited, anyway).

Ian bought 11 cans of tomato paste.  I've read that tomato past is actually terrible for you because of the way it's processed.  But, we don't have a food processor, and we get home from work very late, so it's a necessary evil.  As for why he bought so many, it's almost never available; it's been months since E-Mart had any.

Chili ingredients: tomato paste, oregano, salt, hot pepper, garlic, cumin, pinto beans, bell pepper, gochu powder, cherry tomatoes and raw peeled chestnuts.

"Puree" the tomatoes. 

Chop the peppers, garlic, and chestnuts (pictured), etc.

Toss it in the pot!  Don't forget to add water.  It takes more water than you'd think.

Cook on low/med heat for an hour or so.

I won't post the cornbread recipe.  Trust me, you can make much better quality stuff without the weird improvisations I had to do (I didn't have baking soda or powder, so I subbed some pancake mix for regular flour, for example).  I cooked half of them in the toaster oven and the other half I "steam baked" on the stove top.  You can see them in the background, they're a little doughy looking, but they're fully cooked. Regardless, they were pretty tasty.

I'm so very full right now.

Good night!

2 comments:

  1. You two are getting so good at improvising, good job. If you saute (sp) your vegetables first and add some onion to the mix, it tends to bring the flavors out, saute for just 2minutes on high heat, add the cumin in for the last minute. Also add a little vinegar and a teaspoon or two of sugar or a teaspoon of agave. It looks good.

    Oh and just so you know, I won't be able to watch Lost until it airs again on Saturday. My DVR did not record it like it was suppose to. I did get to watch the 1st 2 hrs. it was great. answered some questions for me and it was great to see the actors perspective on things. If you can you should watch that too. But it looks like you will have watched lost before me, so don't say anything about it till then.

    ReplyDelete
  2. to clarify, you would add the vinegar and agave or sugar at the very end.

    ReplyDelete