White Chicken Chili?

A few years ago, a friend sent me a package of Buckeye Beans & Herbs White Chicken Chili.  I cooked it back then and am a little sad that I did not blog about it a bit sooner.. The Buckeye Beans & Herbs company is based in Kent WA. and sells a variety of bean and soup products.  I think they may focus on dishes unique to the Northwest.  They may have even once distributed only in the Northwest, but lucky for everyone, it seems they are branching out.  I've seen their products advertised on Target and other stores' web pages, but you can definitely find them here: CLICK HERE.

The first thing I thought was... "White Chili??? What the heck is white chili?"  It intrigued me, and this friend of mine has not steered me wrong with food yet. So, I went and got the additional ingredients required... a large onion, a couple pounds of chicken breast and a can of green chilies... The box calls for mild green chilies, but I couldn't find one with a heat rating.. so I just got a small can of green chilies from the Mexican Food isle... they did not turn out to be what I would call 'mild.'

As I started making it, I thought to myself... "This isn't chili at all."  In Texas, or at least a little deeper south, this would be considered a 'bean' dish.  that got me to thinkin' 'what IS chili?'  Have you really ever thought about it?  Some folks say that chili is a type of stew.  That's what I originally thought, but then I thought of the difference in consistency of chili and stew.  Although you can have a stew with a thick gravy, most of the time, they are much thinner than your typical chili.  Good chili has a thick, almost porridge like consistency... but does the consistency matter?

Some people I've known will put chili powder in left over spaghetti sauce, and eat it as chili.  Is that chili?  If you take spicy spaghetti sauce and put it over spaghetti is it spaghetti and meat sauce or is it Cincinnati's famous 5-way chili?

One web site mentioned that chili was once described by a travel writer (that's what they called bloggers in the 1800's) named J.C. Clopper on a trip to San Antonio.  He mentioned that the poorer residents of the town had to make their meat go a long way.  It didn't matter what they got that day... beef, chicken, you name it... they would chop it into a fine mash and stew it.

There are definitely regional differences when it comes to chili.  A Mexican friend of mine, years ago, after I explained what Texas chili was, said "oh! That's chili beans!"  I was expecting her to say "Chili con carne," but she said "chili beans," and, having been raised on a number of southern bean dishes, all having some sort of meat floating around in them, and most having a very think porridge-like consistency, that's what I was thinking when I sat down before my fragrant bowl of Buckeye Beans & Herbs White Chicken Chili.  "I'm gonna have me a bowl of beans!"

Oh, how wrong I was... even today... several years after the fact... I remember the flavor pouring through my senses when I took that first bite... the green chilies were some of the hottest I've ever eaten, but the heat did not overpower the flavor.  The heat was also the perfect complement to the seasonings of the chili.  Being made with chicken instead of beef added to the uniqueness.  I've had some good chili in my day, but they all sort of merge together in my memory.  None stand out, but I can remember this bowl of white chicken chili... and I remember thinking that it was one of THE best bowls of chili I ever had.

BOO! It's the Spooky Whopper

OOOOOO... Halloween comes a little early, or at least the season has begun, and Burger King starts it off with their Halloween Whopper. 

Yeah, I know.. the pictures in this post are pretty scary... 


I'm not typically a slave of advertising, but when I saw the adds, I had to get one as soon as I could.  The Whopper is quite possibly my favorite burger and I LOVE A1 sauce... I put it on everything from steaks to hot dogs and in sauces and soups.  The add claims that they baked A1 sauce into the bun, and I had my doubts... I mean look at it... it really doesn't look that appetizing... does it?

Well, they were true to their word...with the first bite, it tasted like A1 sauce was slathered on the burger, but it wasn't.  All the A1 flavor was in the bun, and sometimes, when the A1 taste sort of mixed with the ketchup it tasted a little like there was bar-b-q sauce on it too.. but that was some sort of magic flavor illusion.  Yep, Spooky looking burgers and magical flavors... I'd say the Halloween season is off to a delicious start.

WOW... The return of cast iron

For some years now, every Labor Day, a group of friends from around Texas have gotten together and played board games.  We stay in a cabin in the words, gloriously off the grid and away from mobile technology... for the most part.  This cabin belongs to a friend's family and has some fairly old cookware in it... by 'fairly old' I mean vintage cast iron.  Each year I forget to check if it is Wagner, Griswald or neither.  It doesn't really matter, its at least two generations old, and good as new.  When I cook on it, I'm always amazed at how truly non-stick it really is.  I also learn what it means to be non-stick.  Your food won't be slippin' and slidin' all over the place.  You won't have to chase your grilled cheese as it slides away from your spatula... but if you pay attention to what you are doing, your food will not burn or stick and clean up will be a breeze..

After doing some cooking at the cabin, I decided to get back into cast iron.  Readers may remember that I had a fun adventure seasoning my Lodge cast iron skillet some years ago.  I may also have mentioned that at one point the seasoning started to flake off, and I just got fed up, packed it in a box

for my move and forgot about it... too much trouble... That was old ignorance... I took the old lodge out of the box, and, I must have done something right, because the cooking surface was unmarred.  There were a few spots of about 1 millimeter of rust on the outside and handle, but other than that, it looked EXACTLY like it did when I put it in the box years ago.

A little elbow grease and a single layer of re-seasoning and presto... it was back in action.  I used it for a few simple meals this week and was reminded of some of the things I really like about cast iron.  First, it is easy to find pieces made in the U.S.A.  I do not have the room to explain why that's important... but suffice it to say that it is important to me. 

Second, cast iron is indestructible... If anything you do in your kitchen can damage cast iron, you need to consider joining the Avengers.  On that note, you can do what you need to do... you can slam that STAINLESS STEEL spatula against that pan and flip that egg... you can take it off the stove with that sizzling steak and put it in a 500 degree oven... you can take a metal knife and cut into that steak or chicken to see how done it is.  A lot of this would ruin other cookware.. and trust me.. I've ruined some cookware... I've melted nylon forks in steaks and caught pots (yes plural) on fire. 

Third, its cheap.  You will spend one tenth on cast iron what you will spend for other quality non-stick cookware.  You will also typically replace every piece of non-stick cookware at least once in your life which doubles its cost.

Fourth, no 'chemicals' or should I say no 'weird' industrial chemicals you and medical science don't really know much about come near your food.  It's iron.... dug up from the ground and made from rocks... you understand rocks and iron... you probably don't know where the heck Polytetrafluoroethylene comes from or even what it is... but people cook on it.  With cast iron, you can also avoid silicon, nylon, and all kinds of other petroleum or polymer based utensils.  The only thing that will leach into your food is iron.

Most important of all... IT COOKS GREAT!!!! Last night as an experiment, I fried shredded cheddar cheese in it, and nothing stuck.  This morning, I cooked my breakfast in it, and was amazed... I've only recently been trying to make omelets 'the right way,' and had I known how to flip this baby this morning, it would have been restaurant quality.  The secret to an omelette  is 1) use butter.. and 2) to cook it slowly until it is thoroughly firm and able to fold.. I messed up the fold.. but otherwise it was fluffy and just right.

Supernatural Heat

Hello blog fans.  Well, I'm coming back.  Sorry for the time away... Life comes at you fast.

I'd like to introduce you guys to Ghost Chilies.  They were sent to me as a present for my birthday.  When my friend told me about them, I went looking all over town for them, and, though they have the Trader Joe's logo on them, I could not find them at Trader Joe's.  Indeed, I could not find them anywhere in Houston, so I'm very happy that my friend sent them to me.

Being a Texan, I'm rather familiar with a variety of chilies and enjoy a nice spicy dish whenever I can get one.  The only thing I don't really enjoy is how some peppers burn any living flesh they touch.  The fire should stay in my mouth, not singe lips and fingers.  that's one reason I shy away from the hottest of hot wings... I want an enjoyable eating experience, not to become the human torch.

Well, friends, that doesn't seem to happen with Ghost Peppers.  Don't get me wrong, these little babies stand up to their reputation.  They are HOT!  But its a heat that sort of sneaks up on you.  I've put these on pizza, hamburgers, beans and quesadillas so far, and the roasted pepper flavor transformed a rather ordinary meal into something extremely enjoyable.  Of course, after a minute or so of enjoying that full roasted pepper flavor, the heat hits you, and it hits mercilessly... filling your mouth with delicious flame.  I can't wait to try them in a pot of home made Texas chili.

Getting back in the groove

Hello Blog followers,


Sorry I've been a way for a while... long story, but I'll be getting back in the groove soon.  A friend of mine sent me some ghost chilies, white chicken chili mix and smoked salmon... all of which will soon be blogged about... well, the salmon, I'm saving as a special treat for when I move into my new house :)

Seasoning a cast iron skillet

I do apologize blog fans that I did not take pictures throughout this process, I'll try better next time...

That out of the way, I have successfully seasoned a cast iron skillet.  "Big deal" many may say, and they are probably right, but it was fun, and its even more fun cooking in the thing, because, after every meal, I get this little sense of accomplishment... a little thrill that I was able to cook whatever because I successfully seasoned this skillet.

The first thing you need to know is that you CAN screw it up.  I did...

As you can find all sorts of instructions on how to do it on YouTube, I'll not go into all the nitty gritty details, but hit the highlights.

The first thing they will tell you is if you have a brand new piece of cast iron cookware, you will need to strip it, and you can find ALL sorts of ways to do that from homemade electrolysis devices to spray oven cleaner.  I didn't bother with any of those, I just used soap and hot water.  Its the only time you will ever use soap on your CI cookware, so enjoy it.  Now, I'm not a smart man, but I know what rust is, so I dried the skillet in the oven, but I let it cool to room temperature afterwards, and that was a mistake. When you start applying oil to the pan, it should be warm enough that you need to use a towel or oven mittens to handle it, but not so hot that you can't apply the oil.  There is something about the iron being hot (or the oil being hot) that makes it stick better to the skillet.

The first thing I tried was to follow the instruction for seasoning on the packaging...that's all wrong.  The best I did there was to get a layer of goop on the pan that burned and turned my food black.  Then I found a site that said to put like a half inch of oil in the pan and bake at like 350.  That just made more goo... I was re-inventing the sticky part of the sticky-notes.  That was a little hard to clean off, so I thought I would cook it off... it was essentially cooking oil, after all...  After cooking some chicken breasts in it, it developed a fine soot like dust.  Back to the soap and hot water with it...

After that, I learned that the best way to season a cast iron skillet is to apply very fine layers of oil to a hot pan, then bake it (upside down) at 400 for about an hour.  To get a very fine layer, you oil the pan lightly, then you get a cotton rag and dry the oil off.  You will not be able to dry off ALL the oil, there will remain a light film of oil... that's what will polymerize and make a non-stick surface.  Four layers was all I needed.  The next step is to cook in it as much as you can, so I baked some biscuits and scrambled some eggs, and will soon grill a steak in it.  The biscuits fell right out and the cooked on egg cleaned right up.  I think I'm going to have fun cooking in this thing, and if I ever get an induction stove top, it's the only cookware I have that will work on it.

The perfect cookware

Over the past few years, I've had sort of an obsession to find the perfect cookware for me.  Of course I thought that the perfect cookware for me was the perfect cookware for anyone.  I'll say right now that that is wrong.

In years past, I've had a variety of inexpensive cookware, and I've caught some of it on fire... yes caught it on fire.

I forget the brand names of most of the cheap stuff I've had, however, I do remember having some TFal nonstick pots and pans that, at the time, I seemed to like, but eventually, the inside coating started to flake off.  My last TFal pot caught fire because I turned on the wrong burner. The exterior coating caught fire and was quite alarming.

After the Pot on fire incident (it wasn't the only one.. just the last dangerous one), I decided to get some no coated, or at least more durable cookware.

I bought a full set of Cuisinart Stainless Steel cookware.  I figured I 'd have a lot of trouble catching steel on fire... I was right about that.  It is extremely difficult to catch steel on fire.  I liked this cookware; it was durable, although I had to use nonmetallic utensils with it, and I could put it in the dishwasher, which is a selling point in my book.  However, something in me was unsatisfied... I eventually learned that this was not dissatisfaction, but an addiction or drive I have to buying cookware.  The main problem I had with the Cuisinart stainless steel was that it was not "nonstick."  Yes, I have since learned that you can 'season' stainless steel, but 1) I have trouble believing that stainless steel is porous enough for seasoning to get a good 'grip' on the pans, and 2) I got this set cause it said it was dishwasher safe, and putting it in the dishwasher would remove any seasoning I put on it.  Another slight issue with stainless steel is that it discolors in hard water.  The water in my apartment needs to be cut with a diamond saw its so hard.  Because of this, my Cuisinart cookware has rainbow discolorations that would make Cy Twombly envious, but that is merely an cosmetic problem and does not effect the quality of the cookware.  Another problem with putting stainless steel in the dishwasher is that any particles from other dishes can scratch the finish... so I usually wash this stuff by hand now, or I make sure that its the only think in the dishwasher... oh, and its recommended that you do not use dish-washing detergent that contains citrus... the acids in citrus will damage the finish.

The pots in the Cuisinart set are great, and I use them regularly, but I was still looking for the perfect non-stick frying pans so I could the perfect eggs... Next, I tried Calphalon Contemporary Nonstick.  This has a coating of some material from area 51 and, although you can burn stuff onto them, it will usually rinse right off.  I sometimes need to use a sponge on my Calphalon, but cooked on foods wipe right off.  Again, use silicon or nylon utensils with it and do not put it in the dishwasher... but you never need to, this stuff cleans up in seconds.  I also like my Calphalon skillets because they are oven safe up to 400 degrees, so I can toss them in the oven to put a finishing touch on omelets and steaks.

One day I was in Bed Bath and Beyond and there was a deal to get two Aeternum Enamel coated aluminum skillets for $50.  That weakness kicked in and I got them... Talk about non-stick... nothing sticks to this stuff... the first time I was ever able to flip a fried egg by just flipping the pot was with an Aeternum enamel coated aluminum skillet... that was fun... this stuff is so non-stick that sometimes you can't even get a spatula under the thing you are trying to flip cause you push it instead of slipping under it.  I really enjoy cooking eggs in these skillets... unfortunately, one night I wanted to make some tea, and turned on the burner beneath my empty Aeternum skillet instead of my tea kettle... and you guessed it... I damaged the pan.  It didn't catch fire, but It came close.  The coating on the bottom is marred.  the enamel actually melted onto my electric burner, and the cooking surface cracked slightly.  It's still usable, but where the cooking surface got damaged, it is not 100% non-stick...

After reading several blogs on cooking with cast iron, I went and bought an Emerilware cast iron skillet.  I wanted to get a Lodge and recommend them because they are made in America, but I couldn't find any, and when I get the buying bug, the Internet just won't do.

The first thing that I'll say about cast iron is that cooking with it is a hobby.  You are going to spend a lot of time caring for cast iron than any other cookware.  Oh yes, they make seasoning cast iron look easy on YouTube, but truth is, it is rather time consuming, especially when you compare it to the other cookware in this post.  The cost of brand new cast iron cookware is about the same as the others listed in this post also.  When someone says that cast iron is a lot cheaper than other pans, they are usually referring to the fact that you can sometimes... SOMETIMES... find old, used, neglected cast iron cookware in garage sales for a handful of dollars.  Turning that rusted, neglected piece of junk into a beautiful cooking utensil that will last generations is a fairly major project... that you can get wrong the first couple times.  Keeping cast iron viable is also sort of a chore.  I am in the process of re-seasoning a cast iron skillet, and will no doubt blog about it.  Although there are no lack of YouTube and blog posts concerning how to season cast iron, none of them mention what happens when you do it wrong... I now know what happens when you do it wrong.

Summary: As some website I saw said... The best cookware is the cookware you love to use every day... My favorite of all the ones listed above, in all honesty is the Calphalon Contemporary Non-stick.