Chili, it's what's for lunch!

Call me strange, call me weird even call me dull. But, never call me late for a big bowl of chili served steaming hot, complete with chopped onion, shredded cheese and some saltine crackers!

Chili with Habanero peppers!

Perhaps the title was a bit misleading. I actually only added just a bit of one Habanero pepper that I had grown myself. I figured that it might add just a touch of heat....

As far as I'm concerned, a really good chili is actually a simple chili comprised of just the following ingredients: hamburger meat, Williams chili seasoning, kidney beans and diced tomatoes! And, oh yeah, an added bit of heat in the form of the aforementioned diced hot pepper.

The above ingredients were tossed into a slow cooker set on high for two hours, after I had browned and drained the meat. Prep time was about 15 minutes. Now, as to the resulting chili... It was pretty dad burn hot! (I actually broke out into a sweat and ran to the fridge for a glass of milk). That said, it was also a very good meal!

Note: For those with any interest. There were about 1.31 calories in a gram, per my calculations. So, as I generally have about a cup of chili per serving, that equates to about 170 calories. Not all that bad for anyone on a diet.

Random Thoughts for late October 2018!

Cool weather means it's Chili time!

Simplify, simplify simplify. Some good thoughts by Henry David Thoreau. And, like most things in culinary life, it's the simple stuff that often shines. And, while this is your typical bare bones chili, it's still damn good!

After many years of experimenting with all sorts of chili recipes (I even once bought a book on the subject), I've come up with a rather simple recipe that seems to work pretty well for me. Mind you, there is nothing fancy about the ingredients list. I've tried fancy cuts and combos of meats and while they were OK to even good, I wasn't entirely satisfied. With this simple chili, I was! So, here goes.....

Ingredients:

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1 lb hamburger meat

1 can of petite tomatoes

1 can of red beans

1 pkg Williams original Chili Seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

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Directions: Brown the meat and drain off the grease. Add the other ingredients and simmer for 40 minutes. Got a small slow cooker? Dump everything in, cover, and cook on high for 3 to 4 hours. Serves 4.

Notes: It's not human nature to ever leave good enough alone. I decided to add the smallest amount of a Scorpion pepper into this recipe. You know. Just to give it a bit of a kick.

It's the flu season, don't ya know?

The month of October is the official start of the flu season for the Northern Hemisphere and was just ending down south with Pediatric flu-related deaths reaching 172 during the 2017/18 USA influenza season. Of the sub-typed influenza A viruses which accounted for most of the severe cases of illness, 964 (76%) were influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 305 (24%) were influenza A(H3N2). So, that could be pretty much what we can expect up in America as we waddle into the late fall and early winter months!

In Missouri, incidents of the flu, during the 42^nd week, were sporadic and that was the case across most all of the continent. That said, please note that the curve, seen in the graphic, was on the high side. I would therefore encourage everyone to go and get a flu shot post haste!

Election time draws near!

On November the 6th, millions of Americans are going to help decide on what sort of country America will be shaped into as critical seats in both Houses are currently up for grabs! And while I belong to no Party, I can already tell the direction which I intend to go at the voting booth.

The Republican Party is pretty screwed up, in my opinion. That said, they seem to have the concept of a Constitutional Representative form of government pretty well understood. Strong borders, low taxes, a good military, supporting the 2nd Amendment and no mob rule are good platforms to endorse by my way of thinking.

The Democratic Party members have a much smaller platform that seems to endorse; wide open borders, high taxes, no ICE, HLS or police. They also seem to endorse hate speech via the Media and are definitely promoting a re-birthing of the failed Obama Healthcare deal. In point of fact, they appear to openly endorse the idea of America becoming a Socialistic State like Venezuela!

Uh, no thanks. Over a million brave men and women have died to make this Republic one of the best places to live in the world. And, for me to turn my back on them now, is not an option for me to consider. I'm voting the Republican ticket across the board!

Random Thoughts for June 2018!

Hail woes!

After leaving May behind, but not before it managed to trash my car with hail on the 31^st, I ventured bravely onward into June. A month that reminded me of the variability of what mother Nature can dish out when she's a little pissed. Half way through the month and over half the time the temps climbed to 90 and beyond! As I sweltered in the early heat, an insurance man came over and announced that I had about five thousand dollars worth of damage to my car and that they would be sending me a check in the mail. Swell. Meanwhile the weather people were calling for; heat indices above 100, scattered violent hail storms and just a smattering of tornadoes here and there. Oh, and my condominium complex, which just replaced the shingles on ten buildings at an insured cost of 200 thousand in April, would need to be replaced again. Oh, and by the way, we'd likely have to foot that additional cost ourselves! Double swell!

Chili-con-awesome!

Whenever I get depressed, which had been happening more often as of late, I turn to eating as a calmative. Recently, I made up a batch of DanO's Chili! A dish that goes together quickly with little in the way of fuss or muss. 'Give a man a bowl of chili, a can of beer and a game to watch and all is well with the world!' (Well, it'd also be OK to throw in a winning lotto ticket, a very lose woman and a crazed chimpanzee)!

I can't wait for 2020!

Even as I am rapidly advancing to the age where cliff diving seems like a good alternative, I have to admit to feeling a bit excited about the presidential election of 2020! One the one side, we will have that ornery and cantankerous man known as the Trump! On the other side... who the fuck knows??

 Most of the wannabe candidates are so far to the Left that even old George Soros might have some doubts. Let's see now; there's a few well know figures like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Those zany characters will be in the DNC hunt along with Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker as of this post. Of this group, Joe 'the groper' Biden seems to have the best chance to get it all together. He's sort of a mild version of Obama who, once elected, would work like mad to turn everything Trump has done completely around. That would include wide-open borders, kowtowing to foreign nationals, closing down coal mines and offshore drilling not to mention the reimposing of a billion or so regulations on corporations! That rushing sound, you'd hear, would be trillions of dollars moving back offshore...