"Chili con Caffé" for Secret Recipe Club

When we received our assignment for this month's Secret Recipe Club, the blog from which we needed to choose and make a recipe, we were a little intimidated. You see, we have followed and admired Authentic Suburban Gourmet for some time, and you will understand why once you take a look at that blog, with its plethora of intriguing recipes, unique style, and gorgeous photographs. It's the kind of blog we strive for ours to become, and its author, Lisa, is the kind of fellow foodie we love to follow.

We spent hours going through Lisa's countless recipes trying to find just one. We especially love her series of "Friday Night Bites," a wide array of fabulous snacks and appetizers perfect for entertaining. And we have bookmarked plenty of those, we can tell you. But as we looked ahead to the busy, and according to the local weather report, "chilly" week ahead, we had to go with one of her "chili" recipes. But which one?

Having judged a couple of chili contests for the International Chili Society, the argument over the inclusion of beans, while it amuses us, doesn't deter us from throwing them into our chili pot. While they scoff at "chili con carne" (of course it has meat, they insist, but it absolutely should not have beans!), we add not one but four kinds of beans into ours. But what really drew us toward one of Lisa's chilis was the secret ingredient...one that has proven its worth in another of our SRC recipes. That's why we're naming this particular dish "Chili con Caffé." Yup...there's coffee in that there chili! 

After doubling the recipe, we had a vat o' chili to eat for Sunday night dinner and a few school lunches after that. Plus some to share, of course. It was truly delicious, and perfect for these dark and cozy late autumn days. With the blend of meats, variety of beans, slight chipotle/hot sauce heat, and intriguing dark coffee notes, its had plenty of heartiness and depth of flavor. Thank you to Lisa from Authentic Suburban Gourmet for sharing the recipe. It's a keeper!

Chili con Caffé

adapted from "Coffee Chili" on Authentic Suburban Gourmet

Ingredients:

2 pounds "meat loaf mix" of ground beef, ground veal and ground pork

2 onions, diced

2 15-ounce cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 15-ounce cans black beans, undrained 

1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

5-6 tablespoons chili powder

3-4 tablespoons tomato paste

2 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes

1 cup your favorite salsa

2 chipotle peppers, chopped

Hot sauce (we like Cholula), kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

2 cups brewed coffee

Brown the ground meat in a large pot, breaking up the meat as it cooks. Add the diced onions and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat for 30 minutes, then turn down heat and simmer for one hour. Serve with chips or cornbread with shredded cheese, chopped green onions, sour cream, cilantro, or any other of your favorite chili accoutrements.

UPDATE: Go HERE to see what Annie of Annie's Noms did with our recipe for Peppermint Bliss Bark.

Secret Recipe Club - June

Brownies with a Twist

Chris writes: The school year is finally winding down. Exams are being graded. Papers are being handed back with sighs of relief, regardless of the grade. Prom pictures are being taken. Retirement parties are being given. Summer is fast upon us. Finally, time to cook again.

This month as part of this our SecretRecipeClub community blog we were asked to choose from Kristy's blog Gastronomical Sovereignty. This blog has it all: appetizers ranging from bruschetta to fried squash blossoms with chevre, soups, salads and mains for all of the ‘vores” (that’s carnivore, herbivore and omnivore for you non-biology-teachers out there), as well as a nice selection of sides and sauces. But most importantly, it has desserts. Yeah, that is the one that caught my attention. When I stumbled upon the brownie recipe from a guestblogger that used bacon fat and maple syrup as its primary ingredients I thought, “Yep. We have a winner!”.

This recipe is designed to make 4 to 6 ramekin chocolate lava brownies. Since I was only able to locate two of my ramekins I felt an experiment was in order and tried making them in a cupcake pan instead. It didn't turn out as bad as I thought it was going to. Actually, as I look across the rack of the dozen small coffee-infused, maple-bacon chocolate lava cakes one word keeps coming to mind -- “breakfast”. Think about it: bacon, eggs, maple syrup, coffee AND chocolate! That's a breakfast that would make Bruce Jenner happy. Well... the Bruce Jenner from our childhood that is. 

Yeah, tomorrow may be Monday and it may be the start of the last week school, but starting off my day with one of these cakes is going to make things a whole lot easier. This recipe is as easy to make, as it is delicious to eat. A big 'Thanks' to Kristy for turning us on to a new guilty pleasure. We have plans on revisiting her blog soon to try a few of her more healthy meals.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 cup of strong coffee (if you aren't a coffee fan, chai tea might be tasty)
1/2 cup bacon grease (liquid or room temperature)
1 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup flour 
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder (We used Dark Chocolate powder)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

What to Do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, blend wet ingredients in a food processor, add dry ingredients and process until just mixed. Pour batter into into 4-6 small ramekins or a small baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes and let the brownies sit for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serves 4-6. Refrigerate leftovers.

Dry ingredients

Mixed with wet ingredients

Whisk

Pour

Bake

Done!

Secret Recipe Club: Gingerbread Coffee

Today is “reveal day” for our group of the Secret Recipe Club, created by Amanda of Amanda's Cookin'. The club has grown so quickly that Amanda has had to create four different SRC groups, and we are in Group C. Each month, the participants are assigned a blog to try a recipe from, but the bloggers don't know who has their blog until reveal day (which is today!). It's really fun both to try other foodies' recipes and to see what they do with your own.

Our November assignment was The Avid Appetite, written by food lover Rachel, who has tons of great recipes on her blog, from savory to sweet. One that really caught our eye was the recipe for making gingerbread coffee syrup. Rather than paying ridiculous prices for specialty coffee drinks, Rachel offers ideas on how to make them at home. This particular one was calling our name as we enter the chilly holiday season. We know it will be great for Thanksgiving morning when we're out with the rest of the neighborhood watching the Manchester Road Race (in its 75th year!).

Take molasses

Add brown sugar, spices and water and let it become syrup

 

Not being fans of sugar substitutes, the only "substitute" we made to Rachel's recipe was to use real brown sugar rather than Splenda. Sweet, warm and full of gingerbread spiciness, this coffee reminded us of the coziness of the holidays, and is one we'll make again and again.

Gingerbread Coffee

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons molasses

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

coffee, prepared the way you like it                                                        

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine molasses, brown sugar, waer, cinnamon and ginger. Continue cooking, stirring often, until mixture thickens and has a syrupy consistency, about five minutes. Meanwhile, prepare hot (or iced!) coffee the way you like it. Add two tablespoons of gingerbread syrup to coffee, stir well and enjoy by a warm fire.

Foodie Book Friday: The Various Flavors of Coffee

If one could sum up how a typical foodie feels about food and wine, I think a good word would be “passion,” and passion is what Anthony Capella’s novel The Various Flavors of Coffee is about. This, and the fact that coffee is at the center of everything that occurs in the story, is what makes this novel our choice for today’s Foodie Book Friday.

The central character is Robert Wallis, a struggling poet and man-about-town in turn-of-the-century London. A chance encounter at a café brings him much needed employment but also changes the entire course of his life. His new employer is Samuel Pinker - coffee distributor, entrepreneur, visionarynd father. Pinker’s passion is his business, and he wants to create a tasting guide for coffee that will help him buy and sell it more effectively. He thinks Wallis’s writing skills and distinguished tastes make him the man for the job.

But this is only the beginning. A hesitant yet loyal relationship between Wallis and Pinker’s eldest, Emily, develops as they work on the tasting guide together. When Wallis is sent to Africa to oversee the development of a coffee plantation for Pinker, he is seduced into a passionate love affair by a defiant slave who changes his outlook on life and love. Upon his return to England, he finds it is not only he who has changed – Emily is in a dispassionate marriage to a government official, Pinker’s business ambitions have become much more grandiose, and the suffragist movement (Emily’s true passion) is in full swing.

Although it is tempting to focus only on the intriguing characters of this novel, the historical events happening behind the scenes are also enthralling. Capella offers up the tale of coffee – from plant to pour – which is interesting in itself. Yet he also teaches lessons in the economics of the industrial revolution, the abolitionist and early feminist movements, and the colonization of Africa, all the while showing how each of these affects not only those very characters but also the society at large.

Now, to the foodie part. This is the third of Capella’s novels to feature food, making him an appealing author for lovers of fiction and flavor alike. His descriptions of “the various flavors of coffee” and other foods are skillful and mouth-watering. As if brewing a cup of the title’s elixir, the author craftily blends story with history, violence with romance, sweetness with bitterness, all of which only serve to make the reader thirst for another. Grind some freshly roasted beans, make a big pot, and dig into this passion-filled novel.