One of my gripes about cooking is that it is so difficult to cook for one person, unless you plan on eating the same meal for 3 days. Chili -- or probably the correct terminology is chili con carne -- is one of the worst offenders. I have never seen a chili recipe that didn't feed at least 10 people. I've seen some recipes that use 3 lbs of meat -- like 1 1/2 of ground beef and another pound or more of ground lamb or pork or something. I would never make that sort of chili, because I grew up with a mother who always cooked for 10 with about a pound of ground beef. Mom never really adjusted to cooking for 2, but that's another story.
Personally, I like my chili with a lot higher bean to meat ratio than most recipes call for. When I've made white chili, I used 3 cans of northern beans instead of 2, because I like it that way. I have only recently (this week) learned to appreciate dried beans.
I learned that with dried beans, you can reduce a recipe for chili pretty drastically.
The last time I bought meat was a couple of weeks ago. I had this big family pack of chicken breasts that I had divvied up and frozen, and since chicken all the time is boring, I bought a pound of ground sirloin, because it was the same price as chuck and I figured I wouldn't have to rinse that shit with the lower fat content. I split it into roughly quarter-pound pieces, and froze 3/4 of it (because I used 1/4 lb to make burritos).
So, this week, I figured I could make chili for one with 1/4 lb of meat. I started with about 2/3 of a cup of dried beans, since that looks like a very small amount of beans. I did the quick-cook thing, boiling them for a few minutes and leaving them to soak afterward for an hour. They still seemed a bit firm for me, so after draining and rinsing, I simmered them in fresh water for about an hour. I browned the beef with about a handful of chopped onion, drained off the grease, then added the beef & onions to the drained beans, added a can of tomato sauce, sprinkled in some oregano, chili powder (I threw that canister out afterwards, because it must've been 10 years old), smooshed a clove of garlic in it, and I think I threw some cumin there, too. I STILL had to eat it 2 days in a row. Rachel Ray (fuck her, I'm not giving her the extra "a", ala Michael K) often cooks shit using tomato paste from a tube. Maybe there's a way to use tomato paste instead of tomato sauce? Because with these ingredients, the consistency of the chili was more soupy than I wanted it, so if I reduced the beans and meat, it would have been much worse with that entire can of tomato sauce. I've seen little cans of tomato paste, but neither my local Meijer nor Kroger carry tubes of tomato paste. It figures, though, that Rachel buys gourmet tomato paste to make her cheapass beefaroni recipes.
The point of this is that I think mixing beans with meat or poultry goes a long way towards making a person satisfied with the meal, while making it less fatty. I don't know. Beans seem pretty healthy to me, but what do I know? Last week, I cooked a quarter cup of northern beans, and managed to make 3 bigass burritos for lunch, dinner, lunch with the beans and 1/2 a chicken breast. I don't know why Taco Hell isn't pairing chicken with northern beans for cheap ass burritos. I should probably suggest it. Maybe they would put me in commercials, like that woman who makes "gourmet" bowls of mixed shit for them.
ANyhow, my cooking hasn't freaked out my cats. Here they are, sharing the chair next to my computer chair in the kitchen.
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