In Search of Chili, Part Two

While searching for the perfect chili recipe to make, I stuck with the cowboy theme and perused the cookbook in the photo. Sure enough, several good chili recipes from out there in Marlboro Country. There is even a vegetarian chili recipe. However, I doubt that one is going to make the cut. While most of the chili I usually come across locally is made with ground beef, several recipes use some bacon in the recipe. I'm not a hard core vegetarian so a little meat wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but I'd like to come up with a dish that doesn't rely on the meat to make it palatable. I'm a fan of beans, so chili con frijoles as opposed to chili con carne would work just fine for me. One of the problems I have is a lack of ability to read the list of ingredients in a recipe and know what it will taste like when done or why you would use canned whole tomatoes, chopped, when it would seem more logical to just use diced tomatoes from the start. The Missus is a whiz at all that sort of thing but I like to do all my household stuff in the mornings, she's strictly afternoons and evenings. I'll fumble my way to a decent bowl of chili before long. It's just the beginning of the winter after all.

The second batch of persimmon bread. I had enough persimmon puree left over after the first batch of bread to try making some persimmon cookies but since I had some more persimmons in the bucket, I went ahead and pureed the rest of them and made a couple more loaves of the bread. The first two loaves were a bit darker in color and a little prettier on top. I'm not sure what the difference was with the second batch but I had to bake them for about 12 minutes longer also. I used some brandy in the first batch and rum in the second - that might be it. I won't know how they taste until sometime this winter since I wrapped them up and put them in the freezer. I've been eating my way through one of the loaves from the first batch and it's damn good. I've still got one loaf of rhubarb bread in the freezer also, so I'm in good shape for the winter. I would like to try my hand at making fruitcake. The fruitcake from Gethsemani Farms is excellent - might be the Kentucky bourbon - or it might just be the angel the Monks at the Abbey have looking over their shoulders. You can order it along with their fudge and other items but it's a bit on the expensive side. Quality rarely comes cheap, though.

The weather was nice yesterday so I got out and put the cover on the AC unit, drained the garden hose and got it put away and fixed the lights on the old Allis. The old girl really needs to be rewired. I discussed that with my neighbor the mechanic but I never got around to ordering a new harness. It looked like I might be better off just replacing everything one wire at a time because the tractor has been fitted with an alternator rather than the original generator along with a few other mods. That'll be next year now. It started right up, the lights work and I ran it down the lane to charge the battery a bit. I still need to check all the fluids and put some air in one of the front tires but no biggie there. It'll be ready when the snow flies.

The lights for the motorcycle carrier arrived. I'm going to get back on that project so I can haul my bike to Indy for service. I'd like to get that done before too much longer. I won't be riding it until next season but I'd like to get it taken care of before the weather gets too bad.