March 28, 2024

The royal chili cook-off

It’s soup season and I love soup.

I probably make vegetable beef with rice most often. It’s quick and easy and I cheat — tomato juice, beef stock, rice, frozen peas and corn. The most work I do is brown some hamburger and turn on the stove. There’s nothing fancy about it, but this ‘dump and stir’ soup is a win-win for me when I get home from work on a chilly evening ... delicious.

There’s the all time favorite chicken noodle soup. I think in my house, this one is requested most often. I always make the noodles from scratch, so they’re nice and thick. Of course anytime I make noodles, I have to make a double batch if anyone’s around. It never fails that half of my noodles don’t make it to the stock pot. They seem to just mysteriously disappear as they’re drying. I’ve even tried the age-old threat “you’ll get worms if you eat them raw.” No one buys it.

Lately though, when the kids are home, they’ve been asking for chicken and gnocchi soup. Now that none of them are living with us, it’s easier for me to take requests and I find I’m more agreeable to catering to their wants — on a limited basis. When they were younger, their options were most generally ‘you eat what I fix or you go without.’ Yeah, I’m old school in that respect. It’s also the difference in a harried mom raising three kids and an empty-nester who grew up listening to the Harry Chapin song “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

So anyway...

The hubbs enjoys doing some cooking on occasion and he loves to make chili. What better aroma to come home to than chili. Right?

Now, let me make this perfectly clear — I like boring chili. Very bland chili. The kind you could actually feed to an infant. As in tomatoes, water, hamburger, baked beans, salt and a teeny sprinkle of chili powder. See? Boring. It barely qualifies as chili. And after nearly 35 years of marriage, you’d think he’d know that.

But hubby fancies himself some kind of pseudo-chef. He likes to add “things” when he cooks ... thinks he’s creating some sort of masterpiece. He’s been cooking chili for years and it’s never the same ingredients, never the same taste. Sometimes there’s BBQ sauce. Sometimes jalapeños. I’ve found mushrooms in there. Sometimes green peppers. If he can find it in the pantry, it may end up in his chili.

One evening when I walked in the door from work and my eyes started watering ... I knew I was in for some gut-wrenching, exorcism inducing, cowboy style chili. Bless his pea-pickin’ heart for stepping up and cooking, but seriously! I mean, he was so proud of himself that night, he even boasted about using my mini-chopper!

I had to ask him, “Do you even know me?”

Contact Dana King at dking@shawmedia.com

Dana King

Dana King

Multitasking duties between the Newton News, PCM Explorer and the Jasper County Tribune.