Walt Disney's Chili and Beans

This recipe is from Mickey's Gourmet Cookbook from 1994. I've been wanting to try a new chili recipe and I haven't cooked anything from this book yet. I think I gave this book to my grandmother for her birthday when I was in college (might have been the earlier edition). I couldn't find it when she passed away so I ordered another copy from half.com.

All of the recipes in the book are from restaurants in the Disney restaurants, except of course the one I picked. This is supposedly Walt Disney's personal chili recipe. I have never used dried beans before and that was an adventure. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of ground beef and 2 pounds of dried pink pinto beans. I think it has to be a typo because after soaking the beans overnight, you're supposed to put them in a 2 quart sauce pan with 2 inches of water covering the beans. There's no way that you could possibly fit that many beans in a 2 quart sauce pan, let alone add two inches of water to it. So, I had to fill the 3 quart sauce pan up with what looked like half of the beans and I discarded the rest. Then I just barely had enough room at the top for a little under 2 inches of water. At the end when I combined the meat with the beans, it seemed like there was a high beans to meat ratio, maybe 60 percent beans and 40 percent meat. If I made it again, I would definitely use less beans.

I thought it tasted alright. You have to cook the beans with onions for 2 hours and simmer the meat with garlic, celery, canned tomatoes, chili powder, paprika, and thyme for an hour. Then you combine everything for another 30 minutes. I got tired of waiting after two hours and just combined everything and made a bowl for myself. I suspect it will taste better tomorrow. I think it's a decent recipe and it's pretty healthy.

I Googled "Walt Disney Chili and Beans" and several different recipes came up. This site has the closet to what is in the book: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/15/WaltDisneysChiliAndBeans65030.shtml



This is what it looked like when I combined the beans and the meat mixture->

This week I weeded one cookbook off my shelves. I'm getting rid of Willard Scott's All American Cookbook. Most of the book is made up of anecdotes and the few recipes that are in it don't appeal to me. They seem to be a little unhealthy, too.

Guinness Brownies

I don't remember how I came across this recipe but it's from about.com. Here's the link: http://homecooking.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/blbrownie1.htm

They are super rich and chocolatey but I don't think I will put it in my recipe collection. This is kind of a cake-consistency brownie. I'm more of a fan of the chewy kind. It was weird putting Guinness in the batter. I don't think I mixed it long enough because when it came out of the oven, it looked like a science experiment. Maybe it was the beer making it rise. I don't know... When it cooled the bumps settled and it was flat.

Sort of Tandoori Chicken

This week I chose the Bristol, Connecticut Hospital's cook book from 1988 called Tastefully Done : What's Cooking? at Bristol Hospital. (I don't know why the question mark is where it is in the title. I took this from my late grandmother's house when we were cleaning out her things when she passed on. This is the first time I really looked at it. I'm thinking I won't want to cook most of the recipes. So, it's a candidate for weeding from my "collection".

This Tandoori Chicken recipe from page 78 looked pretty good and easy. You just had to marinate it overnight in yogurt, vinegar, and spices. I mixed up the marinade last night and baked it tonight. It was okay. The recipe said "brown vinegar" and I stupidly thought that meant balsamic vinegar, but I think it meant malt vinegar. I could really taste the balsamic and I don't think that was how it was supposed to taste. I don't know if I'll make this again. It was okay, but I'm not sure I want it again. I'll eat the leftovers, of course. I got kind of lazy and made Rice-a-Roni with it instead of using basmati rice. As you can see, I wasn't too lazy to garnish it with lemons ;)

Busy Week

I've been so busy this week I decided I'm not going to cook any new dinners. I have been cooking dinner every night except tonight I went to a place called Thai Flare in Naugatuck, CT. It was decent for a Valley restaurant. We don't really have high cuisine in the Housatonic Valley. I was the only one sitting eating in the restaurant. So, I suspect they do more of a takeout business. The few people who came in for takeout kind of looked at me funny.

Anyway, I went to Naugatuck which is like 15 miles from where I live in Derby to attend an author talk at the public library there. The author was Mike Shalin and he was talking about his recently released book Donnie Baseball : The Definitive Biography of Don Mattingly. The program was supposed to start at 6:30 but there were a bunch of men buying the book so it didn't start on time. I was a little disappointed that the librarian who put on the program didn't ensure that it started on time. I guess that's just me, expecting everything to be perfect. It was a little annoying watching all these silly people trying to talk to the author and just wondering when it was going to start. When it finally started, it was a very good program. It was interesting hearing the stories of a reporter and his life following baseball teams. I don't think the book got a good review so I didn't buy a copy for myself. (I might check it out of the library later) I bought one for my friend Mary's son because he is a huge Don Mattingly fan. I kept thinking when I was driving home that I had my picture taken with Don Mattingly when I was in high school and what an awful haircut I had in that picture.

For cooking something new this week, I chose a muffin recipe from Yankee Magazine's Country Inn Breakfast Cookbook. There's no ISBN or copyright date in the book. The listing for it on Amazon says it's from 1970 but I don't believe that. I think I must have gotten this bundled with a copy of Yankee Magazine or free with a subscription. If I subscribed it would have been in the late 1980's or early 1990's. I have a lot of these small magazine type cookbooks. I really need to go through them and decide if I am going to keep them. I am definitely going to keep this cookbook. I made the Raspberry Lemon Muffins on page 34. The recipe says its from the Richard's Bed and Breakfast in Narragansett, Rhode Island. I think these muffins are one of the best recipes I've made for muffins ever. I just ate one when it was warm so I hope they taste just as good when they cool tomorrow. I am going to bring the remaining 11 that are left to work so I don't eat them all myself. I used fresh raspberries instead of frozen but the recipe says you can use either. They also have a delicious pecan strudel topping that finishes them off very nicely.

Sassy Meatloaf

So, this week I didn't feel like cooking at all. I had cereal for dinner last night and Monday night I think I continued eating my lentil stew from last week. I have so much lentil stew now. I hope it freezes well. Forcing myself to cook tonight, I decided to go for meatloaf. I don't really have a favorite meatloaf recipe. It's not really something I cook that often. I think I have a few good recipes that make pretty tasty loaves. One of them is Jacques Pepin's recipe that calls for ginger and I think ground turkey from his "Simple and Healthy Cooking" book.

Since I'm cooking new recipes, I chose Sassy Meatloaf on page 217 of "Simply the Best : 250 Prize-Winning Recipes" from Weight Watchers (1997). The recipe looks pretty healthy. You use lean ground beef, oatmeal, plum tomatoes, mushrooms, shredded carrots and salsa. It tastes pretty good. I don't know if I would call it "sassy" though. For a side dish I pan-cooked some spinach with olive oil and a clove of garlic. I think I overdid it with the garlic because the garlic taste was pretty strong as I was eating the meatloaf. The recipe was tasty though and now I have five more servings of meatloaf. I am going to try to put them in small freezer bags and hope that they don't break up when I put them in the freezer.

I use this cookbook often. So, maybe I should have chosen another cookbook to find a recipe so I could try to de-clutter. I actually set one cookbook aside for donation last week if you can believe it. I think it was something I picked up in a dollar store when I was in college so I don't know if it really counts. At least it's not taking up space on the shelf anymore.

Weekend Recap

Friday Yankee Game - surrounded by obnoxious adolescent Canadians screaming "Let's Go Toronto" in my ear. I've been reassured by my ticket rep that I won't be surrounded by middle-schoolers for the rest of the season but so far I'm 3 for 3. So, it doesn't look good.

Saturday Cracker Barrel and Buffalo Wild Wings (unhealthy choices, eh). Watched "Red" and "Megamind" both were good.

Sunday - walked 16,000 steps in the city. Went to the auto show. I don't recommend Mickey Mantle's restaurant on Central Park South.