Homemade Chili Recipe

MAN’s Tex-Mex style Chili

Total prep time: 5-15 minutes

Total cook time: about 30 minutes

Ingredients:

About 1 lb. of ground beef (I go with the lower fat one. You could also try using ground turkey or pork if you prefer those meats).

¼ of an onion chopped

1 small clove of garlic (1/2 a large clove)

1 can of diced tomatoes (I think it is 8 oz)

1 can of Light Red Kidney Beans (Same size can as the tomatoes)

1 small can of tomato paste

1 can of Old El Paso Green Chiles (normally near the salsa area of the grocery store)

About a ¼ cup of Chili Powder (I don’t really measure this, just add to taste)

About a Tbsp of Red Pepper (once again, add to taste. Too much makes the chili really hot)

About a Teaspoon of salt (again, add to taste)

About a Tsp of McCormick’s Broiled Steak seasoning (add to taste, contains MSG)

A pinch of Cinnamon

A pinch of Clove

1 ½ Tbsp of beer (not necessary, but adds a little flavor)

1 or 2 chopped hot peppers (I like Finger Hot Peppers, can use Jalapeños) (not necessary)

Hardware:

1 Large sized pan with kind of high sides (I use a 12″ non-stick pan).

Pop Culture Connections

I was just thinking about movies, tv, music, books, and Netflix. Anyone familiar with Netflix knows that it has a rating system that offers recommendations based on your other ratings (can you tell I wasn’t an English major in college?).

I like the Netflix system, but I started thinking that it isn’t just movies that are related to each other, all sorts of pop culture/arts are interrelated.

Based on this, someone should develop a website that allows for rating all sorts of media products. Then they would in turn recommend other products you may enjoy. For example, the kind of person who enjoyed “High Fidelity” the book, may be interested in the latest Bruce Springsteen album (I couldn’t say for sure, but it is a possibility).

So, the consumer would sign into the website (maybe like Myspace/Facebook). Then they can rate any movies they have seen, books (including comics) they have read, music they have enjoyed, or TV shows they have watched. The website would then offer up recommendations. On the recommendations, the consumer would have the option to sample the product (movie trailers, music clips or streams, book excerpts, etc.). Also, the site would provide links to purchase the product (this is how the site makes money). Really, the site could just link to amazon, but maybe for music link to that Apple website (if anyone uses that anymore).

Does any of this make sense? Has this website already been created and I’m just missing out? What do you think?

Wow: the Last Man

In case you don’t know, Brian K. Vaughan’s “Y: the Last Man” issued its 10th and final trade paperback (TPB – you might know it better as a graphic novel) this past Tuesday (July 1).

As soon as I found out that it was being released, I rushed over to the comic book shop on my lunch break (turns out there is a store less than two blocks away from my work. Once I got it home, I quickly realized that I couldn’t just pick up the new TPB and start reading it. It had been too long since I had last read the other books. So, I decided to start back from the beginning and work my way through.