“We must unlearn the constellation to see the stars.” ~ Jack Gilbert from the poem “Tear it down”
If you are going to eat a real MGTOW diet, there is only one correct way to do it. Anyone saying otherwise is a feminist plant sent by the Illuminati to co-opt MGTOW and to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. They are shameless profiteers; modern day Judas’ who have betrayed….
Oh, wait, that was for YouTube. Kindly allow me a fresh start.
Eating healthy, inexpensive and supremely flavorful requires both knowledge and flexibility. Sure, there are some deal breakers. Refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), trans fats, hydrogenated oils, enriched, processed wheat products and the like can all be rightfully called BAD foods. Some of them are very toxic. Even then there are some “bad” foods, like refined sugar, which can be a part of a healthy diet if sufficient moderation and thoughtfulness is employed.
There are also “healthy” eating habits which can be taken too far. Juicing, for instance, has a lot of potential health benefits. You can concentrate the nutritional value of many fruits and vegetables in their natural, uncooked state into a tasty, efficient drink. This is particularly beneficial in a society that tends to skimp on important vegetables.
However, if you are not careful those wonderful juices can produce drinks that are high enough in calories to give Starbucks a run for the money, and which also contain very unhealthy levels of naturally occurring sugars.
This is where food knowledge and flexibility with that knowledge becomes critical. Fortunately, in the age of the internet knowledge is readily available; almost too much of it given the agenda-driven work done by some “nutritionists” who are actually puppets for different interests in the food industry.
That makes information such as found in the following video so valuable. It was posted to the comments of the last column I wrote. I had never seen it before, but have watched it three times recently. It is lengthy, but very well presented, engaging and worth every minute to watch. I highly recommend you put it on your schedule.
If anything else, watching that should have given you some idea of just how much you have been lied to about food and for how long. It also provides a solid launching platform for understanding the biochemistry of eating.
I figure with the video, at least for those that watch it, this will be enough of a soap box stand on nutritional info. Time to get to some vittles.
In the last column I talked about making ribs. Then I remembered that not everyone lives in Houston, so outdoor cooking may not be as appealing for many of you at this time.
This week I opted instead for a great, inexpensive and nutritious basic which is appealing to many a man. Chili. It’s a Texas classic, universally loved and a cold weather home run of a meal. You can make it in a large stock pot, or in a slow cooker. I prefer the slow cooker because I don’t have to spend a lot of time stirring it to avoid it getting scorched on the bottom of the pot, but don’t let not having a slow cooker get in the way. This recipie will be with a large pot in mind.
First, to make good chili you need good chili powder. And to have good chili powder, you have to make it yourself. Trust me, once you make your own and taste it you will never buy it in a store again. The only catch here is that buying the correct chili peppers is usually a little more expensive than buying the processed bullshit powders in residence at your grocery store.
Growing your own peppers and drying them is relatively easy and is a better long term option, but suffice it to say for now that the marginal added expense of making your own chili powder is more than worth it for the quality of you get for doing so.
OK, let’s make some chili powder.
For a reasonable supply you will need the following, all of which are available on amazon.com, if not on the shelves of your grocer.
6 ancho chilies, dried, stemmed and seeded.
6 cascabel chilies, dried, stemmed and seeded.
6 chilies de arbol, dried, stemmed and seeded.
Some side notes about the chilies. The anchos are large peppers, generally mild in heat, with a slightly fruity taste. They have a tendency to not be dry enough when purchased to make good powder. This issue can easily be solved by slicing open, removing seeds (which you need to do anyway), and allow them to sit in the open air with the insides exposed for a couple of hours.
Regarding the chilies de arbol. This is your heat. They are the smaller, thin peppers that pack a punch. You can adjust them in numbers to suite your taste for hot food.
OK, once your chilies are prepared, you want to set aside the following ingredients.
3 tablespoons of garlic powder
4 tablespoons of ground cumin*
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons of smoked Hungarian paprika (yes, Hungarian is superior)
*Supe up your chili powder a little more by roasting and grinding your own cumin seeds. Simply put a small skillet on medium heat and toss the cumin seeds in. Stir with a wooden spoon for just a while. You will know when they are ready because the oils start to release and you will get a whiff of that. As soon as you smell it remove it from the heat and allow to cool for a minute. You don’t want to burn your cumin seeds.
Then put them in the coffee grinder and pulse it over and over till they are powdered. Viola! Fresh roasted cumin that is better than the ground cumin from the shelf.
If you don’t have a coffee mill, you can do this in a molcajete, but I don’t suggest it. Coffee mills are cheap, and molcajetes are a pain in the ass, even if useful for other projects.
Moving ahead, there are two ways to go. I first use a food processor with a serrated blade. Place all the peppers in the food processor and run till they are shredded. It will be a rough shred, not at all like a powder, but that is where the coffee mill comes in. And you can, piecemeal, take the peppers directly to the coffee mill. Same result, just a little more effort.
Use the coffee mill, pulsing regularly till the peppers look like powder. Refill the mill with peppers and repeat till all are processed.
Combine the processed peppers with the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Your results should look something like this (a sample of my last batch).
Now, go to your spice cabinet, remove the store-bought chili powder and place directly into nearest trash bin. Now, you can make chili.
Paul’s Texas Chili
First, you must understand, that no self-respecting Texan will make chili that contains beans. Sorry, I know I just preached about flexibility, but there are some lines to be drawn in the legume patch. Beans are a great food. But putting them in chili matches up like a tuxedo and a pair of brown shoes. Just don’t do it.
For your chili you will need the following:
1 ½ pounds lean ground beef of your choice (also, turkey will do if you want faux, Yankee chili like they eat in New Hampshire and Detroit)
1 (2 if you like the pain like I do) jalapeno pepper, roasted, seeded and finely chopped.*
1 pablano pepper, roasted, deseeded and chopped*
1 medium to large Spanish (white) onion, diced.
20 oz dark ale or beer (alcohol will cook out completely)
28 oz stewed tomatoes
15 oz tomato sauce
3 tablespoons homemade chili powder.
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh roasted ground cumin (I know, TDOM, that is a lot of cumin. Trust me).
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro (per bowl, optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Brown meat in skillet, drain excess grease and set aside.
Heat up large soup pot on medium heat. Add olive oil and then onions. Cook, stirring regularly to sweat the onions. They will become translucent and soft. Should take between 5-10 minutes max.
Add meat and stir in.
Add all other ingredients except tomato paste and cilantro – wet ingredients first, then spices. Raise heat to medium high and bring pot to slow boil, stirring often to keep the bottom from burning.
Reduce heat to low and cover. Allow to cook (simmer) for 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Be sure when you stir to get to the bottom of the pot. Make sure nothing is sticking.
Remove cover, stir in tomato paste and gently raise heat so that it maintains simmering with cover off. Cook for an additional hour to reduce and thicken, stirring every 10 minute or so.
Grab a bowl full (sprinkle with cilantro if you like), a limited amount of saltine crackers, a beer, and a chair in front of a football game.
Forget the sammich and enjoy life.
