Chicken Tortilla Style Soup

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion
1 lime
1/2 tsp each coarse ground black pepper, dried oregano
1 tsp each caldo de pollo (chicken bullion), kosher salt
1.5 teaspoons each ground cumin, curry powder, ground new mexico chile
3 tablespoons choped fresh cilantro
2 Knorr garlic minicubes
1 Knorr chipotle minicube
7 ounce can fire roasted, diced green chile
14.5 ounce can fire roasted, diced tomato with garlic
29 ounce can hominy (drained and rinsed)
4 14.5 ounce cans chicken broth
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Combine your spices, bullion, and minicubes (crushed) in a bowl and set aside. You can usually find Knorr minicubes and caldo de pollo bullion in the Hispanic foods section of your local supermarket. If you can't get them, you can substitute 2 chopped garlic cloves, a cube of regular chicken bullion, and a seeded, chopped chipotle pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in your stock pot and begin sauteeing the onions over medium high heat for about 5 minutes, giving them some time to soften and mellow. Add the can of diced green chile and crank the heat up to high and sautee for another 2-3 minutes so you can boil off some of the liquid given off by the onions and chiles.

Add the spices and stir until they bloom and become fragrant, then add the tomato and crank back down to medium high. Cook this for about 5 minutes to get all the flavors melded. Add your chicken broth and hominy. While bringing that to a boil, zest the lime into the pot, then add the juice of the lime and a little bit of the lime pulp.

When the mix is up to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer, and let it bubble away for around 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes, prep your chicken.

While you butterfly each breast and season with salt and pepper, get the last tablespoon of oil hot in a sautee pan. Brown the breasts over high heat, 4 minutes a side, then remove to a cutting board, cover loosely with foil, and let rest for 10 minutes (if you prefer you can grill the breasts). After 10 minutes, cube them up into nice bite-size pieces.

Your thirty minute simmer should have just completed about now. Skim the fat from the soup, then add the chicken pieces and any juices on the cutting board into the soup pot.

Bring the soup back to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer covered for another 15-20 minutes. Around the end of that period, chop your cilantro. Add the cilantro to the soup, stir, and let it bubble away another 5 minutes before removing from the heat and giving 10-15 minutes to cool a little.

Ladle the soup into a bowl, sprinkle with some shredded cheese, mix in a half a handful of broken tortilla strips, and serve.

First thing I found out, caffeine is cheap. I picked up 400 grams of caffeine from Amazon.com for less than $23 when I "subscribed" to auto-shipping it. The average can of Mountain Dew contains 54 milligrams of caffeine. That means I picked up the same amount of caffeine you'd find in 7,400 cans of Mountain Dew for the cost of .3 cents per can. With coffee running 2x-3x the caffeine of Mountain Dew, I realized the caffeine in that $3 cuppa from Starbucks has a street value of less than a penny.

Second thing I found out, caffeine is bitter. If you just take the powder, stir it into a drink, and chug, it's mostly going to taste bad. I say mostly because putting milk in your coffee seems to have some science behind it. Of the different things I stirred straight caffeine powder into, milk neutralized the bitterness fastest and best. A little milk, some Kahlua flavored syrup, and a scoop of caffeine... perfect buzz shake.

I researched ways to neutralize and minimize the bitterness and found out three things:

1. Caffeine powder needs time to dissolve. If you drink the beverage right after stirring it in, it will be more bitter than if you give it a few minutes.
2. The warmer the water, the more caffeine you can dissolve in it. Boiling water can dissolve 670 grams of caffeine per liter and hold it in solution. But as that water gets cooler, the caffeine will precipitate back out. At room temperature, the solubility of caffeine in water drops to about 21 grams per liter.
3. The best way to add it to beverages is to dissolve it in water first. Not only does that pre-dissolve it so you don't need to wait, but adding powders to carbonated beverages makes them react almost like you dropped in a Mentos.

Learning the last bullet point allowed me to start successfully adding caffeine to beverages. Having a handy source of pre-dissolved caffeine in an easily measured, non-powder form made experimentation a lot easier. Measuring out 100 milligrams of powder is very difficult and precise work, but if you dissolve a larger, more easily measured amount in an easily measured amount of water, you have a quick and easy way of pouring caffeine shots into carbonated and non-carbonated beverages. Here's my recipe for caffeinated water...

Put 10 grams caffeine in a large measuring cup (1 liter or greater). Pour in enough boiling water to bring it up to 1 liter. Stir. When it's cooled to room temperature, put it in a bottle.

Now you have 1 liter of solution at a concentration of 10 milligrams of caffeine per milliliter of solution. A teaspoon is 5 milliliters, or 50 milligrams of caffeine, which gives you the approximate caffeine of a Mountain Dew. A tablespoon is 15 milliliters, which gives you 150 milligrams of caffeine, approximately equal to a strong cup of coffee (anywhere from 80-180 milligrams), a 5 Hour Energy shot (138 milligrams), or 2 cans of Red Bull (80 milligrams per can). You can add as much as you feel you really need to any drink.

From this point on, it's all about personal preference. I found a quick and easy energy drink that costs less than 25 cents is to take a 1/2 liter bottle of inexpensive drinking water (Costco's is about 10 cents a bottle), take a sip, add a packet of Hawaiian punch or Wyler's lemonade (available at 8 to 10 packets for a dollar at Walmart or Dollar Tree stores), and pour in up to 1 tablespoon of the caffeinated water solution. Cheap and easy energy punch.

If you want to add it to sodas, remember that it is bitter. You will want to add it to sweeter sodas or add a little sweetened syrup. For example, you can pick up a 2.5 liter bottle of lemon lime Shasta at Dollar Tree, giving you an 8 ounce serving for 10 cents. Add a tablespoon of caffeinated water and a tablespoon or two of grenadine and you've got what I call a "Shirley Temple on Speed". Meanwhile, the more sugary Shasta Tiki Punch can stand up to a couple teaspoons of the caffeinated water without help.

ONE CAVEAT ON CAFFEINE: Just as with many legal recreational substances, caffeine is lovely in small doses, and toxic in large doses. It's hard to consume enough caffeine to kill yourself, but you can. If you consume just 5% of what you need to have a heart attack, you can start feeling sick with symptoms like a panic attack. If you know your limits, pay attention to them. If you don't, proceed cautiously.

But What About Vitamins?

Many energy drinks contain propietary blends of herbs, vitamins, and amino acids. The B vitamins are very popular, as are vitamin C and the amino acid Taurine. Some of them contain megadoses while others contain more moderate amounts. This is where things get tricky. You can buy various vitamin supplements in powder or liquid form. They can be bitter, sour, not dissolve well... I made a bottle of "vitamin water" with a bunch of B vitamin complex capsules. It came out an ugly shade of a sort of orangey brown with powder floating on the surface, looking and sort of smelling like a bottle of scummy pond water.

If you like vitamin C, you can buy ascorbic acid, a powdered form of vitamin C. Adding it will be like squeezing some lemon into your drink, so if you use a lot, you'll need to add sweetener to compensate. And, as with any powdered supplement, dissolve it in water before adding it to carbonated beverages to prevent messes.

As much as I'd like to do custom mixes of vitamins and minerals, if it becomes too much work, it stops being something I can do regularly. Enter Vplenish, which is currently $25 for a 2,000 packet box at Amazon (with free shipping and a $5 discount code which is available on the product page as of this writing). It looks like a packet of sweetener you'd get in a restaurant, but it's pretty much neutral in taste and can be stirred into non-carbonated drinks without needing any extra flavorings or sweeteners to compensate. Two packets of Vplenish gives you the approximate vitamin profile of generic vitamin enhanced waters. So, for less than 3 cents, you can vitamin enhance your beverage.

Note that these aren't megadoses like you'll find in some multivitamins or B complex supplements. A packet of Vplenish provides 10% - 30% of the RDA of its various components instead of 1,000% - 3,000%. But the thing about megadoses is there's a valid question of whether your body needs that much or can even use it. Common wisdom is that most of these megadoses are like trying to put more gas in your car when the tank is full. The rest just spills out and makes you pee pretty colors.

Vplenish and the vitamin enhanced waters/punches with low doses take a more moderate approach of topping off the tank instead of flooding it. I take a multi-vitamin and a B supplement in the morning, then top off periodically during the day.

As for other additives like Taurine, guarana, yerba mate, and any number of other vitamins or minerals, you can usually find powdered or liquid versions at your local health food or supplement mart, and you can almost always find them online. Just remember to pre-dissolve any powders you plan to mix into sodas.

Advice For Energy Shots

In these cases, I tend to make a punch at quadruple strength, whether it's sugar free Hawaiian Punch or a punch mix. You're not going to have 6-8 ounces of the beverage to dillute the bitterness of the caffeine and all that sweetening power to counteract it. A quadruple strength punch allows you to get 5-6 ounces worth of punch flavor and sweetener into one shot. You can also do a mix with a flavored syrup at 2 or 3 parts water to 1 part syrup.

Use a 2 ounce shot glass, or save some of your energy shot bottles, wash them well, and re-use them with a funnel. Toss in two packets of Vplenish, two or three teaspoons of of your caffeine solution, and top off with your quadruple strength punch or watered down syrup. Give it a chug and you're good to go.

It all started when my Facebook friend, Ray Everett-Church, posted a link to a newspaper article on the growing popularity of small ramen shops. Unlike Top Ramen, these were noodle houses that slaved for hours to make the perfect noodle broth and were drawing a legion of American fans who were learning the difference between "real" ramen and the pale packaged imitation we knew here in America. It made me realize that I could make up some Top Ramen, "improve" the broth with a little soy sauce and ginger, and add some meat and vegetables to actually make it a passable meal that my two young sons might actually eat.

The general recipe is to warm a package of frozen broccoli, a package of frozen corn, and around a half pound of Chinese barbecue pork (chopped into bite-size pieces) in a mix of ramen broth and "improvements" while more broth comes to a boil and the ramen is cooked in it for a few minutes. Because my youngest is two years old and hot broth does not mix well with that age, the noodles are pulled from the broth pot and put in the veggies and meat pan to soak up the last of the improved broth and release a little starch to thicken whatever broth is not absorbed.

It's like porky, chickeny, Asian spaghetti, full of veggies, and the boys love it. I make it about twice a month as a special treat. Even my wife likes taking leftovers to work in her lunch. One day I'd love to step up my ramen game with a slow cooked broth and some higher quality noodles. But as a quick meal that's ready in about 20 minutes and gets my kids decent portions of three food groups, it's something I don't hate, and even though saving money isn't as high a priority as it was, it's still nice that the whole thing basically makes 6 portions for less than the cost of two Happy Meals.

But how do you make bacon jam? Apparently Martha Stewart had some thoughts on it recently, which brought some attention to some recipes around the web. As is my way, I went through a few, isolated what I felt was the core of the recipe, then added my own touches. Here is my recipe for bacon jam.

First a note on prepping the edamame (soybeans). I defrost frozen edamame, then put them in a bowl and cover them with boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then drain.

In an electric chopper or small food processor process together:
1 cup edamame
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 seeded roma tomato
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt

Process the mixture to a grainy consistency. Then add:
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp cumin
1/2 cup whole weat flour

Mix the ingredients until they become a dough and let rest 5 minutes to let the flour hydrate.

For balls, you can use a tablsepoon disher to scoop balls into a deep fryer (with the oil at 360-370 degrees), or you can form 1/2 thick patties and fry in a frying pan with about 1/4 inch of oil in it. Get a nice deep brown color and they're great with a hummus or some raita.

If you like your food spicier, try adding 1/2 tsp of cayenne (or more) to the recipe.

1.5 cups corn meal
0.5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1.5 tbs baking powder (1 tbs + 1.5 tsp)
1/4 brick of extra firm silken tofu
1 small onion (I used mayan sweets)
1 cup buttermilk

Using a hand mixer, puree the tofu and buttermilk together. If you have a soy allergy or are just personally opposed to tofu, use one egg instead. You might want to back off on the baking powder by 3/4 teaspoon or so because the egg brings a little leavening power the tofu doesn't.

In an electric chopper or food processor, chop the onion to a fine, almost pulpy consistency.

Mix the cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and onion mixture together. Mix in the buttermilk and tofu mixture and let sit for ten minutes to hydrate the cornmeal a bit then mix in the flour. Let sit another 10 minutes to let the moisture permeat all the dry ingredients.

Preheat your oil in a deep fryer or large sauce pan to 360-370 degrees and scoop up the batter with a 1-tablespoon disher, frying until gonden brown. Paula recommends peanut oil in her recipe. I used canola and it worked just fine.

Serve with hot pepper honey (I personally use about 50% more red pepper flakes and cook it right in the pan, omitting the double boiler).

I make a neat little homemade chocolate cheese from scratch (heat the milk and cream, add lemon juice to curdle, strain, drain, and mix in cocoa and sugar... that easy). I was trying to think of a dessert I could make from it and came up with the following idea.

Make the cheese (possibly with some ground chocolate chips mixed in to make it a little more gooey when hot). Form the cheese into balls and then chill. Take a chilled ball, dip it in drop doughnut or funnel cake batter, and deep fry. Let drain, then skewer three or four balls together to make a kebab. Drizzle the kebab with a chocolate sauce that's been kicked up a notch with a little salt and some fresh ground pink peppercorn.

So, who dares me to actually make this (as my wife shakes her head and begs me to just say "no")?

For both, I tried the "fat washing" method. This is where you mix bacon grease into the alcoholic beverage in the belief that many of the fat-soluble flavor compounds are also alcohol-soluble and will transfer. Give them some time to transfer flavor, then strain out the fat. While most of the infusion recipes suggested putting slices of cooked bacon in a jar of alcohol and storing it in a dark cool place for a week or two, the fat washing recipes said to pour the fat in, let it sit a few hours, freeze to solidify the fat, and strain.

First I tried the bourbon and followed a recipe I'd seen that said to wash it for 4 hours, then freeze for 90 minutes. It also mentioned that keeping it at a slightly elevated temperature would help the fat get the most contact with the alcohol.

I tried this with a fifth of Jim Beam and 3 tablespoons of bacon fat from my bacon jar (yes, I save bacon grease in a jar for cooking), that turned out to be about 2 ounces when warmed up. I stirred it in with a spoon and let the booze and grease have 4 hours together, repeatedly giving the jar warm/hot water baths and occasionally shaking it. I froze it for 90 minutes, strained off the fat, and made a bourbon old fashioned (2 oz bourbon, 1 tsp maple syrup, 2 dashes bitters).

I'd read that the bacon flavor wouldn't hit you up front, but come in as a smoky note on the back end. It did that on the first sip, but then the bacon flavor dwindled and it just tasted like bourbon and maple syrup. In a later taste of the bourbon, I didn't get much bacon at all.

So, for the bacon vodka, I went "whole hog" (please excuse the pun). I oven baked a pound of Cloverfield hickory smoked bacon...

• line a baking pan with foil
• line that with bacon
• set oven to 400 degrees
• put bacon in while the oven preheats
• cook 20-30 minutes until done to your liking

Starting the bacon off in a cold pan in a cold oven ensures you'll render the maximum amount of fat.

After the bacon was cooked, I drained off the hot fat (about 2.5 ounces) and whisked it into my room-temperature Vodka, then sealed the jar. Periodically I would heat the mixture via either a hot water bath or 40 seconds in the microwave, then give it a good stirring with the whisk. But instead of letting it sit for 4 hours, I let it sit for 26, and I let it freeze overnight. The vodka that was produced had a much more pronounced bacon flavor and smell. This is what I expected bacon vodka to taste and smell like.

So, if you're planning to fat wash some booze, here are my tips.

1. Use fresh cooked bacon fat right from the oven.
2. Use the renderings from a pound of bacon per 750 ml of liquor
3. Whisk the fat and booze together rather than stirring.
4. Periodically warm and re-whisk
5. Let it sit at least 24 hours before freezing

I got a 2-roast pack, took it home, marinated it, oven-roasted it, and served it with sweet potato pancakes and a salad of chopped roma tomato and English cucumber tossed with a little olive oil and salt. But I ended up with a lot of leftover tri-tip.

It's been my experience that roasted meats don't re-heat well. They get an odd flavor. I tried steaming some thin-sliced tri-tip by wrapping it in a wet paper towel and nuking it for 30 seconds for a flatbread wrap, but the odd flavor was there.

Then I tried making French dip sandwiches, letting the tri-tip warm to room temperature for an hour and then dipping it in a simple beef broth jus before putting it on toasted french rolls with butter and swiss cheese. That was okay, but still far from "good".

So I'm putting out the question to my friends and readers: Do you have any tips for making something tasty with leftover tri-tip?

Chili Mac - Chile Con Carne + Macaroni

1 jalapeno seeded & finely chopped
2 yellow onions diced
2 tbs bacon grease
1 large carrot diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small bunch cilantro chopped

2 tbs ground coriander
2 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs caldo de res (beef bullion)
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tsp oregano
3/4 tsp ground sage
2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp madras curry powder
1 tsp cinnamon

2 lbs ground beef
2 7 ounce cans diced green chiles
1 quart water
1 28 ounce can crushed tomato
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar
22 ounce bag macaroni

Start sauteeing the onions, carrots, and jalapeno in the bacon fat. After a couple of minutes, add the garlic and cilantro and sautee about a minute more.

Add in the spice mixture (second bunch of ingredients) and cook the spices with the veggies until fragrant. Add the water and bring to a boil.

Put in the ground beef and mash everything up with a potato masher to break up the meat. Add the tomatoes and chiles, bring back to a low boil, and simmer covered for 30-45 minutes.

In another pot, bring salted water to a boil and cook the macaroni just a little underdone. Reserve 6-8 ounces of the pasta water and drain.

Put the macaroni pot back on the stove. Put in 6-8 ounces of the chili broth and the reserved pasta water, pour the drained pasta back in and mix everything together for about a minute over medium heat. Add the chili to the pasta pot and cook everything together for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the sour cream and cheese, mix well, remove from heat, and let cool for about 10 minutes. Scoop into bowls and serve.

Enjoy!

1. You never know when they'll have Triscuits (my wife's favorite cracker). Sometimes they do, most times not, and this drives us into the arms of WalMart because they have the best prices on Triscuits for normal consumer size packaging.
2. In 6 years, they haven't carried a decent brand of salami that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'm just not a fan of Italian salami and they seem bound and determined to keep expanding their selection of Italian lunch meats and Italian-branded lunch meats like turkey breast and pastrami from Columbus meats.

Why is it that they have like 8 types of Italian salami in the Everett Costco, but nothing simple and domestic? I get the worst aftertaste from Italian salami. I'd kill for them to simply carry Oscar Mayer hard salami or the same hard salami I can get in the deli case at Safeway.

I understand that products come and go, but on my last visit, in the premium lunch meat aisle there were the Kirkland lunch meats and then all the other lunch meat and salami were Italian or from Italian meats companies. Even their pastrami and turley breast were from Columbus. What gives?

I love Costco. My dad got me a membership when I went off to college 23 years ago and I've been a member ever since. But this obsessions with Italian meats in the deli section has got to stop. Give us some good old, plain old salami. No fancy imported stuff. I'd love some kosher chubs I could hang to dry in my kitchen, but failing that, just something along the lines of simple, domestic hard salami like Oscar Mayer.

Thanks Costco!

The one thing was, instead of potato chunks (like Taco Bell) or french fries (like just about everywhere else), they served tater tots (calling them "Mexi Fries"), and my older boy loved to get a kid-size quesadilla and tater tots from them. Since he could no longer have Taco Time tater tots, I thought I'd console him by trying my hand at a recipe I'd only heard of in hushed whispers, a dish that can drive a cardiologist to acts of violence... Tater Tot Casserole. It's the holy grail of fat and starch, and I was pretty sure my kid would love it.

Here are the components:

Equipment:

2.5 quart covered casserole dish
mixing bowl
spoon

Ingredients:

2 lb. bag of frozen tater tots
10 ounce can of condensed cream of potato soup
16 ounce tub of sour cream
6 oz can of french fried onions
2 cups of shredded cheese (packed)
3 bun length hotdogs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Put the oil in the casserole dish and use a paper towel to spread it around the bottom and sides of the dish.

Quarter the hotdogs lengthwise and dice into 1/4 inch bits.

In a mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, soup, half the cheese, half the fried onions, the salt, the pepper, the onion powder, the rosemary, and the hotdog bits.

Create a single layer of tater tots in the bottom of the casserole, laying them lengthwise, and try to fit in as many as you can. Spoon the sour cream mixture over that, creating a fairly even layer.

Cover the sour cream layer with the remaining tots and press them in gently. Cover the tots with the remaining cheese in an even layer. Cover the cheese with the remaining french fried onions in an even layer.

Cover the casserole with its lid and put it in the oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the lid and let bake for another 10 or so minutes to gently brown the french fried onions on top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then serve. It's best if you mash all the bits together once it's on the plate so all the flavors get distributed around. It also stands up well to reheating in the microwave.

Enjoy!

When I got there, the class instructor was shocked and joyed to have a "daddy" there. Seems men at these classes are a rare and wonderful thing. Out of 9 parents there, I was the only man, and my son was one of two boys out of ten kids. We had some food related games and then the kids helped spread pepperoni and cheese on a class pizza to eat there, then used various items to turn two pieces of naan into "pizza faces" while the class pizza cooked. We took the pizza faces home and cooked them for lunch afterward.

They put out chopped red cabbage for hair, but they also put out big leaves of basil for ears. I borrowed a knife from the instructor's assistant and cut some basil into strips to use as hair. Much cooler... and more flavorful.

Tonight, I defrosted some pork chops and let my son help me do some of the prep work. They're the super-thick chops you get at Costco, so I butterflied them into a more manageable thickness, then he helped me scoop spices to make a dry rub.

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 rounded tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt

I sprinkled the rub onto the chops to make sure he didn't spill it all over or dump half the mix on one chop, but he helped me pat it into the meat. Then we washed our hands, covered the plate with plastic wrap, and let the rub do its magic in the fridge for 45 minutes.

I fried the chops in just enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan. I saw a thing on "America's Test Kitchen" where they said the secret to juicy pork chops it to cook them over lower heat. Bringing them up to the doneness you desire more slowly wrings less of the natural moisture out of them. I've found it works.

And doing it with my rub and some butter leaves this mixture of butter, sugar, pork fat, and just a little bit of pork juices in the pan that's a perfect medium for cooking up a couple of sliced onions while you let the chops rest. I defrosted and drained some frozen chopped spinach, then threw it in with the onions at the end to warm.

Served the chops on a bed of the onion/spinach mixture with a squeeze of lime. Mmmm. This is the second time I've done this rub on pork chops and my wife tells me it's a keeper. The boy likes it too and he likes being a part of the process.

So this weekend, while at Costco, I saw they had 2 quart tubs of a whole-milk yogurt for $4 (less than the cost of a 24-ounce tub of the Greek yogurt and WAY less than 4 or 5 of the smaller tubs). I bought it and decided to experiment.

The main difference between regular whole-milk yogurt and Greek-style yogurt is that Greek-style is strained to remove some of the excess moisture content. You can do this very easily in your own home with a clean cloth (I use a 30x30 flour sack dish towel, some people use tea towels, some use doubled/tripled cheesecloth), a collander, and a bowl the collander will sit in with a couple of inches of clearance between the bottom of the collander and the bottom of the bowl.

Line the collander with the cloth and dump in the yogurt. Bring up the corners of the cloth and twist the bolus of yogurt in the bottom until it's being lightly squeezed. You want some pressure being put on the yogurt, but not so much you're squeezing it through the cloth. You'll be surprised at how much water is going to come out.

Hold it over the sink, until the drainage slows to a drip, then put the wrapped yogurt into the collander and the collander into a bowl. Put the whole shebang in your refrigerator, and let drip for 2-3 hours.

After it's dripped in the fridge, you can unwrap your yogurt and put it in whatever you plan to store it in. Have a spatula or spoon handy, because you'll likely need to scrape down your cloth to get all the yogurt.

The resulting yogurt is going to be much thicker than what went in, almost like a sour cream or a soft cream cheese. You'll also have lost about 35-40% of the volume (which is one reason Greek-style yogurt is more expensive, because it takes 2 quarts or regular to make maybe 1.2 quarts of Greek-style).

I'm just starting to experiment with ways to sweeten the yogurt, but so far I've found that 3 ounces of grade A dark amber maple syrup (I used a jug of a low-cost Trader Joe's maple syrup that we've had forever) gives you a great balance of sweet with just a hint ot the cheesy tang of the yogurt, and you just cannot beat the thickness and creaminess of it.

My wife and my 4-year-old went nuts over this mix, and the baby really seems to be loving it too. I made it on Saturday and it was gone by Monday morning. I had to make more yesterday and I'll probably end up hitting Costco in the next day or two to get supplies for making a double batch. I'm thinking I'll get some frozen berries, defrost and macerate a handful with some sort of sweetener to get a few ounces of a sweetened berry juice, then add in a cup or two of whole berries, and mix that in.

If you like yogurt, this is a must-try recipe. It's simple as all get out, the resulting yogurt has a taste and texture to die for, and all the goodness is concentrated. Because of the lower moisture content, it has more protein, more calcium, and more probiotics per serving than regular yogurt. It's good and good for you. Eat it up, yum.

This recipe makes a rich, hearty, flavorful ground beef chili (with NO beans), that is not too spicy for the palates of my wife and four-year-old, but tastes good as it is. A chili lover could eat it grudgingly without losing their faith in mankind. But the best part is that the flavors are balanced so it makes a great starting point for creating your own bowl of heaven.

Imagine throwing a chili party with a "Doctor Your Own Chili" bar. You don't just put out onions, crackers, and cheese. You put out a selection of hot sauces for people to stir in, some sour cream, some sliced pickled jalapenos, maybe some carrots pickled in the jalapeno pickling liquid, and definitely some chicharrones (pork cracklins - like pork rinds, but smaller, denser, and fattier). Let everyone mix up a bowl to their tastes, and you'll find that your gueests all along the spice spectrum will enjoy themselves.

Personally, tonight I mixed up a bowl with some Sriracha and some chicharrones. I was in heaven.

Beware, this recipe is on the large size. I like to cook big pots of chili. You can cut it down.

Blank Canvas Chile

5 large red onions, diced
5 pounds lean ground beef
28 ounce can tomatillos, drained
2 quarts chicken or beef stock (beef is better, but chicken works)
4 slices thick-cut bacon
3 fresh jalapeno peppers
3 tbs cider vinegar
3 tbs ground cumin
2 tbs granulated garlic
2 tbs ground coriander
2 tbs ground chile california
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs salt
1 tbs granulated onion
2 tsp dried oregano

1 bunch cilantro, stemmed and chopped
1/2 cup masa (corn flour used for tortillas and tamales)

A little achiote powder if you're using chicken stock.

Chop all the onions. Make sure to crack a window or turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen or everyone in the house will start tearing up by the time you're done.

Halve your jalapenos, remove the seeds and ribs. Dice one half and toss it in with the onions. The other 2.5 jalapenos get a rough chop and go in the blender/processor with the drained tomatillos the three ounces of cider vinegar, and a pinch of kosher salt to make a very piquant salsa verde.

Chop your 4 slices of bacon and render them in the cook pot over medium heat until crispy. Remove the bacon and reserve for later. Begin sauteeing the 5 onions and diced half-jalapeno in the lovely, tasty bacon grease.

Once the onions have softened a bit, toss in your spices and stir in with the onions, cooking for another minute or two until everything gets fragrant. Pour in the tomatillo salsa you made and stir it in, letting it help deglaze the pot a bit. Add your stock.

Bring this mixture up to a low boil and then add the raw ground beef. Instead of stirring it in with a spoon, spend the next couple of minutes attacking it with a potato masher. This distributes the meat throughout the broth, giving it maximum broth contact and vice versa, so they can marry their flavors. Just be gentle. You're trying to break up the meat so you get a great ground beef texture with no big clumps, not mash it into a paste.

Bring the mixture up to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Uncover, sprinkle in the masa, stirring as you go. This will tighten up the chili, like adding corn starch, but it gives it a much more authentic flavor and texture. Throw the chopped bacon back in, throw in the cilantro, stir it all, and let it cook another 5 minutes uncovered. If you used beef stock, you've probably got a good brown color, but if you used chicken stock, it may look a little gray. You can hit it with a teaspoon or two of the achiote powder to add a little red to the color and make it more appetizing.

Take it off the heat, give it a stir, and let it sit uncovered, cooling, for 20-30 minutes.

After that, eat it straight, or play mad scientist with various condiments. When you start with a chili this basically good, there are all sorts of great ways you can jazz it up.