Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Happy Obama Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy happy joy joy. I never thought in my lifetime I would see a President who is not white. I truly am excited and moved by today's inauguration. I believe that today is the greatest day in our nation's history, so far. I have enough cracker, Republican, or racist friends and family members (my brother doesn't read this) to know this as fact.

Thank God we finally have a presidential President. One that can not only speak but move you with his words. The hairs on my neck stand up when Barak Obama speaks. I can feel blood rush into my temples and my throat tighten up when I hear his speeches. I'm ready to go do something!

I don't know what though.

In honor of today I decided to serve dinner a la Obama, chili and pizza.

I searched the Internet and found that Obama is a big fan of chili. I even found a family recipe attributed to him. I made the chili yesterday so that it could sit and develop more flavor for tonight. I did have to modify it a little. I left out the green pepper. I don't have any and don't really like them anyway. I was out of turmeric and since curry powder has turmeric and cumin in it, I used a teaspoon of curry powder instead. It tasted fine to me. Besides, I think it added a little multi-nationalism to the chili, a perfect tribute to Mr. Obama. I used dried basil flakes instead of ground basil, a half teaspoon. Not having any tomatoes I used two cans of stewed tomatoes. And hey, they had green peppers in the cans, so I got that back. No kidney beans please. I really don't like them and lucky me, my wife is allergic to them (she misses them though). I coooked it all in my Dutch oven for two hours covered and the one hour uncovered. Right now the pot is sitting outside, probably frozen under an 1/8 inch of snow. I'll just heat it up in time for dinner.

To go along with the chili, I made Mexican corn bread. My dilemma here was my wife always makes this and I don't know how. Growing up I rarely ate corn bread. I've never really liked it. If it is sweet and/or moist, I like it. But most of the corn bread I have ever had is dry and crumbly. I need a whole glass of milk to choke it down. I found a recipe in my Tex-Mex cookbook that looked promising, except I didn't have any green chiles, creamed corn or roasted red peppers. I had frozen corn though. I decided to simmer the frozen corn in milk. The recipe called for 32 ounces of creamed corn. I used my pound of frozen corn and enough milk to make it about 30 ounces. The end result I think was too much corn, but it worked. We had an ancient jar of jalapenos in the fridge but the expiration date had not passed. I chopped up a 1/3 cup and added them in with 8 ounces of shredded cheese. Finished what was left of the butter milk. It seemed awfully soupy. I'm not sure what corn bread batter is supposed to be like, so I added another 1/2 cup of corn meal. I ended up with two pans, one an eight by eight glass pan and I also used my scone pan. I prefer the scone pan because it makes nice pretty wedges. It was hotter than what Dinah makes but she gave it her blessing which means it was good.

I read that Barak loves pizza from a little dive in Chicago called Italian Fiesta Pizzeria preferring veggie or cheese. Pizza is easy. I'll make a crust this afternoon and press it out into a jelly roll pan. I think I have a can of diced tomatoes that I can use for a tomato sauce base. We don't have any mozzarella cheese but a blend of the cheddar left over from the corn bread and some Gruyere and Emmenthaler I have should go well.

Here's to a better and brighter future!

5 comments:

Brook said...

I too am excited about the possibilities ahead. And the snow is nice as well. Chili sounds like a good choice for today, may need to make some myself!

Huff Daddy said...

And the dinner was good. I forgot to reserve some cheese for the chili, but that only affected me. And the rice was a little underdone because I was in a rush. Not the typical chili with that curry powder in there but it was quite tasty.

Dinah said...

I agree, HD! Quite tasty, a perfect meal for this momentous day!

Brook said...

I like your music(Filter)today, do you pick it yourself or is it random? And I ended up making deer burritos instead but used the leftover meat to make bean soup the next day that ended up being chili-I did not see that one coming for some reason. Just the the meat, 2 cans of kidney beans and a cup and a half of salsa. And the left over tortillas and cheese to serve, of course.

Huff Daddy said...

Yuummmm, the deer sounds reallly good. Dinah wished that we had some corn chips (Fritos) because that is how she eats her chili. I learned late in life to eat it on spaghetti. The brown rice though was nice. That will probably be my lunch today.

I am picking the music myself. It is what I have in the CD player during the day when I am in the kitchen. Glad you have liked it so far. You won't always! :) but there is a pause button.

I took your Nerd test. I'll post my results in my next blog post.