I love Chili and my second annual chili fest was held last weekend…good times.  So I asked a few WIBIA friends for a Chili Recipe to get you through the winter.  It is no secret that I love King David Dogs.   Here is a chili they like to make:

Makes 8-12 servings

2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup chopped onions
1 clove garlic (chopped)
1/2 cup red or green peppers
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 4 oz. can diced green chili peppers
2 15 oz. cans of chili beans
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
1 fresh diced Jalapeno pepper (optional depending on desired level of heat)

In large pan brown the ground beef.  Add the onion, garlic and green peppers; continue cooking until the onion is browned.  Drain the grease from the pan.

Add the tomatoes, chili peppers, chili beans, chili powder, cumin, thyme, salt, and cinnamon.  Also add fresh Jalapenos at this time if you choose to crank up the heat.

Mix well in the pan, and place a lid on the pan and allow the mixture to simmer for an additional 10 minutes.  Add the honey and stir well.

Add cheese, crackers, green onions, etc. as desired. (Extra sharp cheddar is highly recommended) Also very good with cornbread.

-WIBIA

A few weeks later, I was intrigued enough to give this Calorie Free food a test figuring that it would be flavorless and awful.  Since then, I’ve bought several of the other calorie free products and here’s my review of the products I’ve tried so far:

Bleu Cheese Dressing

Bleu Cheese Salad Dressing:  This was my first purchase a few months back and what originally caused me to dive into my Walden Farms adventure.  To preface this, I should say that I LOVE bleu cheese dressing.  I love it on chicken wings, on salads, on celery and just about anything else that I can put it on.  The one thing that has always killed me about bleu cheese dressing though is the fat content and calorie count.  Because of this, I’ve always tried to curtail my usage whenever possible.

Honey Dijon Dressing

Honey Dijon Salad Dressing:  This was adventure number two in my Walden Farms odyssey.  This dressing was again watery (you’ll hear this a lot) and had a fairly weak taste (not the usual strong dijon-type bite to the taste) on my first use on top of a salad.  I have to say that I was very disappointed.  That said, I still had a lot of the bottle to go so I decided to mix it in with a batch of chicken fingers that I had made and it changed the entire complexion.  When you mix this dressing with something that has a strong flavor (chicken fingers), it is an excellent compliment.  When you mix it in with something that has a weak flavor (salad), you probably aren’t going to like it.

Caesar Dressing

Caesar Salad Dressing:  Different from the first two, I’ve only had this on a salad and have not mixed it with any other products.  That said, it was just okay.  Again, it was watery and it lacked the peppery creaminess you get from ordinary Caesar dressing, but when you are trying to save calories, you have to make sacrifices.  I wouldn’t recommend this one unless you really, really want to have a Caesar salad without the guilt of using Caesar dressing.

Peanut Spread

Peanut Spread:  Okay, I admit it, I’m ADDICTED to peanut butter.  I have it on sandwiches, celery and I eat it with a spoon straight out of the jar.  In all honesty, peanut butter is one of my favorite things in the world and when I saw this offering at the store, I was INCREDIBLY intrigued.  So intrigued, in fact, that I decided to open the jar in the car on the way home and scoop it out with my finger like I would with a normal jar of peanut butter.  This was a mistake.  This stuff has the texture of a semi-stiff pudding and is just flat-out weird.  It does have a faint peanut taste, but it is not overwhelming like you get from regular peanut butter.  Even with my bad experience of eating it straight out of the jar, I was willing to try it on a piece of bread to see if it changed anything and it did a world of difference (I also added a little Splenda on top of the peanut spread based on an online tip).  While not nearly as good as normal peanut butter (nothing is), it does make a barely suitable alternative when put on top of something as a compliment and not when it is used as a primary ingredient.

Thick 'N Spicy Barbecue Sauce

Thick ‘N Spicy Barbecue Sauce:  I know I’ve already brought up my skepticism regarding these products previously, but when I saw this one in the store, I was incredibly leery of how it might taste.  But, for the purposes of this blog and the greater good of science (ha!), I decided to plod on.

Prior to tasting this, seeing a Walden Farms sauce/dressing described as “thick” brought a smile to my face.  All my experience with these products has involved the word “watery” and I had no reason to believe this sauce would be any different.  But, they were right about this being thick up to a point.  That point is that it is thicker than all their other sauce/dressing products but it still has more liquidity than most, if not all, commercial barbecue sauces.  As far as taste, it was moderately spicy and actually was pretty darn good.  There are lots of barbecue sauces out there that are runny and still good, so I would consider this one to be in the same boat.  I’m anxious to use it again.

Chocolate Syrup

Chocolate Syrup:  If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably already figured out that I’m weird (if you didn’t know that already from the blog).  Because of my weirdness, I bought this chocolate syrup and decided to try it on top of some oatmeal.  Again, it was watery, but of all the Walden Farms products that I’ve tried, this had the strongest taste and I was actually moderately impressed.  It actually did taste like a dark chocolate and I’m anxious to try it on other types of foods like ice cream, pancakes, etc.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, I’d probably buy all of them solely for the aforementioned fact that I’m always looking for ways to cut calories.  I’m willing to sacrifice authentic taste (in most cases) in favor of an artificial substitute if it helps me accomplish that goal.

That said, if you aren’t as devout about cutting calories as I am, then these products probably aren’t for you.  The only ones that have a taste worth eating (discounting the diet ramifications) are the bleu cheese dressing, barbecue sauce and the chocolate syrup.  The others aren’t worth trying, although I will continue to taste the other Walden Farms products (they have more dips, sauces, etc.) in hopes of finding more winners.  Maybe we’ll have a part two to this post farther down the line…

By the way, you can find these products either online at their website or you can use their store locator to find them at a grocery store near you.  FYI, the prices for these run from about $3.50-$4.00 per bottle at my local stores (cheaper than their website).  You can also find them for cheaper than that in most instances on Amazon.com.

-IndianapolisEater

Home Run Inn Pizza

Home Run Inn Pizza
Website

Home Run Inn Pizza is a Chicago area chain with nine locations.  Although I look forward to trying their pizza in person at one of their locations next time I visit Chicago, I am reviewing their frozen pizzas in this review.  Home Run Inn Pizza can be difficult to find in Indiana.  According to Home Run Inn’s website, it is available at Costco, Sam’s Club, Meijer, Marsh and Wal-Mart, yet I have found the pizza to not be in stock consistently at all locations.  Despite this, the Home Run Inn web site has a locator for every state to help you find their pizza in your local grocery store.

What I Got: Home Run Inn Signature Meat Lovers Pizza (Large) $5.50

This large comes with sausage, bacon, ham and pepperoni and a fairly equal portion of all toppings.  Unlike most frozen pizzas where all the toppings shift to one side of the box during shipping, the toppings are secured and distributed evenly across this pizza so you are able to pull it out of the box and throw it in the oven.  The crust on this pizza stands out among all of the frozen pizza competition.  It is thin with a fresh crunch and not the doughy/sticky kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth like you get on cheaper frozen pizzas.  It includes a nice ring around the outside keeping all the toppings on the pizza and giving you something that is easy to hold onto while you eat your pizza.  Baking time is a few minutes longer than your average frozen pizza but amazing crust that is the result makes it worth the wait.

Would I Buy it Again? Absolutely 100% yes! The quality of this pizza stands out among its frozen peers.  I actually am willing to drive to multiple grocery stores to find this pizza.  Sometimes you see commercials on television advertising that their pizza is just like having pizza delivered to your house.  This is actually true for Home Run Inn pizza and Friday night at my house has become Home Run Inn pizza night for dinner.  You will not regret the extra cost and time it takes to find this pizza and you may save a lot of money instead of going out for more expensive pizza.

-EatHSE

Skillet "Pizza"

I try to do the majority of my eating by cooking meals at home, but my problem is that I end up eating the same things all the time because I never really venture out and try to come up with anything new.  So, when regular blog reader Show recently sent me the recipe for Skillet Pizza, I got interested because this recipe includes a lot of things that I usually have around the house and it wouldn’t require me to go to the store.  Plus, who doesn’t love pizza, especially with a neat twist to it?  It’s also very cheap, easy to make and will give you enough for a minimum of two to three servings, depending on how big of an eater that you are (Show says that he usually gets about six servings out of this; I got three).

Here’s the ingredients that I used with estimated prices of the items when you’d find them at the store (I buy all my stuff on sale, so the prices I listed would not be the regular price).  This recipe is very user friendly, so you can add or subtract any ingredients you want depending on what you like on your pizza:

• 1 lb. roll of hot sausage – $2
• 1 16 oz. package of elbow macaroni (you could use any pasta, I just had this on hand; this will be your “crust” of the pizza) – $1
• 2 cups shredded mozarella cheese – $2
• 4 oz. fresh mushrooms (I diced them) – $1.50
• 4 oz. sliced pepperoni (this is just a ballpark guess on the amount I used) – $1.25
• 2 cans (15 oz. each) of pizza sauce (I happened to have pizza sauce at home for once; I would ordinarily just use any random jar of marinara sauce) – $2
• Total Price of Ingredients:  $9.75 (remember, this can get you several servings so your unit price should be well below $4 per person)

Cooking steps (you can review a photo diary of these steps in my Picasa photo gallery)

1. Brown hot  sausage (you’ll need to break it up obviously) in skillet.
2. Add macaroni noodles to boiling water and cook.
3. When hot sausage is about 75% complete, drain the sausage grease, add in diced mushrooms, the pizza sauce and cover skillet.  Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about ten minutes.
4. When pasta is done (you’ll want to try to time it up so that the pasta is done about five minutes before the pizza mix), pull out of boiling water and drain.
5. After about ten minutes, remove lid from pizza mix and add pepperoni and top of mix.  Do not stir as you want this to be layered like a pizza.
6. After adding pepperoni, spread shredded mozarella cheese over the entire mix on the skillet, cover and remove from heat (the heat from inside the covered skillet should melt the cheese, but if you have issues like I did, you can take the lid off after a few minutes and throw it in the oven on the Broil setting and that will melt the cheese).
7. Once cheese is melted, you can season the “pizza” any way that you want.  I added in a little Italian seasoning and some garlic salt (this step is optional).
8. Cut into “slices” and serve on top of the macaroni noodles.

Like I said, this one is simple, cheap and reasonably quick.  I’ll definitely be making this one from time to time and I’ll also be playing with the ingredients.  Give it a shot if you are interested.

-IndianapolisEater

I love Chinese food, but I barely make it because when you make it at home, it takes a lot of time to cut the veggies and when things are said and done, you just paid $15.00 worth of veggies and meat for fried rice!  Cheaper and quicker to stop and pick it up.  But just like my Throw together pasta, when I have some veggies I need to use, I consider a stir fry or pasta.

Ingredients:

Cabbage
Carrots
Green Onion
Vidalia Onion
Garlic
Asian Style Baby Back Ribs (leftover from the cookout the day before)  
Soy, ginger and teriyaki marinade.  

Steps

*Low heat on grill for 3 hours. Easy.

*I run the carrots and cabbage through my Mandoline.  If you don’t have one, try the Borner V Slicer.  For the money ($40), you can’t find a better one.  It is important that the veggies are around the same size so they cook equally.

*Put a little oil in your pan and toss everything in (except green onions).  It will take about 5-7 minutes for the veggies to soften up a little.  Don’t go too soft though, you still want the cabbage to crunch a little (While it is cooking, I like to add a little soy sauce.  I never use salt in Chinese cooking, I just add more soy if it needs salt.).

*After about 5-7 minutes, I add a little Terayaki and fold together. 

*Add the green onions and you are done.  If you like a little kick, top with some Saracha.

Btw, my favorite Teriyaki is “Soy Vay – Veri Veri Teriyaki.”  It is usually $5-$6 a bottle, but you will not regret it.  It is awesome on wings as well.

-WIBIA

Good Stuff!

Just like any regional ethnic dish, you will find many variations, this is mine.   This is an old Polish dish that was a peasant meal, ya know… a little bit of meat and the spread the rest out.  This starts with bacon and the remainder of it is filler.  It is so good, I am not sure hot to describe it.

Ingredients:

Bacon (1.25 lbs)
Green Cabbage (2/3 head)
Vidalia Onion (1.5 medium sized)
Garlic (5 cloves)
Mushrooms.  (6 oz)
Egg Noodles (entire package)
Romano Cheese (for grating)
Flat Leaf Parsley (for garnish)

Here is how to do it.  Get the bacon ready, you can cut it before you cook it or after.  I prefer after I cook it, a slice will divided into 8 parts.  Just giving you and idea of size.  Take the bacon out of the pan a few minutes before it is finished.   Make sure it is soft, crispy bacon doesn’t work here.

Cut cabbage and onions to be in equal thickness. Toss garlic, onions and cabbage into a pot with about 2 T butter and a good scoop of bacon grease (1/4 cup probably). Yup, forget your diet.  Make sure you don’t burn the cabbage onions or garlic here, it should be getting soft, not brown.   I added a touch of ground fennel, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper, at this stage.   It should look like this…

I realized that the pot didn’t hold enough, so I switched to my flattop that I cooked the bacon on.  Once the onions and cabbage are close to being soft, add the mushrooms and then a few minutes later, the bacon.  If anything starts to stick, take a spoonful of bacon grease over it (I know).  I had to make a shit load since Indianapolis Eater was over for dinner.  It should look like this:

After that, serve over egg noodles, add some parsley to garnish and microplane a healthy dose of romano cheese.  Oddly enough, even though it has bacon on it, it may need a little salt.

Enjoy,

-WIBIA

If I have fresh veggies at home and I need to use them before they go bad, I usually make a pasta or stir fry.  This technique is a guilty pleasure of mine.

This version had…
Rigatoni
Vidalia Onion
Chicken (leftover chicken breast)
Sun Dried Tomatoes
Smoked Proscuitto (very small strips)
Mushrooms
Parsley
Garlic

Steps

*First, boil water and toss in the rigatoni and a pinch of salt.

*After it is ready, before straining, pour about 1 1/4 cup of the strarchy water into a cup. Strain the rest of the pasta.

*In the pot that you were cooking your noodles in add about 3.5 tablespoons of butter (I know) and the starchy water and cook this until it reduces (about 5 minutes) and doesn’t look like starchy water.  This is now your sauce.

*While cooking the noodles, I grab the biggest sauté pan that I have, add a little olive oil and toss the onions and garlic in, once they start to soften (5 min), add the mushrooms.  5 minutes later, I add the chicken breast and sun dried tomatoes.

*We are about 10 minutes into the saute process. Add the proscuitto, cook for about 2 minutes, add the “sauce,” toss in the parsley, salt and pepper to taste and serve.

My favorite variation is:  Cipollini Onion, Gourmet Mushrooms, Smoked Bacon and Parsley.

It’s so bad for you, but a nice glass of wine (My pick that night: Hawkes Chardonnay) and this is a quick 15 minute meal that will knock your socks off.

-WIBIA

I love soup, Hot and Sour, Lobster Bisque, French Onion etc…  I rarely make soup in the summer, it just doesn’t taste as good.  If I am having a group of friends over, I like to make a few things in advance.  This pea soup recipe is so easy and it always impresses the group (except for my wife, she hates this).

1 Bag of Frozen Peas (thawed)
1/3 Cup of Canola Oil
1 Can Vegetable Broth
1/2 Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper to Taste

(You can also add a hint of herbs if you want.  Scallion, parsley, cilantro, chives, you get the drift.)

Toss all this in the food processor and press the button until it looks like something you want to eat.  Toss it in the fridge to chill, when ready…top with bacon, garnish with scallion and serve in a ramekin.

Simple, cheap and tasty.  Viola!

-wibia