Chili Cook-off recipe – v4

At work the Friday before the Super Bowl, we ended up having a chili cook-off contest for our department. The entry fee was $5.00 and first prize was $70.00 plus a bunch of other misc stuff (small trophy, pizza party for your team, etc.) There ended up being over 30 entries for the contest, and the types of chili entered by competitors were all over the board (white chili, vegetarian chili, wild game chili, extra tomato chili, etc.) After a few weeks of back and forth conversations with JRR to hash out a recipe, here was the chili that I entered into the contest. This recipe didn’t make the top three (and they only listed the top three finishers.) But as the VP that sits next to me kidded, that maybe I got 4th place. So enjoy this recipe for 4th Place Chili: Continue reading

Guacamole Recipe – v4

For some strange reason avocados from Chile were on sale at Wal-Mart for $.50 each. So not being one to stare a gift fish in the mouth and take advantage of a food opportunity. I ended up buying about eight of them, which provided me an excellent opportunity to work on a guacamole recipe on the cheap. Since testing out guacamole recipes at $.99 an avocado really isn’t the best use of my grocery dollars. But at $.50 a piece I’m more then willing to throw a little bit of caution to the wind in trying to develop a usable guacamole recipe. Continue reading

Potato Chip Review – Sabritas – Habanero Limón

Now these were some really good chips. There is a nice balance between the heat of the habanero and the sour of the lime (citric acid). For some reason when you combine the two you almost get a mild cumin flavor.

From looking at the bag, with all the “fire” graphics. I was excepting some really hot chips. So I had put off eating them for the longest time, since I was concerned about the “side effects” after consumption. But it turned out that they brought just enough heat to keep things interesting. Giving you a chance to actually taste the habanero & paprika on the chips. But not so much heat, that you would get a sunburn inside your mouth.

When you team these chips up with a cold beer, oh’ boy. Its like a bar owners wet dream. The heat of the chips makes you thirsty, so you have some beer to tame the heat and the cycle keeps repeating of heat & beer enjoyment.

I actually had to take a break while eating them, because I was going through the tiny bag to quickly. I’d like to at least enjoy a little bit of the flavor, before I inhale the rest. But thumbs up for these bad boys, and I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled to get another bag.

Potato Chip Review – Sabritas – Doritos – Diablo Enchilado

When I opened the bag, there was almost no smell. Just a faint hint of cumin and paprika. And the first bite was like a hot flash in your mouth, almost like an explosion of heat. As quick as it hits you, then it’s gone. Only to be replaced with a boot to the face of citric acid. At first I thought that it was lime, but it really didn’t taste like lime until I checked the package, and saw that it was citric acid. All I can say is holy citric acid!! These chips have so much citric acid flavor in the finish that they are almost inedible. I had to stop eating them for 10 minutes, just so that my taste buds could somewhat recover. Another strange thing I noticed is that the longer you keep the chips in your mouth, the more citric acid flavor you get. So if you love the sour of citric acid, then these are for you. But for me, I’m glad I just had a ~2 oz. bag, because anymore would have been too much for me.

Potato Chip Review – Sabritas – Chile Piquín

This is one of the chips from the care package, and it had a pretty good flavor. When you smell the chips, they don’t have a very strong smell. But what they lack in smell, they make up for in taste. Overall you get a combo of three different flavors with these chips, the chile, some cumin and lime.

The chips have some heat from the chile, but they really don’t have a lingering heat. So once you’re done eating the chips, the heat of the chilies goes away fairly quickly. At first I thought they would going to taste like a hot paprika chip, but they didn’t at all. What was really different was not so much the lime, as the cumin. It was almost like eating a spicy taco on a potato chip, but different.

I had these chips with a sandwich made of freshly baked ciabatta, and it was a good combo. These are chips that I wouldn’t mind having again at a later date. Thumbs up!