Happy Cold Blustery New Year! And Evelyn's Famous Quick and Easy Chili Soup!

Darlings!

The Fab trusts that you are well this fine first day of 2012!  Here a cold front is movin' through and the wind is a whippin'  <-- that link will take you to YouTube music and a song by the Gap band.  One of the Fab's New Years Resolutions was NOT to develop her taste in music beyond '80's funk.  

It is a known fact that a gal should never attempt to fix something that isn't broken.

Regardless ... The Fab is staying mostly indoors today and because it is a cold windy day ... the Fab is making Evelyn's Famous Quick and Easy Chili Soup.

Note: Chili Soup is slightly sweet, slightly spicy hot and more soup than Chili. Try it with Grilled Cheese sandwiches and / or Ritz Crackers. Fabiola says "Yum'!

Evelyn's Famous Quick and Easy Chili Soup

Ingredients:

1 pound ground chuck
1/2 medium yellow onion chopped medium (photo below)

Fabiola uses a whomper-chopper (that is what she calls it) fast, easy, whacking the top of the chopper releases frustrations.

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2 - 46 ounce cans Tomato Juice - Del Monte or Red Gold - 540 calories

(seriously, these two taste best to Fabiola -- use your favorite -- but don't say that Fabiola didn't try to help!).

1 - 16 ounce can Bush's Best Chili Beans, Medium Sauce (or mild or hot -- but use Bush's, trust Fabiola on this one). - 420 calories

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1 lb. Ground Beef (70/30) - 750 calories for pan browned, drained, crumbles
1 medium Yellow Onion - 64 calories

1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder -  5 calories

1/8 teaspoon Ground Celery Seed -  2 calories

1/4 teaspoon Corse Ground Black Pepper - 2 calories
1 teaspoon Salt - 0 calories

4 tablespoons Dark Chili Powder (or to taste) - 100 calories

(Fabiola likes the Kroger store brand best. Also: keep in mind that Chili Powder looses flavor as it sits in your cupboard. Buy small quantities more often rather than leaving it sit on a shelf).

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1 cup Dark Brown Sugar packed - 836 calories

2 tablespoons Blackstrap Molasses - 116 calories

(Fabiola has a thing for Blackstrap Molasses - have you checked out the nutrition label? Calcium, iron, B vitamins ... the link takes you to nutrition data's information on Blackstrap Molasses -- click this link if you want to look up other ingredientshttp://www.nutritiondata.com/ great site!)

Assembly:

Put the Tomato Juice and Chili Beans in your slow cooker, start cooking on low heat. 

Brown (stirring frequently), the ground beef and onion over medium heat. You want the meat to brown and the onion to cook until transparent. Drain fat.

Turn off the heat, move your skillet to a cool burner, add the Garlic Powder, Celery Seed, Black Pepper, Salt, Chili Powder to the browned grond beef and onion. Stir, stir, stir. Add the brown sugar and molasses, stir until mixed. Transfer to your slow cooker, stir until mixed. Let the soup cook for at least 2 hours, but will be just fine if you leave it all day.


2835 calories for the entire recipe

Recipe makes 8 servings of about 16 ounces - 354 calories per serving

Fabiola serves the fella a big bowl of this soup with grilled cheese sandwiches and Ritz crackers.

Mary has a bowl of this soup with a nice salad of spinach, kale, chopped carrots, with just a little sharp cheddar cheese shreds. 

Yes, this is a cast iron skillet. Cast Iron is a permanant non-stick, precision cooking tool - yet again, Grandma knew what she was doing.

Christmas is past for another year ... Notes on Decorating Trees

Darlings, perhaps you have tree decorating down to a science, sadly the Fab does not.  Perhaps this is due to her will-o-the-wisp nature, perhaps it is due to obstacles most folk do not encounter whilst decorating their Christmas Tree.

 Regardless, the Fab is making notes for expedited decorating for next year.

1. Have a decorating theme.
2. Collect all ornaments, unwrap them from their protective paper.
3. Arrange them on a flat surface, grouped by size then color to ensure that a Fab has an even distribution of decor over the entire tree.
4. Lock all animals in the laundry room while putting up the tree.  That way a Fab has only to put ornaments onto the tree, once.

Darlings, the above pictured Christmas cat is Smoky, who sleeps with one eye open and has been immortalized in an original yet affordable garden sculpture.  <--- this would be a shameless plug for the Fab's alter ego's web store.

A Link to a Mary Post on Perfume ...

Darlings, Mary wrote a post about old perfume that she ordered from eBay.  She lives in the past Darlings, she lives in the past.

http://farmhousewindow.blogspot.com/2011/12/time-traveler-arrived-in-my-home-today.html

Big Batch Chicago Style Cheesecake recipe (48 servings)

Darlings, I am re-posting a recipe of Mary's. This recipe originally  appearing in 2004 is still the best if you need to make cheesecake for a crowd.

Quick Note Folks:

Yes, absolutely you have time to make this before Thanksgiving, if you do it today.  Cheesecake tastes better if it sits in the fridge for a day.  Well, it does.  I made this recipe again yesterday, while I was making chili.  Seriously, mixing this together takes about 15 minutes, the baking not quite an hour.  Cool, wrap, into the fridge.

Now I did something different this time with the crust.  Saved a bunch of time.  I bought a package of Pillsbury ready made pie crust (the package that has 2 rolled single crusts for a 9 inch pie).  I used that for the bottom crust.  Line the bottom of 2 of  the spring-form pans, trim the excess, piece together the bottom of the third.  Do not pre-bake the crust, just pour the cake batter in on top and bake as directed for the cake.  Worked dandy.

If you don't need 3 cheese cakes, divide the ingredients by 3.

It Is All About The Cheesecake!

Note before you start -- this recipe makes 3 nine inch round cheesecakes.

Cheesecake freezes beautifully.

CrustPreheat oven to 325 degrees
In medium sized bowl combine:
3 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/4 Teaspoon grated lemon peel (from real fresh lemons not the dried stuff in the jar)

Mix well, then add
1 Cup softened butter (real butter, I use salted butter, if you prefer sweet butter, that works fine too. I have no idea what fake butter or shortening will do to this recipe and I don't want to know, if you try either, please do not tell me.)

Mix again until all ingredients are combined. You should be able to easily form a pliable ball from the dough with your hands.

Pliable like pie crust or play dough, not sticky.

If the dough seems stiff or wont form a ball - add water one tablespoon at a time until you can form a pliable ball.

Divide the dough into three pieces. Smash the dough into the bottom only of three nine inch spring form or straight sided cake layer pan. You can get all neat about it and roll the dough out and cut a nice circle then lay that in the bottom of the pan, but you were just smooshing the dough around with your hands to form a ball then divide it in three so you decide if you want to get out a rolling pin.

Bake the crust in your preheated (you did preheat -- right?) oven for 10 minutes. You don't want the crust to brown, just set, it will finish browning when you bake the cheesecake.

CheesecakeRemove your pans from the oven, set aside to cool. Turn the oven temperature up to 350 degrees.

In a very large bowl combine
9 eight ounce packages of softened cream cheese.  (single cake = 3 packages)
3 cups sugar (single cake = 1 cup)
1/3 cup all purpose flour (Single cake = use 2 tablespoons flour) 
1/2 tablespoon grated lemon peel (Single cake = 1/2 teaspoon)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla (single cake = 1/2 teaspoon)

Mix -Mix - Mix -- mix until well blended

then add
7 eggs (I use extra large eggs -- but cheesecake is pretty forgiving so if you use large or jumbo it should not make a huge difference. If you use small eggs, you are on your own.) (single cake = 2 eggs)

3/4 cup 1/2 and 1/2 (single cake 1/4 cup)

Mix until well combined. Pour cheesecake mixture into your prepared pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for around 50 minutes. Cheesecake is done when only the middle 2 inches of the cake jiggle when you move the pan slightly. Take the cakes out of the oven to cool. The middle will finish setting while the cake cools.

After the cake has cooled run a spatula around the outside of the cake to loosen it from the side of the pan. Do not remove the side of the spring form pan at this point. Cover cake with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill at least four hours before serving. If you are going to freeze the cake, skip the refrigerator and put the plastic wrapped cake right into the freezer.

Raspberry Sauce
2 cups frozen whole raspberries
1 cup sugar
Place the raspberries and the sugar into a heavy saucepan. Heat over low heat until the berries are thawed and stirring combines the berries and the sugar into a liquid. Increase heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently until the mixture reaches the "jell" stage on a candy thermometer.
Chill sauce and serve over slices of cheesecake.

One nine inch cake should be cut into at least 16 slices.