Dinner Diary Day 1: Simple Chili
Welcome to Dinner Diary, a record of my quest to make nutritious dinners for my family of four that they will actually eat and hopefully even enjoy. As a kid growing up with a mom who could barely boil water, I idealized mothers who cooked from scratch and made memorable meals. Self-taught by trial and error over the last twenty years, I never stop trying to get better. When my kids or husband request a meal by name, I burst with maternal pride.
My Eaters
I have a thirteen-year-old who is my “good eater” and always has been. She will eat anything except quinoa and couscous; she claims to be prejudiced against tiny grains. When I try a new recipe and it’s not going over too well, she becomes my personal cheerleader, telling me she would give it a “four out of five stars,” and she would eat it again. I love her so much for this I could levitate right out of my dinner chair.
My nine-year-old is our token picky eater. I’m sure in the history of pickies, he is a mild case, but he still ends of up eating Cheerios with banana—our one-and-only alternative to dinner—about three times a week. He has no particular off-limits foods; it all depends on the complex blend of taste, texture, and smell. He’s a big smeller. He will sniff his fork before it goes into his mouth, and if the smell turns him off, chances are he will hate the meal.
My husband’s response to dinner varies by mood, level of hunger, and the diet plan to which he currently subscribes. In general, it’s tough to get a rave review from him. He grew up eating meat and potatoes and overcooked vegetables swimming in butter, so I understand that learning to love healthful, vegetarian fare is a tall mountain to climb.
The Epic Challenge of Dinner
Cooking dinner for the family takes initiative, planning, perseverance, skill, and courage. Even though it can feel mundane, it’s actually one of the most challenging things I do—and certainly the most difficult and complex task I tackle on a daily basis.
I hope you’ll come with me on my dinner odyssey. I strive to find dinners that please everyone but will settle for those that thrill one or two of us and can be tolerated by the rest. I probably have twenty or so recipes, collected over the fourteen years of our family life, that I consider tried and true. Some recipes I retire when people suddenly stop liking them (How does this happen? Where’s the research on this issue?). Others just become overplayed.
As a result, I’m on a constant quest to find new dinners for my rotation. I am not a creative cook; I follow recipes to the letter (unless reviews strongly suggest otherwise) and then tweak them over the next few cookings (IF I decide to cook them again! My cook-again rate hovers around 20%).
My criteria for recipes are that they be nutritious, vegetarian (or easily converted to veg), and not too tricky or time-consuming. I am unwilling to go to an Indian market to find fenugreek leaves just to try one recipe and have my family hate it (because I have done this multiple times and I’ve learned), so I also don’t cook anything too authentically ethnic. My outer limit for dinner prep time is about an hour and a half, but I prefer to keep it at thirty minutes.
I will share the recipes here with my feedback and the unfiltered critique of my family. Come along and maybe find some great recipes, give me advice for how to do better when I’ve failed, or just commiserate and celebrate about the mostly underappreciated and grueling task of making dinner every night for two kids and a partner. Let’s get cooking!
Last Night
Last night’s dinner was a chili from the New York Times I was trying for the first time. It was written as a shakshuka, a North African and Middle Eastern dish that’s basically a vegetarian stew with eggs poached on top. If poached eggs on your chili sounds weird to you, you’re not alone. Plus, those glistening yellow orbs on top of the dish would guarantee my kids’ horrified flight from the kitchen. But the chili itself looked Really simple, and my other chili recipe (from Sheryl Crow’s cookbook) is a bit of work and the kids don’t love it.
I thought the chili was heavy, but the flavor was good and deep, it was truly easy, and it needed little time to thicken. My daughter loved it, my husband thought it was pretty good, and my son had Cheerios. I would probably make this again if I needed a quick from-scratch meal. It could very easily take additional veggies, like carrots or squash, to make it more nutritious (and maybe lighter).
Here it is, without eggs, and modified with my changes:
Simple Chili (adapted from the New York Times)
Time: 30 minute total
Servings: 4-6
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
4 teaspoons chili powder
¼ cup tomato paste
1 (28-ounce) can crushed or diced fire-roasted tomatoes
2 (14-ounce) cans mild chili beans, with their liquid
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 cup grated extra-sharp Cheddar
Cilantro leaves, scallions for serving (optional)
Warm tortillas, tortilla chips for serving
In a large skillet or medium Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high. Add the onion, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin and chili powder, stir to combine, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to stick to the bottom of the pan and turns the color of rust, about 2 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and both cans of beans with their liquid. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until thickened, about 20 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, then season to taste with salt.
Garnish with cilantro and scallions. Serve with grated Cheddar cheese, tortillas and/or tortilla chips alongside.
Notes:
- I have never seen fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, have you? I wanted the flavor of the fire-roasted, but we don’t like tomato chunks, so I poured the diced, fire-roasted tomatoes into a colander over the chili pot to drain, then dumped them onto my cutting board and chopped them into a fine dice before adding them to the pot. It’s a labor of love, but it only takes a couple of minutes and one extra dish to wash.
- To make this lighter, you could drain and rinse the beans, but then you’d need to add water and more salt, and maybe simmer it longer, so is it worth it? I thought not.
- Full disclosure: I forgot to add the vinegar! I’m keeping it in the recipe, because the chili was heavy, and maybe the vinegar would help lighten it up. Let me know if you try it!
- We are a family that cannot eat chili without rice, so I served this over brown rice (bought frozen and microwaved, as always).