All American Chili

Nothing says warm comfort food better than chili..and what could be better than an All American Chili recipe. I found this recipe in guess where..yes Cooking Light! (You know how Rachel Ray is know for saying EVOO all of the time, well I guess I will be known for cooking CL recipes)

Anyways I really like this recipe. It is unique in that you use red wine in this chili. It was my first time adding red wine to chili, and the red wine flavor really came through on this one and tasted absolutely tummy warming and delicious!

Ingredients
6 ounces hot turkey Italian sausage*
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper**
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound ground sirloin***
1 jalapeño pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 bay leaves
1 1/4 cups Merlot or other fruity red wine
2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes, undrained and coarsely chopped
2 (15-ounce) cans kidney beans, drained
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese

*I used beef spicy italian sausage since the turkey sausages only came in big packs.
** I omitted the green pepper.
*** I used one pound of ground turkey.

Preparation
Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage, onion, and the next 4 ingredients (onion through jalapeño) to pan; cook 8 minutes or until sausage and beef are browned, stirring to crumble.

Add chili powder and the next 7 ingredients (chili powder through bay leaves), and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in wine, tomatoes, and kidney beans; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Uncover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard the bay leaves. Sprinkle each serving with cheddar cheese.

Polenta with Corn and Thyme

It has only been in the past year that I have started to understand the wonders of polenta. According to Wikipedia, polenta is made with ground yellow or white cornmeal (ground maize) originally made with Chestnut meal in ancient times.

It can be ground coarsely or finely depending on the region and the texture desired. What is also funny about polenta is that it was originally and still is classified as a peasant food. It is has only been in this late 20th century that polenta has become more popular in gourmet food.

The greatest thing about polenta is that it's so easy to make and you can do so many different things with it. I found a creamy corn polenta recipe in Martha's Stewart's Every day Food magazine. (I know quite different from my normal CL's issues)

In large saucepan, melt 1 TBSP unsalted butter over medium heat, add 1 cup frozen corn and 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until corn is warmed through, about 1 minute.
Add one cup whole milk (I used 2% milk) and 1 and 1/2 cups water and bring it to a boil. Slowly whisk in 1/2 cup fine yellow cornmeal. (Be sure to follow these instructions and use a whisk! Otherwise it will get clumpy!)
Cook, sitrring constantly until mixture is thick and creamy, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1 TBSP butter and 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Season with coarse salt and ground pepper. Serve immediately. Serves four.



I served this corn polenta with the honey spiced rub drumsticks. I added a little more red pepper this time and I ran out of honey so I did not glaze the drumsticks with honey. The extra red pepper gave the chicken a kick! The creamy, cheesy and buttery taste of the polenta went excellent with the spicy chicken!

Our Culinary Delights in DC

While we were in DC, my brother, the excellent host that he is, took us to some of his favorite places. We started our culinary tour of DC with some Greek tapas. I have had italian and spanish tapas, this was my first time having Greek tapas.


These puffy pitas came right after we sat down, and they were so light, warm, and soft. I was amused most by how puffy these pitas were!



After tapas, we went to the fish market. This was not just any ordinary fish market. My brother told that because the vendors have their storefronts half on the water, half on the harbor, they do not have to follow the usual restaurant regulations so they can serve food out in the open. There we had fresh shucked oysters and clams. The clams were a bit fishy but the osyters were fat and juicy!




And..my brother saved the best for last. After the marathon we rewarded ourselves with a plate piled with blue crabs at a little hole in the wall crab house in Bethesda, Maryland. We got little hammers with our meal and before we knew it we were busy cracking our whole crabs with some beers on the side. It was amazing!

Thanks bro for being an awesome host and giving us a glimpse of some of your favorite places so far!

I run 26.2 miles around our National's Capital

It is always fun to run a marathon in a new city. Having run the Chicago marathon the past two years, I have gotten used to the comforts of running a race that I have run before. I know the layout of the race, I know exactly where to go, and I know the parts of town where my friends will be cheering for me, and so forth. I wasn't sure quite what to expect for the Marine Corp Marathon. I knew that the highest elevation points in the race were going to be at mile 3, mile 8 and the last 26th mile. I knew the course would start in Virginia and bring us back into the DC area. And that was about it.

Though the amount of people running the Marine Corp marathon seems comparable to Chicago's marathon, it actually only has about half the amount of racers as Chicago has. (There were 21,690 people who finished the marathon.) Security was much more involved in this race. This race was the first race where I had to have my gear check bag checked by Marines before I could enter the race area.

The Marine Corp Marathon for me, was a hard course for me compared to the Chicago marathon. Here in Chicago, I have been spoiled by how flat Chicago is. Even though I knew the miles where the highest elevation would be, for some reason I didn't quite think that would mean the miles before that point would all be uphill.

The worse part for me were miles 20-23, where you run up the highway and then onto what seems like a never ending bridge into Pentagon city. The temp for that day called for sunny 65 degrees which is an ideal temp for a race, but on that interminable bridge with no water in sight, the weather felt like it was high of 80 degrees.

Yet, as tired as I was while running, what I love most about running a marathon, is that there are so many inspiring moments along the way that makes you forget about the pain. (well for a couple minutes at least) The wheelchair start for this race was only 15 minutes before the start for all other racers. The first three miles were all uphill so I ran by a couple wheelchair racers who were struggling to wheel themselves up hill. The hills were hard enough for my legs, I can't imagine having to use my arm power to push myself up for three miles straight! It is so inspiring to me the way other runners cheer each other on. As we were all pushing up the hill, I could hear runners cheer on the wheelchair participants. When I was experiencing a "hitting the wall" moment on the never ending bridge and was panting for water and I just stopped to walk, another runner ran by me and told me that I could do it! Whoever you are, thank you for you are the one that inspired me to stop walking and run!

I saw a marine unit running with bags and guns on their shoulders and saw that they ran in a protective unit and were surrounding a wheelchair racer to give him ample amount of space. After completing the trek on the long bridge, you have to run up an incline in order to run back down the highway, I saw a father pushing his grown child in a stroller to raise money for the disease she was suffering from. As tired as I was, I could not even imagine trying to run and push someone up a hill at the same time! I felt that I should not be complaining about my own pain if that poor guy had to run AND push someone.

The final 26th mile, you have to run up an incline to get to the last .2 miles. Sure it probably was not much of an incline but it is definitely much more steep than the one in Chicago's last 26th mile. It took all my strength just not to stop running on the hill. I was feeling so tired near the end, my legs felt like they were running through deep mud, and I was just willing my legs to go over the finish line. It was almost a surreal feeling crossing over the finish line. My finish time was 4:01:37.

I am super thankful for my two person cheering crowd - my boyfriend and my brother, who not only woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the race with me, but made sure to be at mile 10, 16, and 23. My BF and Bro even tried to run with me for a couple mins at a couple points just so they could talk to me. I really looked forward to the miles where I knew I would see them. I didn't realize how much the thought of seeing them would help me get through the race. (THANKS BF AND BRO!!!)

After the race, I feel like you always go over in your mind the things you could have done that would have gotten you a better time. Maybe if I did not stop as long for water during certain miles,would I have gotten a better time? If I did not walk for 30 seconds along the bridge, would my time have gone down? And though I can't help but think about this, I am also very proud of myself for making it through. To me, this course was harder for me than Chicago with all of the inclines, and if I can make a 4:01:37 time, I am only hoping that means the next time I do Chicago I can do much better than 4:01:37.