Showing posts with label Printable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Printable. Show all posts

1.19.2012

Homemade Skyline Chili

  

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, I would probably choose Skyline. 
If you've never heard of this, then you have to try it! Skyline is "Cincinnati Style Chili." It's very different than traditional chili. It's got a unique flavor, because it contains cinnamon and cocoa powder. It's good on hot dogs and french fries, but served on top of spaghetti noodles is my favorite way.
There are frozen Skyline meals available at some stores, but they're not nearly as good as the restaurants. Since I'm never in Ohio, I knew I needed to find a copy-cat recipe to get my fill. I can't remember what website I got this one from, but I tried it once and fell in love.
This tastes almost exactly like what you'll find in the restaurant. I think even if they brought a skyline restaurant to Tennessee, I'd still make this, because it's just that good.


Homemade Skyline Chili
Printable 4x6 recipe card available here.

Ingredients:
·         2 lbs. RAW Ground Beef
·         2 med. onions
·         2 tsp. minced garlic
·         4 cups beef stock
·         2 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
·         2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
·         2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
·         2-3 tbsp. chili powder
·         2¾ tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
·         1 tsp ground cinnamon
·         1 tsp. ground cumin
·         ½ tsp. salt
·         ¼ tsp. allspice
·         ¼ tsp. ground cayenne
·         ¼ tsp. ground cloves
·         1 bayleaf
·         1 tbsp. dark brown sugar

Cut your onion and garlic, and puree in a food processor.
I don't use as much onion in the recipe as it calls for. I just really can't taste it, so I usually get one large onion and use half in the skyline and use the other half on top.As for garlic, I usually use minced garlic from a jar, but had fresh garlic on hand, so used it instead. It really didn't make any difference, so just use what you've got.

Once you've pureed your onion and garlic, cook in a large stock pot with a little bit of oil until the liquid evaporates.
Then add in your beef stock, and bring to a boil.
Add your raw meat and whisk to break it up. You want it as small as possible. This type of chili is very thin, so you want all the chunks broken up as much as you can get them.
After you've broken the meat up you'll add in the rest of your ingredients.
Something I do to save a bit of time since I make this fairly often is to measure out the dry ingredients for multiple batches at once. Then I just have to dump one bag of stuff in the pot, instead of measuring out a million different teaspoons of spices.

Reduce heat and let simmer for at least one hour.
It's a pretty gross brown color when you start cooking it all, but it smells good, and tastes amazing once it's done.

I prefer a 4-way bowl, which is the chili served on spaghetti noodles topped with onions, cheese, and oyster crackers. Some people like it with kidney beans as well, but I like it better without.


I usually cut the recipe in half, because it makes a lot for just 2 people. Sometimes I make the whole batch and the leftovers freeze great, it usually just depends on how much freezer space I have.


Linking up to:


A Little Nosh


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1.10.2012

Memory Book Questions (Free Printable!)


Since I started the blog I realize I haven't told you a whole lot about me. I'm planning on a dedicated post about that sometime in the near future, but for now I'll tell you about someone very important to me. I have a 6 year old brother named Garrett. I'm almost 23, so if you do that math there are nearly 17 years between us! It's fun having such a huge age gap, because we get to form such a unique bond. I help out at his school multiple times a week, and pick him up and watch him every afternoon until my mom gets off work. 

I love that I can do all the fun "kid stuff" I pin on Pinterest without having any kids of my own. 


An idea I've seen before, but can't find it pinned on any of my boards is to ask your children questions every year and make a memory book of sorts out of it. I love this idea. I have a paper from the 4th grade where I wrote what some of my favorites at the time were, and I love looking back on it. It would be great to have it for every year of my childhood.

So I decided to make a printable sheet of basic questions to ask Garrett. His birthday was a month ago, and I'd wanted to do it by then, but it completely slipped my mind. It's better late than never, though, so I got to thinking up some good questions and typed something up on Picnik. 

I printed it out and sat down with Garrett to get some answers. I had him write everything (with my help with spelling), because I think it will be fun to see how his handwriting changes every year. 


His name is in the left circle, and his age is in the star in the center. I also wrote the date we actually did it underneath the star.


His Answers:
What do you want to be when you grow up? Mechanic
Favorite Color? White
Favorite Animal? lion
Favorite TV Show? Johnny Test
Favorite Movie?  Spiderman
Favorite Game?  Lego Batman
Favorite Book?  Wayside School
Favorite Food?  Hot Wings
Favorite Candy? Chocolate



Some of these answers came as a complete surprise. He's never told my mom or me about any desire to work on cars, but that's what he decided on when I asked him. And his favorite color seems to change every week, but it's usually blue, black, or red, never white. I really liked doing this activity, and can't wait to do it again next year.


You can download this free printable here.
Let me know if you use it. :)

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