Cooking with Sam: Warm up with chili, soup

I think it’s going to get cold again, and some of the weathermen are saying we might get snow.

I sure hope not, but if we do, we need to have some things on hand to make chili and chicken soup. These are always good on a cold winter day with a peanut butter or pimiento cheese sandwich.

I like cornbread, of course, being a Southern boy. It’s always good to have leftovers for cornbread and buttermilk in a bowl with diced onions and fried bacon – there’s nothing any better. I know lots of you do not like this, but when I was growing up on the farm, we didn’t always have a heavy supper meal, and if we had one, it was in the middle of the day. I remember smelling the cornbread cooking and how I could not wait until it was out of the oven to slather the first slice with homemade butter – or honey because of course we had bees – and it was so good.

I think my taste buds are changing. Nothing tastes as good as it did when I was growing up.

One of my neighbors, the Murphys, gave me this recipe to try. They found the recipe at the Bush factory in the mountains. It was really fast and delicious.

Bush’s Chili

1 can of Bush’s chili starter

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 large onion, chopped

1 pound of ground beef

1 can of chili beans

Sweat the onions, cook the ground beef and drain. In a stock pot, add the onions, beans, chili starter and ground beef cook for about 30 minutes – and you have chili. It’s so simple, and it’s really good – but next time I will have to double. I can eat a lot of chili.

Another meal for a cold or snowy day is chicken and noodles.

Chicken Noodle Soup

4 cans of chicken broth

2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 cup of sliced carrots (I use canned carrots; they cook quickly)

Salt and pepper

8 ounces of flat noodles

½ cup of celery, finely chopped for quick cooking

Sweat the onions and celery in a stock pot. Add chicken stock. Add carrots and chopped chicken. Let cook about 10 minutes, until broth is rolling. Add noodles and cook about 15 minutes or until the noodles are done.

This chicken noodle soup is simple but so good on a cold day, and it does not take long to cook.

Cook, eat, sleep and enjoy. Happy eating.