Texas-style chili

Cool weather and college football got me craving chili. But, as you may recall, I have a phobia of industrial ground beef. So I decided to make it myself, using a recipe (from Tom Valenti's "Soups, Strews, and One-Pot Meals" - great cookbook) that calls for [ammonia free] cubes of beef stew meat. The result was delicious, especially when served with some brown rice and topped with grated cheddar cheese, finely chopped red onion, and a little sour cream.

What you need:

2 lbs beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon chile powder

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 celery stalk, diced

1 medium onion, peeled and diced

2 bell peppers (I used one red and one green), seeded and diced

10 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

pinch of sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1 quart beef low-sodium broth

1 cup diced tomatoes (I used canned - you can also use 4 fresh plum tomatoes)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 dried ancho chile,* seeded, stemmed and chopped

2 15 oz cans of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

kosher salt

ground pepper

*I found a bag of ancho chiles Fairway, some chopped canned chipotle in adobo would also probably be good

What to do:

1. Put the meat in a bowl and season with one tablespoon of kosher salt, 1 tablespoon of ground pepper, the garlic powder and chili powder. Stir so the meat is covered in the spice mixture.

2. Heat olive oil in a large pot/dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the seasoned meat and cook until browned all over, 8 - 12 minutes. Remove meat from the pot and set aside.

3. Add the carrots, onion, celery, peppers, and garlic and stir, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are softened, about 5 or 6 minutes. Add the tomato paste and punch of sugar and stir to coat the vegetables.

4. Return meat to the pot with the vegetables. Sprinkle flour over the meat and stir to keep it from browning.

5. Add vinegar and stir to loosen any additional brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Add beef broth to pot one cup at a time, stirring in between to prevent lumps. Add the tomatoes, cumin, and ancho chile and stir.

6. When the liquid comes to a boil, reduce heat and cover the pot. Cook for one hour.

7. Add beans and continue to cook over low heat for 15 minutes or until beans are tender.

Enjoy.

Sunday school

Every weekday around 11:30am, I get a daily cooking/restaurant e-newsletter in my inbox from Tasting Table. The newsletters are usually pretty interesting, but one Tuesday in August, something in particular caught my eye: a pizza cooking school that promised to teach its students to make restaurant quality pizza from scratch in regular old home ovens. I had to enroll.

Today, my sister and our friend Kate spent 4 hours of intense pizza study (and sampling) at Pizza a Casa, Mark Bello's colorful pizza cooking school and "self sufficiency center," (you can buy everything you need to replicate his pizza from his shop at the front of the classroom, including a pizza stone, and imported san marzano tomato "passata") on the Lower East Side.

Mark is native to this neck of the woods and became determined to recreate a classic NYC thin crust pie (think Totonno's, Di Fara's, or Lombardi's) while attending graduate school in Chicago. After much trial and error, along with several stints as a pizzaiolo and a few years spent living in Italy, he has developed a fool-proof recipe for perfect pizza crust and technique to cook it in your home oven.

The classroom is set up with a long table in the center. Mark stands at the head, carefully explaining the fruits of his research and sharing his tips for dough, tomato sauce, toppings and baking. All tools and ingredients are provided, including a few locally-sourced products (e.g., cheeses from Alleva Dairy and the Essex Street Market) and not-so-locally sourced products (e.g., canned grilled eggplant, tomato sauce, and sea salt imported from Italy).

We started by each making our own dough, enough for four individual pizzas, with only a few simple ingredients: all-purpose flour (he swears by King Arthur's), yeast, some warm water, olive oil, and salt. That's it.

Mark gave us a demonstration on kneading the dough before we each tried our own hands at it. Once our dough had been sufficiently kneaded, divided, rolled into balls, and set aside to rise, the real fun began: eating the pizza.

Pizza number one: classic margarita made with local mozzarella, imported italian tomato "passata," graded pecorino cheese, finished with fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

Pizza number 2 (my personal favorite): potato rosemary made with thinly slice red potato (pre-steeped in olive oil, salt, rosemary, and garlic) and pecorino and finished with fresh minced rosemary leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.

Pizza number 3: local smoked mozzarella, italian tomato "passata," pecorino, and sundried tomato, finished with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. Pizza number 4 (which I forgot to photograph and which was the only pizza I didn't love): pizza bianca with fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, local butter, pecorino cheese, and roasted peppers, finished with lemon zest and freshly ground black pepper.

It was 2pm by this point and I hadn't had lunch, so despite Mark's warnings that we would "hit a pizza wall" sooner than we thought, I eagerly ate several slices of each of his sample pies, which I later regretted as I was felt quite sick by the time I had sampled each of the four pizzas I later baked.

We then turned to rolling out our now-risen balls of dough and each took a crack at forming crusts.

I found forming the crust to be the toughest part of the pizza-making process. But Mark and Jenny were right by our sides offering encouragement and showing us what to do if we ripped our dough, needed help getting the formed crusts on the wooden slips, or were ready to launch our pizzas into the hot ovens. I should mention that there were only 5 students at our class today even though the classroom can accommodate 12. So we really lucked out by having such a small class and getting so much individual attention.

Some students only made one or two pizzas and took their remaining dough home, but as I mentioned earlier, I ended up making all four of my dough balls into pizzas (most of which I ended up taking home with me):

quatro formaggi with a Vermont blue cheese, ricotta, pecorino, and mozzarella;

margarita with sopressata;

eggplant and roasted pepper; and a potato rosemary drizzled with black truffle oil (didn't take a picture of that one, but it was very pretty).

I had a really great time and I highly recommend Mark Bello's Pizza a Casa for delightful and informative afternoon of pizza making and eating. And he has just started teaching classes on making fresh pasta out of the same classroom, so I plan to enroll again soon.

Pizza a Casa

www.pizzaacasa.com

4 hour class: ~$150

371 Grand Street (between Essex and Norfolk)

(212) 228-5483

Stuffed acorn squash

I thought I'd follow my last fall squash recipe with . . . ANOTHER fall squash recipe.

Today's recipe features acorn squash and is an adaptation of a recipe for "zucca al forno" that I saw Mario Batali make on his first cooking show, "Molto Mario," way back in 2001. While Mario probably knew what he was doing, I decided to use much less butter and cheese than he suggested (the man is quite rotund) and also to skip the mushrooms and bread cubes. The result: a very savory and satisfying squash preparation. And rich even with less butter and cheese -- Judd and I shared one half of one squash tonight and now have quite a lot of cheesy acorn squash in the refrigerator.

Here's what you'll need:

2 acorn squashes

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 onion, cut into fine dice

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

8oz mascarpone cheese

1/3 lb grated gruyere cheese

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Melt butter in small saute pan. Add diced onion and cook, stirred, until onion begins to brown. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

3. Cut cap off of acorn squash and cut in half down the center. Remove seeds and set each half in a large baking dish.

4. In a large bowl, mix egg, mascarpone, parmesan, gruyere, nutmeg, and browned onions. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Fill each squash half with a large spoonful (~1/4 cup each) of the cheese mixture. Bake for 90 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes before eating so you don't burn your mouth!

Serves 4 as a main course, and 8 as a side dish.