trixie's yummy chili

I have made this chili so many times and I swear to you it's the best chili I have ever had. Yea, super humble pie, huh? ;) Anyway, this is not a traditional Texas chili in that it has beans and happy stuff like that.  This one isn't time consuming or difficult to make but somehow manages to have that nice complexity of spices that makes chili so much fun. I hope you enjoy it!

1 lb ground beef
onion, 1/2 - 3/4" dice
green pepper, 1/2 - 3/4" dice
evoo
5 cloves garlic, minced
1T+ cumin
2T+ chili powder (I love Penzey's Medium Hot)
1/2 - 1t cinnamon (again, Penzey's Vietnamese is sharp and zippy for this dish)
1T dried oregano
1 can cannellini beans, drained and well rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained and will rinsed
28oz can chopped tomatoes
small can niblets corn (or you can use 1c frozen corn too)
20-24oz tomato juice
3c beef stock or water (I highly recommend the beef stock for this...yum!)

Use a big ol soup pot for this recipe - it's got some volume to it, but if you start in a big enough pot, you'll only need to dirty up one pan. Ok so start by browning the beef, almost 100% cooked through. Drain the beef on paper toweling and set aside. Add a few tablespoons of evoo to the pan and over med-high heat, saute the onions and green peppers until they start to soften. After about 7-10 minutes when the onions are not quite translucent, add the garlic. You don't want a ton of oil in the pan here but just enough to keep things from drying out; add more if you need to. A little browning in the pan is just fine. Once the garlic smells nummy and the onions are soft you can move on. Now, if you have some nice brown goodies in the pan, I'd start by deglazing with just a bit of the stock or some wine - maybe 1/4c and scrape up the bits on the bottom (these ingredients are not in the list above but you can just wing it or skip it.) Then, once the stock is totally reduced and the onion mix is basically dry again, add the spices. Stir them constantly while you're doing this - you're looking for toasty spices, not burnt ones. After about a minute or so, go ahead and add the remainder of the ingredients. If your tomatoes are whole, chop them up in the pan as you go (or mangle them by hand, that works too).

Once all of this gets in the pan, throw a lid on it until you get a nice bubble working. Check the seasoning but don't get too carried away adding heat (spice heat, that is) just yet...taste for salt and call it good for now. Reduce the heat to simmer and check now and then to make sure you still have a slow bubble going on. This wants to cook for at least an hour but optimally 90 minutes. Recheck for salt and now you can gauge the spicy factor too. If you can get your hands on that nice medium spicy chili powder, you'll find this to be a good level of heat but not too zippy for us self-proclaimed spice wimps.

This is sooo good topped with a good white Irish cheddar (shredded), sour cream, crunched up tortilla chips, chopped red onion, etc. Also highly recommend this with trixie's cornbread too, of course!

trixie's cornbread

Not sure how this recipe came to be but I started researching cornbread a couple of years ago looking for the PERFECT one - didn't find it so I experimented until I got what I was looking for: a somewhat sweet cornbread to stand up to my spicy chili (this one has maple syrup!), very moist and flecked with actual corn. It's so easy to make.

Preheat oven to 375.

2 1/3c yellow cornmeal
1c flour
2-3T sugar
4t baking powder
1 1/4t salt
can creamed corn
1/2c cold butter, cut into 1/4" pcs
4 eggs
3/4c REAL maple syrup
1 1/3c buttermilk

This is a great place to use your food processor if you have one. If not, no worries. I forgot I actually own one now and made my last batch by hand...so it's really no big deal.

You'll want two bowls to start with. And spray or otherwise lube up a 9x13" pan. Whisk all the dry ingredients together. Then crumble in the butter cubes. If you have the food proc, give it 20-30 seconds of short pulses to get the butter all broken up into the dry ingredients - it will start to look and feel a little like damp sand and will hold together when you grab some of it. If you're doing this by hand, wash those mitts and get them in there. (Or you can also start the process with a pastry cutter thingie too, but it won't take you all the way to the end. Forks can also work but in my experience, it's a pain in the arse and your hands work better.) Basically you want to take the bits of butter and get them all coated with the cornmeal mix. Then sort of smoosh them between your fingers while you bring in more of the dry mix. The idea is to incorporate most of the butter and get it really small in there but don't worry if it's not totally blended. Get as close as you can. By hand, this will take a good 5 or so minutes of handling. Then just sort of check the mix by rubbing it between your palms while still adding dry mix. Make sure the butter bits are pretty teeny and well distributed.

In the second bowl, whisk up the wet ingredients. The idea here is just to get things well-incorporated and make sure the eggs are broken up. Add the creamed corn to this mix as well. Then you can just add wet to dry and stir until JUST combined. Don't go overboard or the bread won't rise correctly. Be gentle!

Throw all of this in your oiled pan and bake:
9 x 13" should take around 45 minutes
9 x 9" probably will take about 45 minutes as well, as they'll be thicker.
Either way, you're looking for a nice browned edge that's pulling away from the edge of the pan and when you insert a toothpick into the center, it comes out clean.

Voila!

trixie's tip:

Maple Butter: this one is so easy...but makes the cornbread so happy. Take a stick (or 1/2 stick, whatever) of room temperature butter and whip together with a few tablespoons of the maple syrup. If you have a nice flaky sea salt, add in a teaspoon of that as well. If your butter is already salted, you may want to skip this. In the end, it's an excellent sweet and salty happening on top of your cornbread. Apple butter is also highly recommended here!

finding my own way forward, 1 year later

(also know as: rejiggering, repackaging, reworking, revisiting, reminding)

This summer, I marked my first full year of independent consulting.  Though I started my business back in 2001, I have either worked full-time or under contract nearly all of those years in between.  Oh and I was gainfully, blissfully unemployed here and there too. But once I "decided" (aka, due to the realities of today's marketplace), I ventured out on my own last year, full time, all in, committed.

I often have people ask, How did you get started? and the truth is, I took an "it takes a village" + "modified shotgun" approach.  I knew that I had some marketable skills.  And I knew that the market I wanted to serve could use these skills.  So wrapping up my team, I set out on learning as much about this process as I could.  I really didn't want to take a bunch of missteps early on, and I needed some real life perspective from people who were out there making it happen.

But beyond that, I wasn't exactly sure how to package my services. I did a lot of reading and decided that an hourly rate wasn't for me, selfishly, because I didn't WANT to track hours!!  I did so much of that as a contractor and frankly I didn't think it served my clients.  I decided, better to just set a project fee and deliverables and go with that.  Everyone knows what they're getting into and what they're getting out of it.  Just seemed sensible.  I assumed that I'd probably take a beating on my actual hourly rate early on because I just didn't know how to estimate my time yet.  I knew that I'd build that into the learning process.  I knew I'd take some clients that maybe didn't completely line up, but I also knew that if I focused on the things I'm passionate about - namely, entrepreneurs, women and food - and employed a fair amount of patience and faith, I'd end up in the right place.

All of this turned out to be true.  I gained amazing clients - not even a clunker in the bunch.  Sure, I might be running on minimum wage rates with some of them, but heck, I didn't even care.  I was learning so much about what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, how long it would take and what I'd need to invest to get the job done.  It was a perfect experiment all around.

So, since the late summer, I've spent some time looking back at my business plan and assessing where I was in my own strategy - this elusive thing that I help my clients with on a daily basis.  How was *I* doing against my stated goals: revenue (by project, by month, by hour), clients (type and number), margin, turn time, etc. And using the knowledge of the past year, I set about creating an improved vision.  No, I didn't decide to turn everything on its ear.  But I did decide that I needed to shift a few things, repackage a few other things and reassess my own expectations a bit.

Here's what I learned:

• It takes twice as long to do a project than I thought - both in actual hours, and in duration of engagement.  Why?  Because entrepreneurs need coaching.  And without setting expectations about how that coaching would occur, I spent too much time coaching and not enough time doing.  Next, because I wasn't my client's only priority, and they weren't my only client, general things took longer than I thought.  Also, adding in other complementary services - key to my offering - added another layer of time and complexity.  I know better now.
• I revel in strategy work.  Sure, I love some of the tactical stuff too.  But sitting down with my entrepreneurs and talking with them about their future of the business and then turning that into solid documentation of how to proceed, where to go, what to do and who to take along for the ride?  Pure bliss.  I even like creating financial models.  Go figure.
• Coaching is fun, and inevitable.  Twice in a day last week - the very same day - two completely unrelated people articulated my work with entrepreneurs as "you're like a business life coach."  Huh.  Never exactly thought of it that way, but it's so true. The entrepreneur is the business, and the business is the entrepreneur (even if you have a staff of 12).  Getting all of the goals, identity issues, self-fulfilling trouble spots, needs and keys to success down on paper - aka, recognized and articulated - is such an invigorating process for clients.  Once they see the vision, understand the journey and can see themselves walking down the path to success?  Electrifying.
• Entrepreneurs want RIGHT NOW ACTION, but have no time.  The duration issue is as relevant for them as it is for me.

And here's what I decided:

• I'm going to repackage and offer a more diverse selection of services, based on the client need.  Some may need a longer-duration project; but some may need a one day intensive launch.  Some may want a 6-month small group seminar,  some may need one-on-one coaching.  Some may need strategy, others may need tactics.  And I can wrap these all up in different services and not only meet or exceed the client expectations, but also keep my own head on.
• I'm going to set better expectations on client:consultant interaction so everyone understands what they're in for.  Pricing and deliverables aren't enough to keep things clear and manageable.
• I'm going to lean heavily toward strategy (though that's not at all different from where I'm at today), and I'm going to make it my focus.
• I'm going to update my identity statement, key messages, audiences, website and marketing collateral.  Evolve or die, people.

And though it's easy to see how cumbersome and time-consuming this business/self work can be, I've also learned that it's critical.  Every business needs a health check once a year.  I'm going to give that to myself so that I can give better to my clients.  Does this sound familiar, entrepreneurs?  We are our businesses, our businesses are our lives.  Our health - in business and in life - is all we really have.  And that's a glorious thing to be responsible for.  Carry on.