In the spirit of our January theme of cooking Food Network Star meals, we decided to make Chili Bean and Corn Bread Pie from Ellie Krieger's Comfort Food Fix. Ellie's schtick on Food Network is to put a healthier spin on traditional comfort foods.
"Comfort Food Fix" by Ellie Krieger.
Some of the ingredients from the pantry.
I tried to find Ellie's recipe for this Chili Pie online to link it for you guys, but I had no such luck. This seems fitting, considering our disappointment with the meal. Anyway, I'm not even going to bother typing it out for you here, because it's not worth it! Basically you cook the chili portion while making the corn bread topping. Then, when those two parts are ready, layer them together in a baking dish.
Garlic, onions, beans, chili and spices on the stove.
Chili topped with corn bread mixture, ready for the oven.
After 30 minutes in the oven, the chili and corn bread pie was ready to serve. We dished it out with excitement because the chili pie smelled really great.
Corn bread chili pie.
The chili part of this dish was delicious. It was healthy, meatless, and the green chilis added just the right amount of kick. When we started MIHM, we promised to be honest when sharing our projects with our readers. So to come right out and say it, the corn bread was awful. It ruined the whole dish. Because the recipe called for whole wheat flour as a healthier alternative to traditional corn bread, the bread was dry and grainy. A few bites in, we both had instant heartburn! Honestly, there are just some things that don't work as a "healthier" alternative. What makes corn bread so delicious is the sweet taste and soft texture. This was dry. And hard. And bland. But, all was not wasted. We dumped the bread topping and got 3 leftover lunches out of the chili, which was excellent.
To ease the disappointment, and continue with our cooking and cocktails theme for this month, we quickly whipped up one of our favorite drinks - Irish Coffee. And yes, we always have all of the ingredients for this drink at the ready. :)
Heavy whipping cream, Jameson, cocktail shaker, coffee,
glasses with 2 sugar cubes.
As any proud Irish family would, we had multiple bottles of Jameson in our family White Elephant gift exchange this year. :) My Girls Team partner managed to end up with one bottle, traditional Irish Coffee glassware, and the instructions on how to make the perfect drink, courtesy of my cousin Tim who recently visited the Jameson factory in Ireland. Lucky guy!
We used Tim's recipe to make our Irish Coffees. Whipping the cream in the cocktail shaker and pouring it over the hot spoon are really the magic steps here. If you've ever had an Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista in San Francisco, but had trouble replicating it at home, this is your answer!
1. Add two teaspoons of sugar to the glass.
2. Add a generous shot of Jameson.
3. Top with fresh, hot coffee.
4. Stir well.
5. Whip heavy cream well for 15 seconds in a cocktail shaker.
6. Pour cream into glass over the back of a hot spoon. (Cream should float.)
Pouring the cream over a hot spoon.
Enjoying the warm Irish Coffee on the couch.
Well guys, you can't win them all. But, after a year of making it happen on Mondays, it is impressive that we've just now run across our first inedible meal. And of course, there is nothing so terrible that an Irish Coffee can't fix! Until next week...
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