The good thing about spicy food is that they really clear out the old sinuses. And make you think that in fact, perhaps dragons are at least ontological ancestors, if not genetic ones.

::takes another bite of lunch::

And another thing. I’m not a great cook. I mean, I haven’t poisoned anyone yet, and there are a few dishes I make that are quite fabulous. I make a mean Pangang Curry, for instance, and a wicked Thai Pumpkin Soup, but other than this? I only really muster the ooomph to even care about cooking roughly once a week. ::shrugs:: Such is life. I care about other things. Perhaps I’ll marry a chef, or a man who thinks he is.

But Monday afternoon found me looking in my fridge and my cupboards and thinking, “Yea, I could probably do it.” And so I attempted chili, but without any sort of meat as I had none in the house. Now, I’ve yet to meet a vegetarian chili that I actually liked as much as a good Texas chili, and when I’m ordering on a menu, I’m rather selective, but when it comes to actually having to cook it? Not so much. But I had ground cumin, which to me is the only thing that would absolutely make or break a chili. (I was wrong. Cornbread is also a necessary side, as well as someone who can make Texas Chili at my elbow, or preferably doing it for me. I really need a cast iron skillet like my mother has… Erm, sorry about the nonsequiter. Moving on.)

What I actually ended up with, after 5 hours on high in the slow cooker, was an incredibly spicy vegetarian stew that in no way resembled chili.

Now, the good news was that I had to go to an all day type meeting the next day and what did that lovely church serve? Homemade chili. God bless church women who embrace traditional gender roles (because heaven knows i’m not one of them), and God bless the delicious chili they make.

But that Ontological Dragon Stew? Think lunch for the rest of the week, plus a little emergency meal in the freezer. ::sniffs her runny nose, due to the sheer amount of spice: jalepeno pepper slices, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper and hot sauce…::

Ontological Dragon Stew
Rough Recipe:
*to be altered, depending on what you have in your cupboards

An onion, green pepper, and several carrots, chopped and loaded into slow cooker.

Can/frozen/fresh of following: corn, red beans, garbanzo beans, chopped tomatoes – load into slow cooker.

A tablespoon of sofrito, a handful of fresh oregano, chopped, a heaping of ground cumin, some cayenne pepper (not necessary to spill it on the floor, as I did), a bit of whatever hotsauce you have handy, a bunch of jalepeno pepper slices all diced up, and a heaping of red pepper flakes, loaded into crock pot, with a bit of water. Add more liquid if you don’t like yours the consistency of wall paper paste, as I do. Or, really chunky wall paper paste, as the case would be this time.

Stir well. Cook for 4-5 hours on high or something like 8 on low.

Serve over some sort of bready thing (cornbread is optimal, but a slice of whatever will do in a pinch), and put some sort of dairy thing on top (sour cream and shredded cheese is perfect, but I only had the cheese.)

As I inferred, Julia Child I’m not, though you won’t see me die of starvation any time soon.

Btw – you Trinity-ites: our server is down and has been since Friday. So, if you’ve emailed anything to us… We didn’t get it and we probably wont ever get that message. Hopefully our server will be patched up and running while we scout out a new one. To say it’s on it’s last leg is a misnomer: It’s lost it’s last leg, but as Cam reminds us, we’re an equal opportunity parish, so we love our server, even tho it is now a parapelegic, metaphorically speaking.