Monday, January 23, 2006

Chilly weather is chili weather

Winter has finally arrived in central Texas. For most of January the high temperatures have been in the 60s and 70s and while it gets down to the 40s at night, we haven't had to run our heater. That is, until yesterday. Yesterday the highs were in the 40s and it was sort of rainy. Right now we are going through a drought so we welcome precipitation but yesterday it was toying with us. It was misting and dark, but there wasn't enough rain to do more than just frizz your hair.

With the weather being so yucky, we decided it was perfect chili weather. I was really hankering for a pork chili verde, so that's what we did. I took some of our frozen Hatch chiles and mixed a bag of mild chiles with a few hot chiles. I also added tomatillos, onion, shallots and garlic. I cubed and browned a pork loin and added that to the chiles, added chicken broth and some of Doug's homemade Mexican Pilsner Pepper beer. I let everything cook together for 2-3 hours, until most of the liquid had cooked off. I served it over rice, with Monterrey Jack cheese. Yummy. The first bite was mild, like most chili verde, but the after taste was spicy. It was pretty yummy and just perfect for the weather.

I do hope this cold snap doesn't last too long, though.

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