i tried to be a vegetarian once. i was a senior in high school and one of my good friends, katherine, was a vegetarian. i envied her seemingly effortless coolness & wanted to be just like her. i guess i thought giving up meat would be one way to do that. i also thought it would be pretty easy since i don't like steak and eat other types of beef & pork very rarely. i love chicken & seafood but i thought i could give them up. well, i was wrong. chicken was really my downfall. i don't think i lasted as a vegetarian for even the whole school year.

i did come out of the experience with a really horrible vegetarian cookbook. probably 90% of the recipes include lentils, which i hate. the cookbook really doesn't provide much variety in ingredients or taste. it's just downright boring. i am really glad that i got this cookbook, though, because it gave me my chili recipe... which i put ground beef in. the first part of the recipe is also where my pasta sauce started. both of these dishes regularly get a "damn, that's good" reaction from my husband, john, and my mom (who i think is the best cook on earth) often requests my chili.

one problem with trying to write out how to make a tried & tested recipe is that it's not the same every time. i don't get out a cookbook to make my sauce or chili. there is no real recipe. i recently had an art project idea for which i asked my favorite cooks to hand write a signature recipe so i can frame them. i asked my aunt dee to write down her deviled egg recipe (which she is famous for). i got an email back from her saying "you do know you're taxing my brain because there is no real recipe". yeah, i kinda figured that was the case. but i'm going to take a whack at writing out my sauce recipe here (and how to turn it into chili).

candy's pasta sauce

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 large onions, diced

2 bell peppers, diced

2 20 oz. cans of diced tomatoes, drained

1 6-oz can of tomato paste

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 tsps basil

1 tbs oregano

2 tbs sugar

in a medium sized stock pot, sweat the garlic, onions & peppers (i use green for the contrast in color) in several tablespoons of olive oil and the salt & pepper until the onions are translucent. i saute the garlic while i cut up the onion & let that sweat while i cut up the peppers (the time this takes between additions seems to work well). when the peppers just start to get soft, add the tomatoes, herbs & sugar. simmer for about 30 minutes.

how does this become chili? well, mine is not your average chili. it has, in fact, been called stew before. i'd probably be poo-pooed by chili purists because i think chili without beans is not chili. probably because my chili without beans is basically my pasta sauce. so here's what you do. take the above directions but forget the tomato paste. right after you add the tomatoes, add one 40 ounce can of brook's chili hot beans (or whatever brand you like. i always use brook's), a pound of browned ground beef, about 2 tablespoons of chili powder and tabasco to taste and simmer for 30 minutes. i like to add a little shredded cheddar & a few oyster crackers to my bowl.

this pasta sauce is good on any kind of noodles and i also like to use it in lasagna. both recipes make enough for 2 people to eat for several meals or enough for a meal for probably 8-10 people. i like to make a batch of sauce or chili & then freeze about half of it for later. how great is it to be all like "man, what the heck are we going to have for dinner?" and then remembering there's something yummy in the freezer? well... it's really great.

Look at the beautiful, intense colour of that sauce. Yum!

Oh yeah, totally know what you mean. The hardest recipes are always the ones you make all the time and don't have a recipe for. In my head it's sort of like an algorythm chart "Well if you have this in your cupboard, proceed to this step" but if not or "you're in the mood for this other thing, proceed to this step". Every step is like "Well you could do this or you could do this or you could do this and they'd all work great" and "well here's how I did it THIS TIME but no bets on next time..."