Author Archives: mike@mikelilley.com

Orlando Crimeline 2020 Winning Chili

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Tori’s Texas Red Chili

This is the recipe for Tori’s Texas Red chili that won the Professional category at the 2020 Orlando Crimeline Chili Cookoff.
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Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Servings 12
Calories 410 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 2 med yellow onions – diced
  • 1/2 each green, red and yellow bell pepper – diced
  • 5 cloves garlic – finely diced
  • 1/2 cup chili powder good quality
  • 3 TB ground cumin
  • 1.5 TB smoked paprika
  • 1 TB cayenne pepper optional
  • 3 TB unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1.5 TB Better Than Beef boullion
  • 3 4oz hatch green chilis (2 mild, 1 hot)
  • 2 15oz black beans – rinsed
  • 2.5 lbs 93% lean ground turkey
  • 2 28oz petite diced tomatoes
  • 2 14oz crushed tomatoes
  • 2 TB tomato paste
  • 32 oz chicken stock
  • 12 oz Yuengling beer
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • olive oil
  • salt / pepper

Instructions
 

  • In a large pot, heat a good drizzle of olive oil over medium high heat and cook the turkey, breaking it up into small pieces while cooking. When the turkey is cooked, remove to a dish and cover.
  • Add another drizzle of Olive Oil to the pot and add the onions. Cook the onions for 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  • Add the peppers and cook for another 5 minutes.
  • Add the garlic and cook for another 3 minutes.
  • Lightly salt and pepper the veggies. Add the spices and stir, toasting the spices for 2 minutes. It’s important to keep the spices moving during this step.
  • Add the Crushed and Diced tomatoes, chicken stock, Hatch green chilis, beer, tomato paste, Beef Bullion, and Black Beans.
  • Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, stirring every 7minutes. Taste for salt. This is an important part of the process. The chili still has liquid to cook out, so it will thicken and intensify in flavor. I like to get my salt close at this stage, and then do my final salt at the very end.
  • At this stage you’re looking for balance in the spice ratio. I usually end up adding more chili powder and Cayenne.
  • Add your turkey to the chili, juice and all. Simmer the chili for at least 45 minutes or to desired thickness.
  • Final salt and pepper. Serve topped with extra sharp cheddar cheese, diced red onion and

Video

Keyword Chili, Red Pepper, Texas

Home prices hit record high in May

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The inventory of homes for sale jumped in May, up 6.7% month to month and 18.5% higher than in May last year.

The median price of an existing home sold in May was $419,300, a record-high price in the Realtors’ recording, and up 5.8% year over year.

Sales of previously owned homes are sitting at a 30-year low and didn’t move much in May as prices hit a new record and mortgage rates remain high.

So-called existing home sales in May were essentially flat, down 0.7% from April to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4.11 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors, or NAR. Sales fell 2.8% from May of last year.

This count of closed sales is based on contracts likely signed in March and April. The sluggish sales pace came as rates took a big leap in April.

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Hollywood’s Brat Pack Remembered

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Having been born in 1967 and growing up into young adulthood in the 1980’s. I love all things from that period, especially music and movies. It was a great time to be a young adult. The entertainment industry produced most music and movies for use Gen Xers. The summer of 1985 was the pinnacle of that era and also the beginning of fabulous careers for a group of young actors that would go on to have amazing careers. Everybody wanted to be in the brat Pack, except them. One man disagreed and he had a platform to express himself. Here is a reprint of the article that coined the phrase “Brat Pack”

It was a Thursday night, and like all the Thursday nights in all the bars in all the cities in all the world where young people live, the Hard Rock Cafe brimmed over with boys and girls. This was Los Angeles, so the boys wore T-shirts and sunglasses and shorts, and the girls wore miniskirts and Madonna hairdos. Over the blare of rock music, the boys and girls were shouting jokes and stories to one another, talking about their jobs and their classes and their dreams, eating enormous cheeseburgers and washing them down with swigs from long-necked bottles of Corona beer. The waitresses were dressed in punk uniforms, and they smiled and laughed as the boys and girls floated from table to table, partying with the endless spirit of those who have no place to return to, no person waiting nervously at home, no responsibility the next day that could possibly be more important than this night, right here, right now.

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