Bison and Squash Chili

From Lawrence Peters

The dapper Lawrence Peters is a country singer, songwriter, DJ, and drummer. When he’s not tending bar at the Hideout he’s playing music or spinning records somewhere around town. Or, just maybe, he’s making chili — like this tasty blend, which he served at Soup & Bread on (eep) February 23.

Ingredients

1/2 cup chopped red onion

3-5 cloves garlic, crushed

some ground black pepper

some salt

about 1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lb ground bison meat or lean ground beef

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ancho chili powder

1 teaspoon powdered chipotle pepper

1 tablespoon rubbed sage

3 bay leaves

3 cups uncooked squash, cubed (I used butternut)

3 1/2 cups cooked black beans (I use canned beans, reserving juice and adding to taste)

3 1/2 cups cooked white kidney beans (I use canned beans, reserving juice and adding to taste)

2 cans (28 oz. each) fire roasted tomatoes, with juice, chopped

12 oz. beer (I used a medium-bodied ale, but use whatever sounds good to you)

water, as needed

Preparation

In a large stockpot, saute the onion and garlic in olive oil. When slightly translucent, add bison, and enough black pepper to cover the meat. Add chili powder, ancho and chipotle pepper, and cook meat until brown.

Add all other ingredients, and simmer until squash is tender – about three hours. Add salt to taste.

Note: The chili should be thick and savory, but not dense, and it should have a little kick to it. I usually serve this over some chopped rapini, cooked al dente in a little chicken stock.

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Night of the Living Bread

Regular readers of this blog (I know there are a couple of you out there) may have noticed a certain sameness to our weekly soup recaps. Because really, over three years, there’s only so much one can say about the ways in which people cook soup, come together, eat soup, and mingle. And that’s cool — we’ve got a good groove going at this point — but it makes for rather routine reading after a while.

So this week, let’s talk about bread. Because, holy cr*p we had so much bread this week. (We had a lot of good soups too, and I *will* get to those. In a minute.) But this week we scored two huge bags of boules and ciabatta from the kids at IIA, and then another five bags (!)  from La Farine, including whole-wheat baguettes, rolls, and at least 6 loaves of their incomparable ciabatta. My car smelled great! And then, when we got to the Hideout, we had bagels dropped off the night before by Aadam Jacobs, plus zatar bread from Taza Bakery, and crackers, and cornbread, and chocolate muffins, and buckeyes, and toffee, and … I’m sure I’ve missed something in there.

This bounty of baked goods was thanks in part to our regular donors La Farine and the Illinois Institute of Art Culinary School, but it was also thanks to the collective enthusiasm and pastry power of this week’s team of cooks, all of whom came from the ranks of LTH Forum, aka “the Chicago-based culinary chat site.” The LTH’ers brainstormed for weeks, and came through with flag flying high. On the table: Caldo do res (a Spanish beef soup featuring big chunks of corn on the cob), tomato-bacon soup, split pea soup with ham, smoked ham bone and navy bean soup, red beans and rice with sausage soup, the return of David Hammond’s pozole, curried squash and red lentil soup, and, in a nice curve ball, cold zuppa di celiege, or sour cherry soup (below).

Now, you might notice a common thread running through all but two of those soups. Namely, meat. (And in 4 out of 5 cases, not just meat, pork.) So at the last minute I enlisted a backup vegan chicken (ie: seitan) noodle soup from Swim Cafe. And then, at an even laster minute, Grant from Hull-House showed up with a pot of potato-herb soup leftover from that week’s ReThinking Soup. It appears this may become a regular thing.

So in other words, we had a whoooole lot of soup in which to sop all that bread. It was a powerful feast, set to the soothing sounds of DJ Lawrence Peters (who’s coming back this week with chili). And on top of it all we raised $227 for Asian Youth Services. Many thanks to everyone who participated, including David Hammond, Gary Wiviott, Catherine Lambrecht, Elaine Haney, Maribeth Heeran, Kenny Zuckerberg, Steve Zaransky, Jennifer Berman, Jenny Zelle, and all the other LTH’ers who contributed to the evening.

See you next week.

Soup cooks February 23

Up next week for your soup-eating pleasure ….

Musician, bartender, and DJ Lawrence Peters

Onion AV Club Chicago editor Marah Eakin

Park Grill chef Josh Taylor

Phaedra Leslie

Carol Palmer

Dinner is Solved! personal chef Roger Greene

Food blogger Cyndi Fecher

and, probably, another terrific vegetarian soup from our friends at Hull-House

All this, plus DJs Jeremy and Gwen Lemos!

Proceeds benefit Teen Living Programs — from the ranks of whose supporters Josh, Carol, and Phaedra were recruited.

See you then!

Soup cooks, February 16

Next week sees the return of the collective cooking power of LTH Forum, Chicago’s culinary chat site.

The group has marshalled a fearsome team, including 9 soup cooks, some bread bakers, and one promised batch of buttercrunch toffee. And, spying on their plans, it looks like there are some stellar soups in the works, including the return of David Hammond’s Mulefoot Pozole and a refreshing batch of cold cherry soup. All that plus DJ Lawrence Peters!

Donations raised at this week’s Soup & Bread go to Asian Youth Services, which provides afterschool tutoring and hot meals to kids in Uptown – most of them first- or second-generation Cambodian immigrants, and some from Laos and Vietnam as well.

Come out; come eat!

 

Bingo!

Our inaugural bingo night was a blast. OK, so we ran out of cards at 6:40 and markers long before that — an unfortunate oversight that had me scrambling for pennies, lapel pins, goldfish crackers, bottlecaps, and just about anything else that would sit on a card. Some enterprising gamers improvised their own markers out of ripped-up scraps of napkin, a strategy that proved unstable when the A/C kicked in and left the back room looking like the aftermath of a mildly raucous confetti party.

Also, I understand (after the fact) that the promised veggie dogs failed to materialize. Apparently they don’t sell them at Restaurant Depot. We will do some more research and try our best to provide some sort of tubular vegetarian grillable next week.

Still, despite such challenges, everyone was in high spirits. Especially our winners young Henry– who hit it big with a plain old line and, later, both an “H”  and an “I” in the “crazy H” round — and Jen, who bingo-ed on the blackout round, after winning TWO earlier games to boot, and took home the grand prize of one big ol’ bag of produce from lovely Irv and Shelly. I swear, it wasn’t rigged. 

Henry, Jen, and our third winner, whose name I missed, also took home bars of chocolate, jars of honey from City Hall’s rooftop apiary, bottles of hot sauce made from Humboldt Park peppers, a superpretty jar of pickles from the Hull-House Kitchen, and a plant of indeterminate species. All of the above came courtesy of our partners at NeighborSpace. We raised $250 on Wednesday so that they can help you, the citizens of Chicago!, preserve and cultivate your neighborhood gardens. (Insert exhortatory soliloquy on civic pride and community investment and planting the seeds of democracy here. Where the hell is Tim when you need him?)

Our caller Lawrence Peters worked the mic like the pro he is, especially as he was also, it turns out, a bingo virgin. Thanks Lawrence! You are the best. And a virgin no more.

Also, a loud shout-out to the fab Sheila Sachs, who graciously loaned us her classy bingo rig for the duration. Who else would have bingo cards apparently stolen from Hatch Show Print? Thanks, She!

Next week: More cards! More markers! More vegetarian food!

And, stepping up to the bingo mic–allegedly straight from O’Hare, which is already making me anxious–the lovely and talented Amy Lombardi.

We will see you there, then.

We’re back, with more free food

That’s right. It’s the summer event you’ve been waiting for!

VEGGIE BINGO.

Join us at the Hideout on Wednesday evenings from July 8 to September 9 for a friendly round (or six) of bingo to benefit Chicago’s community gardens. Each week we highlight a different local garden. Prizes range from jars of locally produced honey, bottles of hot sauce, and handmade soap to the grand prize of a box of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables, courtesy of the very generous folks at Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks.

Veggie Bingo runs from 6 to 8 PM every Wednesday for ten weeks. The actual bingo games start at 6:30, and run about an hour. Cards are $1 a pop, or six for $5, and can be purchased from your bartender. All proceeds benefit NeighborSpace, a nonprofit organization that acquires and preserves community open space in the city.

In addition to the veggies, we’ll also be loading up the grill with free hot dogs and tofu pups. Bingo games will be led by an all-star team of callers, starting with dapper country crooner Lawrence Peters on the 8^th. See the Hideout website and this blog for upcoming celebrity callers as we book ‘em.

 

The particulars

What: Bingo!

Where: The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia

When: Wednesdays, 6-8 PM, from July 8-September 9

Who: The Hideout, NeighborSpace, and Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks

Why: To raise money to help Chicago’s gardens grow.

 

About our partners

NeighborSpace is a nonprofit urban land trust dedicated to preserving and sustaining community managed open spaces in Chicago. Their network of almost 70 gardens provide thousands of people the opportunity to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers; to restore habitats; and create unique gathering places in their own neighborhoods. NeighborSpace’s partners in the community can rest assured that the land will remain dedicated to conservation and their efforts will never be displaced. To volunteer in a community garden near you email info@neighbor-space.org or call 312-431-9406.

Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks offers year-round home delivery in the Chicago area of local and organic produce, meat, dairy, eggs, baked goods and more. We are partnering with sustainable farmers to grow the supply of local food in a way that protects our health and the environment. Come join us and make a difference One Bite at a Time!

Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens (vegan)

 

From Lawrence Peters

 

2 lbs. dry black eyed peas

Enough water to cover the beans 

Some olive oil

1 bunch fresh collard greens (or 16oz. frozen) de-stemmed and chopped 

3 cloves garlic

2 Tbsp finely chopped red onion

1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped

1 and 1/2 C. beer (I used Goose Island Honkers Ale for this batch)

2 tsp black pepper

2 cubes vegetable bouillon (I use Rapunzel vegan vegetable with sea salt and herbs)

2 tsp rubbed sage

2 tsp Gravy Master

Salt to taste

Sort and wash beans. Soak in cold water overnight. Water should cover beans by a couple inches. Drain and set aside.

In a large soup pot saute onion, garlic, and jalapeno in a couple Tbsp olive oil, ’til onions are translucent.

Add greens and beer.

Add everything else, except salt. 

Bring to a boil, then cover and turn heat to low flame. Simmer for at least 1 and 1/2 hours. The beans should be soft, but still recognizable as beans. 

Salt to taste.

It’s extra good served on brown rice, and with biscuits or cornbread.