Not-Thanksgiving Chili with Coffee and Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. of ground meat, browned and drained (I use turkey here, but you can use whatever’s cheap, whatever you have on hand, or whatever you’ve killed [deer; I’m talking about deer])
- 2 cans of beans (I use a can of plain black beans and a can of hot chili beans, but you know, whatever works)
- 1 small can of tomato paste (I love buying tomato paste; it’s so cheap it gives me a little dopamine hit whenever I put it in the cart; the one I use today cost $0.30)
- 1 can of Rotel (or other mixture of canned diced tomatoes and canned green chilies)
- 1 large can of sweet potatoes, rinsed
- 3-ish shakes of chili powder (I use chipotle chili powder because I have it around)
- 2 or 3 shakes of cumin seeds or powder
- 2 gentle shakes of nutmeg (cinnamon would probably work too)
- Salt and pepper
- A splash or two of black coffee
This morning, while DD1 was still lolling around in bed and DD2 was eating cereal off the floor, I accomplished an astounding feat: I got started on dinner before I left for work.
Now, you wouldn’t think this would be a hard thing, especially when “getting started on dinner” consisted of browning some meat, dumping stuff into a crockpot, and pressing three buttons, but man, most mornings all I can concentrate on doing is turning on NPR, making coffee, hurling a yogurt and a piece of fruit into my purse, and alternately bribing and screaming at the kids to get their socks and shoes on. I used to see this as a completely personal failing, but last week, I listened to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast that dealt with the “scarcity trap.” It changed my perspective. Turns out, when we sense that something is scarce in our lives, it becomes the only thing we can think about. As podcast host Shankar Vedantam summarizes:
When you’re really desperate for something, you can focus on it so obsessively there’s no room for anything else. The time-starved spend much of their mental energy juggling time. People with little money worry constantly about making ends meet.
Scarcity takes a huge toll. It robs people of insight. And it helps to explain why, when we’re in a hole, we sometimes dig ourselves even deeper.
In my case, most mornings I’m so desperate to carve out 15 minutes of peace and marshaling the kids out the door that I don’t have the mental bandwidth to also execute a plan for getting a jump on dinner.
Not today, Satan! I’m not going to fall into the scarcity trap the way Mario fell into Bowser’s lava pits so many times in my childhood. I’m going to catch an invincibility star, run really fast, and clear the pit because fuck you, that’s why.
I mean, really now–look at all this stuff I have at my disposal.
And I can brown turkey while I listen to NPR.
And I can drink coffee while I wander to the spice cabinet and contemplate the jars and tins and canisters like some wizened apothecary.
And, wait. Didn’t I see a can of sweet potatoes in the food cabinet–the kind of sweet potatoes I see on the shelves of the food pantry where I volunteer? So, so many sweet potatoes, even when it’s not Thanksgiving. You know what? If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
Even after I’ve put the meat and the spices, the sweet potatoes and the beans, the Rotel and the tomato paste in the crockpot, it still looks dry. You know what’s not dry? This cup of coffee I’m holding. I pour some of that in, too.
Total time to crockpot: about 20 minutes.
We’ll see how this thing tastes in the evening. Coffee, you’ve never failed me before. Don’t start now.
Update: It’s decent! In fact, it’s more than decent. It’s hearty and damn near pleasant. (Starting from raw sweet potatoes would be ideal, but for the tired cook, this is A-OK, and no one should feel shame.) Huzzah!
