Timothy's: The best White Chili this side of heaven

"Timothy’s is long gone now, even the building it occupied demolished, but in its day, the East Broadway restaurant had panache and a loyal following for its back room upscale menu as well as its bar menu. The latter featured meatloaf sandwiches and what became the restaurant’s signature dish, white chili. We have many variations from other restaurants in the archives, but this is the one people most often request" (Courier-Journal recipes, Louisville, Kentucky, November 11, 2009).

When I first moved to Louisville, I found this little restaurant named Timothy's. I was looking for a place close by where I could go with a friend or by myself and have a great salad or steaming bowl of comforting soup. Louisville is a big restaurant town with wonderful local places serving interesting and delicious local food. We have a culinary arts school here that's third in the nation and tums out chefs and future restauranteurs who become very competitive. Many remain in Louisville and work as chefs or go into business for themselves. The city really benefits by all the competition as they try to make their restaurants the best in town.

Timothy's is no longer there...sitting by itself on the corner of Broadway and Court St. Painted grey with black and white awnings. it was a wonderfully eccentric eatery, opened by Tim Barnes in the early 1980s. They served continental style food and frequently displayed a "now sauteing" neon sign in the front window. Most Louisvillians will remember it and, although I wasn't introduced to it until I moved here almost 16 years ago, I still remember going there with friends to savor some of their awesome "White Chili".

The original Timothy's had a front room with booth seating and a bar, and a more formal if idiosyncratically decorated back room. The menu in the front room focused on comfort foods, such as meatloaf sandwiches, with a more upscale menu in the back. ..."The white chili was devised by Timothy's original chef as a trendy variation on a familiar, comforting dish. Its trendiness may have intrigued diners to try it, but its satisfying richness, with just a hint of spicy heat, has kept it popular through the years" (Bon Appetit, 1991).

In March of 1991, Bon Appetit did an article on Timothy's and published the White Chili recipe. I was ecstatic when I found it and have been making it ever since. When Tim died in the late 1990s, the restaurant closed and reopened in Indiana in 2003. They still have his chili.

Last year, I spent the Christmas holidays in the southwest visiting my daughter and her live-in love. They have a great house with 4 cats in Austin Texas. I had a wonderful week of Christmas, zoning out on food, wine, and card playing. We all three love to cook, so instead of going out to eat, we spent every night cooking for each other. I cooked two nights and guess what I made for them...and their friends? Yep! White Chile. And they all loved it! So I've decided to share the recipe with you ..........just go easy of the hot stuff. My mouth is still smarting!

Timothy's White Chili
(Yield: 6 servings)

Ingredients

2-3 8 oz. cans Great Northern Beans

2 LB chicken breasts

1 ½ tsp. oregano

1TBL Olive oil

¼tsp grnd cloves

2 med Onions, chopped

¼ tsp Cayenne

4 Garlic cloves, minced

6 C. Chicken stock or broth

8 oz. Chopped mild green chilies

2tsp. Grnd cumin

3 C. Monterey Jack; grated

1/2 C. Sherry

Garnishes: Salsa, Chopped fresh cilantro, Sour Cream

Instructions

Saute chicken in heavy large saucepan. until just tender, about 15 minutes. Drain, cool, remove skin, & cut into cubes. Heat oil in same pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and saute until translucent, about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic, then chilies, cumin, oregano, cloves, and cayenne pepper and saute 2 minutes. Add beans and stock and bring to boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 1/2 hour. Add chicken and 1 cup cheese to chili and stir until cheese melts. Continue to simmer for another 1/2 hour. Add sherry 5 minutes before finished cooking. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle chili into bowls. Serve with remaining cheese, sour cream, salsa and cilantro. (recipe edited by Aleksander House Bed and Breakfast)

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New Year's resolutions don't have to cost an arm and a leg

Stick to your New Year’s resolutions without a pricey gym membership, fancy equipment, expensive classes or other budget-busters. Rest assured, you can stand pat in your resolutions throughout the year without spending a bundle. Here are the most popular New Years resolutions, along with tips on following them when you’re on a tight budget.


Exercise more: Instead of buying an expensive gym membership, put on a pair of sneakers and walk! Walk in the park, walk in town, walk in the city. Borrow a neighbor's dog and walk. Park your car at the far edge of the parking lot and walk. Forgo the elevator and walk the stairs. If you think about it, you’ll find lots of ways to work more walking into your day.
Eat healthy foods: Pursuing a healthy eating program can easily bring down your food costs because healthy eating starts with fresh produce and basic ingredients that don’t cost a lot. See Healthy Eating, for Less for tips, hints and ideas for healthy eating for the budget-minded.
Stop smoking: Instead of expensive medical programs, hypnosis and/or nicotine patches, check out the many free programs and websites that can help you kick the habit. Start with the Centers for Disease Control How to Quit Smoking page: www.cdc.gov/tobacco/quit_smoking/how_to_quit
Take up a hobby or learn a craft: You don’t necessarily need to invest money in materials, books and classes to take up a hobby—why don’t you revisit a pastime that you used to love? Go on and find those knitting needles, or retrieve the roller blades from the back of the closet, or dust off the stamp collection. You just might fall in love again.
Read more: Instead of breaking the bank at the bookstore, visit your local library and check out a new book every week. Most libraries also have magazines for perusing, along with computers with fast internet connections and lots of helpful advice for finding what you need online.
Learn something new: There’s no need to enroll in expensive college classes if you are looking to expand your horizons and learn something new. Look into “auditing” a class at your local university or community college. Many schools will allow you to sit in on classes (and participate!) without paying tuition (and without earning credits—but you just want to learn, right?). You can also inquire at your local library, community center or book store about free or low-cost classes or reading groups covering a huge variety of topics.
Take a vacation: Instead of flying or driving to faraway destinations and spending your hard-earned money on a motel and meals out, take a “staycation.” Stay at home during your time off, but make a commitment to sightsee, visit museums and generally get to know your hometown all over again.

 *Visit a Louisville bed and breakfast We are not far from Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St Louis. Although a little longer drive, it's easy to get here from Nashville and Georgia. And, of course Kentuckians, for the most part, have an doable week-end getaway spot to come to. The bed and breakfasts all have Valentine's Packages to satisfy your romantic mood. Do come and visit us, but call ahead.


And of course, there are lots of popular resolutions that don’t cost a cent to begin with. You don’t need a lot of money to pursue these resolutions:

• Cook more

• Get organized

• Spend more time with family and friends

• Help others or volunteer


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Roadkill: An Appalacian tradition

So.......What's for lunch?

source

Eating organic on a budget is a good thing. So eating roadkill makes perfect sense – it’s all about using what’s available. It has an even lower environmental footprint than being a conventional vegetarian who buys groceries at the market, plus, it’s free.

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In West Virginia, no one used to argue with the notion that there “ain’t nothing better” than finding a fresh-killed animal on the side of the road. The dirty work already done, all folks had to do was throw that critter in a pot and get ready for some groundroots grub. But times have changed and so have most of our tastes and sensibilities. Despite the fact that the rest of the country has given up on RoadKill and gone onto to more domestic pasteurs, there are still those who prefer their possum hot off the pavement instead of the grill.

.So, where can you find hundreds of visitors whooping it up over a big bowl of Rattlesnake stew or Biscuits and Groundhog gravy? You guessed it: at the West Virginia Road Kill Cook-off in Marlington, WV. Every September about 10,000 people from all over the country come to the gathering.

All dishes featured in the festival must have animals commonly found dead on the side of the road…such as deer, squirrels and snakes as their main ingredient.

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Yum! Possum stew

Poking fun at the state’s hillbilly image, Marlinton began the Roadkill Cook-Off ( see Video)13 years ago as a way to draw visitors to their scenic, historic town. “It brings a lot of people out,” notes chef and president of the county commission, Joel Callison. “Roadkill happens here every day…” In past years’ crowds have sampled dishes like Pothole Possum Stew, Fricasseed Wabbit Gumbo and Smeared Hog with Squirrel Gravy. The RoadKill Cook-Off is so popular that it fills all the motels and hotels in the county when it takes place on the last Saturday in September”, said David Cain, who runs the event and samples all the dishes.

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Cain explains: “The animal one cooks must be one that is commonly found dead on the side of the road (possum, beaver, raccoon, snake, deer, etc.), but the animals must not actually come from the side of the road. That’s part of the official rules.” Does anybody actually ever check? If you plan to cook, you need to bring all of your own equipment. As far as what to cook, the sky is the limit. Grilling, chilling, baking, flaking, flipping , dipping, whatever.

What will you be up against? Try Stewed Blood with Moose Balls on the Half Shell or Stir-Tired Possum. The competition is tough. But the winner can go away $300, which to most who enter means they don’t have to scoop up animals from the highway for the rest of the month.

So, do the popularity of festivals like the RoadKill Cook-Off mean more Americans will become open to the idea of foraging for food? Probably not – it’s all about the novelty factor for most. But it’s an intriguing idea.

How about a big bowl of Pothole Possom Stew?

Ingredients

• One possum, skinned, pieced
• Couple of onions, potatos, other veggies, chopped 
• 1 can of mushroom soup
• 2 cans of beef gravy
• 1 can of water
• Tbsp each of pepper and salt

Instructions

• Boil the possum meat in a large pot of water
• with a half cup of salt for about half a day.
• Pour the water out and add all the stuff to it.
• ring to a boil, then simmer covered 4 to 8 hrs.

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Non-gluten Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Found a wonderful recipe for my non-gluten guests. Tried it and it's fabulous. I don't have Celiac's disease...I can eat wheat, but I'm very fond of some of the non-gluten recipes I've gathered together for my special guests. I have many of them listed on my Aleksander House site under "breakfast" but thought I'd post this Rhubarb one here on my blog for a while before I transfer it over to the Aleksander House site.Ingredients:

Ingredients
1/2 cup margarine
1-1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups GF flour mix
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk
2 cups chopped rhubarb

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Mix margarine and sugar together; beat in egg and vanilla. Mix in remaining dry ingredients followed by milk, then add finely chopped rhubarb. Pour into greased pan then sprinkle mixed topping on top. Bake in 9x13 inch pan for 35-40 minutes.

*Note: Half this recipe works well in an 8x8 inch pan.

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