Today is one of my dearest friend’s birthday! Janessa!!!
Last time I saw her she was preggers, but now she is all mommy like!
I last saw her in California last year….here is some of the proof!
Yay Janessa! You made it to 21! Congrats on being so young. 
I can’t wait to see you (when? I have no idea) and meet your little munchkin!
I love you lots!
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
I have been asked to post the chili cook off recipe! I merged three different recipes I found. Here goes!
Ingredients:
1.5 lbs short rib (ground once)
1.5 lbs brisket (ground once)
6 slices of thick bacon, cubed
2 tbs vegetable oil, divided
1 yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno (seeded and diced)
1 red bell pepper (roasted, seeded and diced)
2 poblano chilis (roasted, seeded and diced)
2.5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1.5 tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (China)
2 cups diced tomatoes (I used my moms canned tomatoes)
1.5 6 oz cans tomato paste
12 oz water
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 chicken bouillon cubes
1 15 oz can pino beans, with juices
1 15 oz can kidney beans, with juices
1 15 oz can black beans, drained
Garnish: Cheddar cheese (and crispy bacon, but I did not have time)
Directions:
1. In a large cast iron pot over medium heat and add oil. Season short ribs with salt and pepper and brown meat about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and drain meat.
2. Add ground brisket to pot and brown about 3 minutes. Put meat in strainer with short ribs – let drain. Set aside.
3. Put bacon in pot and cook to desired consistency. Add onion and garlic. Sauté for 3 minutes. Add peppers and season with salt and pepper. Sauté for 5 to 6 minutes.
4. Pour drained meats back into pot, add spices and sauté for 5 minutes.
5. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and stir. Reduce heat and add water, bouillon cubes and simmer for 1 hour. Add beans into the pot. Stir and adjust seasonings. (I did not add any more seasonings.)
6. Allow chili to simmer for 30 minutes (to 2 hours), adjust seasonings and serve. (I did not add more seasonings.)
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And now…Lizzie (and Alton’s) 1st place Strawberry Shortcake Recipe!
So I took Alton Brown’s recipe and made some minor changes. Here is what I did.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar (I made vanilla bean infused sugar….well, Doug did!)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup half and half
Melted butter to brush shortcakes
Strawberries (sliced and sugar soaked, refrigerated)
Directions:
1. Heat oven 450 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter and shortening. Mix in half-and-half. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet.
3. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. (I used large granules of brown sugar flavored with vanilla beans)
4. Bake for 15 minutes or until brown. Cool.
5. Whip up some whipped cream. Add vanilla flavored sugar to taste.
6. Combine whipped cream, shortcake and strawberries to make your mouth happy! I topped mine with a little more whipped cream and a strawberry!)
I hope this inspires you. I was honored to win both cook off categories! Pretty sure that will never happen again!
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
In all the birthday business, I forgot to post the photo from the 5th!
The Cinco streak lives!
Little did I know what was about to hit me with birthday celebrations!
I will share the chili recipe I made tomorrow! Hope you are all having a great week!
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
Clearly, birthdays are big in my family. We had 3 straight days of celebrating!
The Sunday of my Birthday Weekend, we headed to Hammond to celebrate with my parents. Once we got there, we google chatted Alex and Janice in From Boston and I opened their gifts. (Thank you both for being so sweet and taking the time to chat while cooking breakfast!)
Then we at a delicious lasagna lunch. My Favorite.
Mom then ushered me to the birthday throne…
I was clearly excited!
Mom and Dad got me some awesome birthday gifts. They are so generous and amazing. 
I clearly have some fun faces….especially openings socks! ha. 
They got me some new perfume…
Dad said he picked it out himself…
testing the product. ha.
Then the came my favorite pie ever made….my mom’s fresh blueberry pie!
They sang to me and we dove into the pie!
Then we spent some time out in the sunshine…
I think Doug was worn out from my birthday weekend….what do you think?
We moved inside and all hung out. It was a pretty relaxing day and exactly what we all needed. We eventually headed back to Nola to de-birthday the house. It really was an amazing birthday weekend.
Thank you again to Mom, Dad, Ashley, Doug, Sarah and Andrew. You truly outdid yourselves. I love you all very, very much!
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
The day had finally arrived! It was time for the annual cook off! There had been trash talk going on in our house for DAYS and DAYS. Doug was making an all meat chili and I was making a meat and bean chili. It was on! We had 7 chili’s competing this year and a few strawberry shortcakes. I planned to compete in both.
Here is the list of past categories and past winners…
Doug got up to run 10 miles that Saturday morning while I went to get meat at Rare Cuts (Uptown). Those people know their meat! I got ground short rib ground, ground brisket and bacon for my chili. When I got home I found Doug had just arrived back and had been stung in the face by a bee. That bee just missed his right eye. His face was a bit swollen, but went ahead with our plans for the day. What a champ.
We headed to Rouses to get our last minute items for the night.
Once we got home, it was cooking time! Here is Doug’s meat…
And here is mine…
It was on!
Doug roasted peppers and made his own paste…
Doug had made a double batch so his pot was HUGE.
Once my chili was on the stove, I started making my strawberry shortcake biscuits…It took a few tries to make the dough, but I finally got it. Doug made my vanilla flavored whipped cream. I made my JoJo style strawberries. Doug aslo made me vanilla sugar to use in the biscuits and to top the biscuits. Yeah Doug!
Here is a time lapse of Doug cooking his chili!
Here they are ready for the party!
Samantha, Shawn and Lauren came early to hang with us as Sam has an early bedtime. 
Then it was 7 pm and all the chili arrived to be tasted!
Time lapse of the tastings!
All the people were there…
and we tasted and ate! Everyone voted for their favorite chili and then moved on to taste the strawberry shortcakes!
After all the votes were tallied, the winner was announced…
Shockingly, I won BOTH categories! I won the Chili and Strawberry Shortcake cook offs! I was shocked. All the chili entries were so different. We had an orange one, a white one and many dark ones. My personal favorite was Shawn and Jamie’s sweet meaty chili.
Then we played some running charades and bad a blast. Thank you to everyone who came, entered, tasted and celebrated my birthday with me. I really had a blast!
The only thing left was the clean up…here is DB hard at work…
Here are the final photo from the night:
The past and the future! Next year will be Lasagna and Bread Pudding. I am excited about it already!
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
P.S. I will post the recipes in a few days for BOTH dishes!
