Some Like It Hot

A few weeks ago Matt and I had to buy some chipotle chilies in adobo sauce for a recipe, oddly these things seem to be scarce around here and often out of stock. We live in an area with a huge Latino population so I am not sure why this stuff is so hard to come by. Any way, we stocked up, worried we might need more soon and not get any. Then we had a lot of these chipotle chilies around and felt compelled to make use of them. Chipotle chilies tend to go with Mexican and Southwestern cuisine, not really our thing, so we turned to Epicurious. Epicurious, like a lot of the culinary world, is pretty meat-obsessed. Not being meat eaters, we didn't let this stop us from giving their recipes a try.

First we tried their Chipotle Beef Chili with Lime Creama. We used veg ground beef and soy sour cream. The chili was, well, meaty, and thus this was not our favorite dish. We really love veggies and tend to prefer meat (or meat substitutes) as an element in a dish rather than having it as the central component. We did like the lime sour cream however and would definitely use it in chili again. We might even re-use some of this recipe, we just found the lack of vegetables in this recipe made for a boring dish in terms of texture and flavor.



Next, we tried their short ribs braised in coffee ancho chile sauce. If you like spicy this is the meal for you. We used fat-free vegan's ribz recipe for the ribs and otherwise followed the recipe instructions from Epicurious. The dish came out super hot and the sauce had a nice, rich, sticky mouth feel to it. It made for a sort of heavy, rich, dense meal I wouldn't want to eat too often but definitely one that could be enjoyed if that is what you are in the mood for.