Meal: chili, corn muffins
Cost per person: $1.75
Time: about 30 minutes
Leftovers: 1 serving of chili, 3 muffins
Local ingredients: cheese, beef, corn meal
Organic ingredients: all-purpose flour, tomato puree

I’m pretty sure that we’ve talked about chili and corn muffins before; I bring it up again because of the corn muffins. Oh, the corn muffins.

Last night was scheduled to be beefed-up Spanish rice; I had seen a recipe on someone’s blog that looked great, and so we were going to give it a try. But I forgot to bookmark the recipe, and by last night, it just didn’t sound good anymore. Meanwhile, I had seen these corn muffin, and was having a craving, and since we had ground beef and tomato sauce, we ended up with chili. Our chili is the simplest of simple: cooked ground beef, tomato puree plus some water, and spices. Last night, it was generous helpings of chipotle powder, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper. Simmer until it smells done and grate a little sharp cheese into it (and add some sour cream, if you have around.) Add vegetables or tomatoes or beans at will, but we don’t normally. I got the beef cooking for the chili while I mixed the muffins up, then got the sauce and spices into the pot, then put the muffins in the toaster oven, and the whole meal took right at half an hour. It was good eating.

The corn muffins were amazing. Normally, my corn muffins come out… heavy. Tolerable, but only good at all fresh out of the oven. These were light and fluffy and just sweet enough, and I just had one reheated as a snack, and it was just as good as last night. I left out the corn, since we had none on hand, and halved the recipe (using one whole egg), and got 6 half cup sized muffins out of it. I have no plans to use another recipe for corn muffins anytime soon.