Too hot to turn on the oven. It’s one of those sweltering Okanagan days when you start second guessing your decision not to install air conditioning.
So when my husband, a transplanted Brit, pulled a sirloin tip roast out of the freezer, hoping for a full on Sunday English supper – Roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding – my first thought was, “Bloody hell, buddy, you’re not the King of England here, and I’m not your skivvy about to slave over a hot stove in this heat.”But it was just a thought … Truth be told, I suggested – like butter wouldn’t melt – that we put the roast away for tomorrow, when I could use the crockpot to ensure supper was ready when we got home from work – and we’d be spared an over heated house.
“Why don’t I make a pot of chili?” I said. Not really summer fare, I know, but we are going house-boating on the Shuswap in a few weeks with 20 or so family and friends, and I’d been planning to make a big pot to take aboard, anyway. And I could get kill two birds with one stone because we could have it for dinner tonight as well! How clever I am, I thought, whilst I chopped up onions, celery and peppers and began throwing ingredients into two large skillets. Once I added 10 pounds of lean ground beef, my two skillets were filled to capacity. When the beef was browned, I transferred the meat along with the onion mix into a large pot. But the pot wasn’t big enough and I had clearly overestimated the amount of ingredients necessary. Now, I was making chili con carne for 60 people, not 20. But in for a penny, in for a pound. What to do, what to do.
The largest cooking container I own is a 24 quart roasting pan (usually reserved for turkey dinners) – so out it came and in went all the ingredients. And then - bloody hell – I cringed as I turned on the oven to cook our dinner.
It is currently 39⁰ C in the house – and rising.
