An Eatin’ Mess: cooking from Magnolia Table
Today is quite exciting as I bring to you a new segment called ‘An Eatin’ Mess’. It takes you through my journey of cooking all sorts of different recipes at home. There will be some modifications here and there, suited to my tastes but I hope it will inspire you to cook up your own dishes to try!
I’m starting out with the Gaines Family Chilli from the Magnolia Table cookbook. I’ve spoken about this book before over on my instagram page, having received it for my birthday just gone. I was so excited to try a meal and wanted to give an insight as to how I adapted this recipe! I live in the UK and Joanna Gaines, the author of the book, lives in Texas. There are not only differences in measurements, temperatures and the names of produce, but some ingredients we don’t actually sell in stores over here. I mean Amazon came to my rescue once but there was some modifications that had to be made.
The book is amazing and filled with rustic, hearty dishes that you’ll want to share with the family. It has everything for the day including; breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides and desserts! Due to the reason that this book is purchasable, I won’t be putting the actual recipe on here but you’ll be able to follow along a little and if you’re really interested to try it (spoiler: it’s delicious!) then go ahead and grab a copy of the book here.
I grabbed all my ingredients and started off my sautéing my onions in the pan. This is pretty standard in cooking to let the aromas flavour the final dish.
I tend to use red onion over white just because I prefer the taste of them but this recipe did actually call for white onions.
Once your onions turn translucent then you’re ready to move on!
Next up you’re going to add in your mince. I put my mince in a bowl before adding it to the pan to break it up to a finer consistency and also seasoned it with salt and pepper. This just helped to free up some of the fat and give it more of the texture that the recipe needed. It’s totally optional though, if you like the original texture of mince more then you can keep it that way too.
Whatever way you decide, brown it off ready for the next steps.
This was the longest part in the cooking process. I added in my tomato base, chilli, spices and pre-made ranch style beans.
Now, I know most people are thinking, what are ranch style beans? Not going to lie, I thought the same thing. After doing some research before attempting this recipe, it’s beans in a can that are apparently a staple in southern cooking (anyone from the US, correct me if i’m wrong!) Needless to say we don’t sell these in the UK stores I could get to. Amazon failed me here and I was left to make some myself. I found this recipe on Pinterest after panicking about beans that told me pretty much what I needed to do. The recipe uses dry pinto beans but you can buy them in a can that are already washed so just heat them per instructions and add all the extras! You can make these before you make the recipe to avoid a chaotic kitchen. They keep in the fridge after cooling at room temp for about 2 hours and you can just add them to the dish.
This simmers until the sauce is thickened up, stirring occasionally.
Then it’s all ready to serve up! Top the chilli with grated extra mature cheddar and crushed lightly salted tortilla crisps.
I made the jalapeño cornbread from the cook book too to serve along side it. If you get the book its a recommendation to eat them together, this is where Amazon saved me with buying cornmeal, if you’re also struggling you can grab it here. The cornbread is fairly straight forward and it includes pickled jalapeños (drained and chopped) in the mixture. I actually added a dash of that pickle jalapeño juice to the chilli during the simmer process for some added heat!
This recipe (and the cornbread) were a big hit! It was full of flavour and truly felt like real comfort food. I would highly recommend purchasing this book as there are tons more recipes that I personally am going to try (and hopefully show you). Especially once summer ends and we look to Autumn, these are heart-warming meals to have fun with and enjoy at home.
If you have any requests of what you’d like to see in this segment then let me know in the comments. Happy Eatin’!
Disclaimer: I do not own this recipe. The recipe is included in the Magnolia Table cook book by Joanna Gaines. Full credit goes to the author.