I decided to wait and play with it tomorrow night. I hadn't realized how late it was.

But at least I'll have some more time to think on it.

MUWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!

Yeah, lots of things sound good in theory. :-) I need to make sure I'm prepared for a mess. ;-)

I don't usually have cornbread with chili. That's not something that's "done" in my part of Texas. Mostly it's a matter of looking around and using what's here. Sort of a "chili cobbler". :-)

LOL!!! Oh, hon, some of my best dishes have started out with weird stuff like this and ended up delightful. If you're going to cook, you've got to be willing to experiment and leftovers are a *great* canvas to paint on. Besides, it's fun. :-)

Eh, yeah. I thought of that, but it's boring. :-) Sometimes I like to let my creativity out for a spin. Besides, the kid's not home from her trip yet, so I'm the only one who'll suffer if it's a mess. :-)

And it does sound a bit like salmon croquettes (my fish cake idiom). I was even thinking I might want to work some flour into the chili/rice mixture. Or even cook some more rice and work that in.

I use beans, even though though it's anathema around here. :-) But I come from a long line of poor folks, so beans were added to stretch the meat. I keep a jar of mixed pintos, kidney and garbanzo beans, though I sometimes toss in some lintels, black beans or Great Northerns.

My grandfather was a sharecropper. Hard to get much poorer than that. :-)

My dad picked cotton, too. Hated it. :-)

He did manage to get through 10th grade... sort of. :-) In that he *went*, mostly. When he didn't cut out to go fishing or hunting or on one memorable occasion, hop a train with a friend at 14 to run away from home. Ended up spending the night in jail until his dad came to pick them both up. Oh. Dear. :-) My grandfather was not known for being a "nice" guy. :-) Not only did his son screw up, but he missed most of a day of work getting them from two towns over.

Then there was the time when he was 6 (this was during the Depression, btw), and he had to hitch up the mule to the plow before he walked to school (oldest son and all that). It had been raining a lot and the ground was muddy. The mule managed to step on his foot and hoof and foot just sank into the mud. There was *no* *way* he could get out from under it, either. On the other hand, the mud saved him from a serious injury, but no matter how much he yelled or punched that critter, the damn mule wouldn't lift his foot. (Like he wanted to work, either.) Then his dad got pissed at him for screwing up a job he did every day.

And he still had to go to school. But at least his foot didn't hurt. :-)

I wish my Dad had written about his early years before his mind started to go. I treasure the tales I have. Like during his time in the Navy, when he and his rackmates would go through the chow line and place their trays on top of a pie while having something placed on them... then, when they picked up their trays, they'd grab the pie, too. :-) As long as it was shared with the other guys in the compartment, nothing was ever said (and sure, the officers knew about it - they just never said anything).

I wish I had the movies he shot of mail, supplies and personnel being transferred from ship to ship at sea. Or that he'd talked more about the carrier races they'd have in the south Pacific just post-WWII. Or about how as many guys as could manage it draged their mattresses on deck to sleep at night because it was too damned hot in their compartments and this was before A/C onboard ship. Or trading ice cream to destroyer crews for their downed pilots since only the carriers had refrigeration at that time.

So many great stories. Most of them are lost now. *sigh*

Edited at 2009-06-29 06:58 am (UTC)

*hugs* back. :-)

Sleep is good. ;-)

I think it'll *taste* good no matter what. The key is if the structure holds up enough to make it worth the effort. :-) Imagine being able to have *real* "chili burgers". :-)

That sounds good, too. :-)

No, I'm not. :-)

I may need to mix in some flour or some more rice.

No functional camera.

And I passed on messing with it tonight. Still pondering the mechanics.

But I *did* start to think that sliced potatoes might make an appearance.

Na... more like putting a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the dish and then putting the chili on top of it. Oh, that's for the cornbread topped version.

Umm... grated potatoes... na. That would water down the chili patties.