The lake house we stayed at was haunted.
I’m a safe distance away from it now, about an eight hour drive through mostly Pennsylvania to be exact, so I can tell you. Something lived in that old, creaking lake house.
Sound travelled through it strangely, and at all times you felt like something invisible was listening in on your conversation because most likely something was. If you were in the upstairs bedroom, you could hear a conversation held in the living room below so clearly it was like the people were standing right next to you. This could possibly be explained by The Hole In The Floor, but more on that later.
We dubbed this invisible presence Chris, gender unspecified, and welcomed them as an unofficial seventh member to the group. It is possible that Chris followed us home, but that is unclear.
I love haunted houses. I love when houses feel alive with the memories of people who have stayed there last. A lake rental house is the perfect place to manifest the feeling of being haunted. So many people have come and gone, and left their mark — the guest book inside the side table drawer in the living room had entries going back to 2003 and remarked on the peaceful splendor of the lake and the fullness of the lord (a lot of verbose Ohio Christians have stayed in that house only to be succeeded by six queers).
The house did have its spooky features. Our first night we discovered a hidden staircase that disappeared into the darkness of an attic where there was a bed and a baby’s high chair and Christmas ornaments and, most unexplained of all, what looked like a makeshift doormat in front of the window, like at any moment someone was going to come in through the third story window and wipe their feet upon it.
And the mysterious Hole In The Floor. Wide enough to stick your hand in, touch something sticky, and pick up the penny that had been left there. The haunted penny. One of our group, who will go unnamed, picked up that penny and took it home. Still unclear whether it was cursed after all (EDIT: my source has informed me that the penny was not removed so its whereabouts remain unclear).
Whether the haunting of that house had malicious intent or not, we all made it through that week safely. In my inexpert opinion, nothing honors a house more than cooking and eating good meals from out of its kitchen, and we did plenty of that, so perhaps that is why we came out unscathed. So in honor of Chris and Chris’s lake house associates, I’ll share a recipe which is very easy to make for you and your five hungry friends: lazy one pot chili.
ONE POT CHILI
The laziest of chili! Fool proof! Mostly pantry items you can have on hand! Basically impossible to mess up! And honestly the best part is the toppings.
What you need:
A Meat (I use ground meat but sub for a vegan sausage/ground meat)
Yellow onion
Canned crushed/diced tomato
Garlic
Cumin
Red chili powder
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Paprika (if you want smokiness)
Hot sauce (if you want some extra heat/smokiness)
Jalapeño pepper
Beans (I use black bean or kidney, or a mix)
Stock (not super necessary, I’ve made with water)
Corn chips (this is for topping. Fritos taste great but if you have a stale bag of tortilla chips in the back of your pantry, it is IDEAL)
Sour cream
Cheese!!!! (Mexican blend or jack would be good)
Optional: Sweet potato
Dice onions and fry until getting soft.
Add diced garlic and fry until aromatic. If you want extra spice, add in some diced jalapeño or serrano pepper.
Add spices: frying your cumin with your onions at this stage blooms the flavor SO well, this step is KEY for building flavor. You can always add more cumin later if you guess the amount wrong (this recipe is the wrong place to look for measurements) but honestly you can never have too much cumin flavor in chili. Frying red chili powder is also great at this point, but not as necessary. Garlic and onion powder can be added in later.
Once your cumin has had a chance to fry for a little bit (just a few minutes), add in your Meat, fry in the spice/aromatics until browned. Doesn’t have to be fully cooked, it can finish cooking in the chili, but you want those spices to get in real good.
If you’re using sweet potato, peel and dice and throw this in to fry with everything for a bit (these will also finish cooking in the chili). You could throw in other veg as well… bell pepper… carrot… I don’t know, go wild.
Season meat and potato with salt/pepper. (I usually salt as I go)
Now to dump in everything else. The canned tomato and the beans. I usually use a 1:1 ratio of tomatoes to beans (so one can of tomato, one can of beans). You could add your beans in later if you don’t want them to overcook (black beans cook pretty fast) but I don’t really care about bean texture.
Get everything simmering. It’s probably going to be quite thick at this point, dilute with stock or water.
While you wait for everything to finish cooking, now is the time to taste test and season. You will probably need a lot of salt. You will probably need more cumin. You will probably need more garlic powder and red chili powder and hot sauce.
And then it’s done! You’ve done it! Serve with corn chips that you crush on top, lots of cheese, spoonfuls of sour cream, sliced jalapeño.