Stone Ridge Golf Club was holding a chili cookoff, and with the winner getting a prime spot on the menu,
Todd Hughes saw an opportunity.
“I was trying to get a shameless plug,” he said of entering his Todd Hughes Mortgage Loan Chili in the
contest five years ago.
The chili — which he perfected over months and has over two dozen ingredients — won the contest. But the
club stopped short of putting Hughes’ business name on the menu.
Hughes comes from a huge cooking family and is quite comfortable in the kitchen.
When he decided to enter the chili, he hunkered down with a bunch of recipes — and cooked and cooked and
cooked.
“Every weekend, for two straight months,” said his wife, Betsy.
The final adjustments included cutting down the amount of chili powder, beans and beer, among other
ingredients.
“I tell people it was only a half cup of beer because I drank the rest,” Hughes said with a laugh.
He also subbed out ground beef in favor of sirloin cuts of stew meat, which he suggests buying from
Belleville Market in Bowling Green or Frobose Meat Locker in Pemberville.
When making the chili, Hughes recommended cooking the beef even longer than the 21⁄2 hours on the recipe,
to make it extra tender.
“You’ve got to have a good pot, too,” Hughes said. “If you use a cheap pot, it will burn.”
The chili freezes well, he said, and it also tastes better the second day, when reheated.
Serve the chili with corn bread and Fritos, Hughes recommended.
Some of Hughes’ other specialities include beef tips, brats and sauerkraut, pan-seared tuna, vegetable
beef soup, and ham and cheddar beer soup.
He also enjoys his cooking toys, including a smoker and pressure cooker.
Hughes grew up in Northwood, and still remembers the mouth-watering meals made by his mom, Ethel.
“My mother is a great cook. Every kid thinks their mom makes the best meatloaf, but mine did.”
His Northwood roots also made him loyal to Hirzel Canning and the Dei Fratelli brand. One of his favorite
dishes by his mom — German Skillet — used the company’s products.
“If they were processing tomatoes and kraut, you could smell it and I hoped my mom was making it,” he
said. “It would just put me in the mood for German Skillet. I think my mom did her own take on it.”
German Skillet, he said, is a hamburger, rice, sauerkraut dish mixed in a big skillet.
When he moved out, Hughes started cooking on his own. Chicken Supreme, with mushrooms, shrimp and
Muenster cheese, was a favorite of his friends.
Since Betsy works in Findlay and Todd works at Huntington Bank, closer to their Bowling Green home, he
does most of the cooking.
His wife is also a great cook, Hughes said, and, for fun, the couple has taken cooking lessons at Degage
Jazz Cafe in Maumee.
Their children include Bryce, who is graduating from Bowling Green High School in May, Courtney who goes
to Ohio State University, Aaron and Morganne in Chicago, and Adam and Kate in Cleveland, who are having
a baby in July.
The couple loves to host big Sunday dinners for anyone who wants to visit — although they’ve quit taking
requests because they became too cumbersome.
And there are always leftovers to take home.
“I tend to make too much,” Hughes said. “I never remember cooking and there not being enough food.”
