Chili

Look at what’s simmering on our stove right now…

(I know, I know, I need to study up on food photography.)

This is our new favorite chili recipe, given to me by my dietitian.  Our annual Halloween tradition is to have a pot of chili, but our old recipe used a seasoning packet (containing sugar) and Jason’s “secret ingredient” (a few of Wendy’s chili seasoning packets, with high fructose corn syrup).  We made this recipe Halloween night, and we are converts for life.  I’m pretty sure, judging by comments from Jason, that we’re going to be chowing down on chili a couple of times a month all fall and winter long.

Not content to leave a recipe be, of course we had to add a little something extra.  Enter the family’s newest favorite “little something”:

This stuff is GOOD.  I’m not a big Tabasco fan, but this version isn’t quite as spicy as the original.  Even the boys love it.

Incidentally, I was not yet on the phase of our plan that allowed beans when Halloween rolled around.  In addition to the big pot of chili with kidney beans, we made a half recipe, substituting finely chopped zucchini and a bit of water.  It was just as tasty.  (Happily, I am now allowed beans, and I am looking forward to those kidney beans tonight!)

Our New Favorite Chili
Recipe adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped (about 2 cups)
6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried oregano
2 pounds lean ground turkey or lean ground beef (we use a pound of each)
2 cans (16 oz. ea.) low-sodium dark red kidney beans, no added sugar, drained & rinsed
1 can (28 oz.) low-sodium diced tomatoes with juice
1 can (28 oz.) low-sodium tomato puree
2-3 tsp Tabasco Chipotle sauce
Low-fat cheese, shredded (for garnish)
Non-fat sour cream (for garnish)

1. Heat oil in large heavy-bottomed nonreactive Dutch oven.  Add onions, garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, pepper flakes, oregano and cayenne.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes.

2. Increase heat to medium-high and add the ground meat.  Break the meat up with a spoon.  Cook until no longer pink.

3. Add beans, tomatoes, tomato puree; bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally for 1 hour.  Remove cover and stir in Tabasco Chiptotle sauce to taste.  Continue to simmer, uncovered, 1 hour longer, stirring occasionally.  (If chili begins to stick to bottom of pot, stir in 1/2 cup water and continue to simmer).

Serves 12 (1.5 cup servings)
Calories 260, Fat 7 g, Carbohydrate 26 g, Protein 23 g

Easy Pot Pie

I have to post something to get that photo of me in my double-knit polyester off the top of my blog!  How about dinner?

This recipe was given to me by my neighbor & friend, Jennifer, years ago.  I love it for its ease and for its changeability.  It’s a great starting-off point for lots of different variations, and my recipe card has seen some scratching and changing of ingredients as I’ve played with it over the years.  Very few dishes say Comfort Food like one-dish meals – stews, casseroles and pot pies have stuck around for a reason.

Tonight, we used pork instead of chicken, and I chopped up whole carrots instead of baby.  (Hurrah for finding ways to use the Giant Bag of Costco Carrots!)  I cut the pork chops into bite-sized pieces and browned them in about a tablespoon of safflower oil, with some salt, pepper & thyme before adding 1/3 can of chicken broth and cooking them through.  From there, I followed the recipe as written.  At the end, I brushed the pie crust with beaten egg white, because I like my crusts browned and shiny!

Easy Pot Pie

1 can Sweet Peas*, drained
1 can Corn, drained
Small bag Baby Carrots, chopped
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
Enough Chicken Broth for desired consistency (I err on the side of too much and skim if necessary)
1 lb. Cooked Chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 pkg. Refrigerated Pie Crusts (2 per pkg.)

Boil all ingredients until carrots are cooked through.  Season to taste.  Dump into 9×13 baking dish or into two pie plates.  Cover with pie crusts.  Cook according to direction on pie crusts’ packaging, until pie crust is done.

Easy.  Yummy.  Next time, at Jason’s request, I’ll add potatoes…and I’m toying with pureeing/disguising some spinach or another equally healthy veggie and adding it in as well.

*I always go salt-free on the canned products, fat-free on the chicken broth, etc.  It’s my nod to health in a recipe full of prepackaged ingredients.  Hey, I said it was quick and easy…I didn’t say it was organic.  That said, if you have easy access to fresh veggies, this recipe will welcome them with open arms!  I plan on trying it with all sorts of fresh veg once the farmer’s market opens up again.

Simplicity Wins [yet again]

I’ve never been a fan of roasted meat.  It’s just not one of my favorite flavors.  For years, every time I’ve found a roast on sale at the grocery store, I’ve scoured the interwebs for a recipe to make it worth my while.  Jason always loves them.  The boys eat them without complaint.  But I’ve never been happy with any of them.

Enter a really, freaking good sale on boneless pork shoulder blade roasts in Safeway’s meat department last month.  We bought two.  And I was unthrilled.  Thrilled with the price, don’t get me wrong ($1.59/lb.! $6.80 for a full roast, aka two nearly-complete family dinners!), but most definitely unthrilled at the prospect of cooking and eating those big ol’ hunks of meat.

At a loss for what to do, and in no mood to comb through AllRecipes.com yet again, I read the instructions on the label of one of the roasts and decided to proceed as advised by my friendly grocery store meat department.  You may recall the result from my December 12 of 12.  It looked like this:

It was phenomenal.

I mean it.  Not only did I not mind eating it, I actually enjoyed it.  It was moist.  It was tender.  It was tasty.

So, here, for your perusal and perhaps your eventual taste budding joy, I share the Simple Roast Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• Heat 2 Tbs. oil over medium-high heat in an oven-proof pan.  Pat roast dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper.  Sauté roast on all sides until browned, 2 to 3 min. per side.
• Insert oven proof thermometer so tip is in thickest part of roast (unless it comes with a plastic pop-up timer, like mine did!).  Cover and bake for one hour without adding any liquid.
• After one hour, add desired vegetables and 1 – 2 cups chicken broth.
• Continue cooking (covered), until temp reaches 175F.  (2.5 – 3.5 hours total cooking time)

Not really much of a recipe, is it?  More of a procedure.  There are two steps that offer room for creativity.  First, in the initial seasoning.  Salt it well, of course, but you can add some herbs here in addition to the salt and pepper.  Second, you can go nuts at the “add the veggies” stage.  We love new potatoes and carrots, and I can’t imagine making something like this without a few cloves of garlic and some big chunks of onion.  (If you look closely at the photograph above, you can see that I shoved some small garlic cloves into the roast itself – yum!)  This is also where I add my herbs.  I fell back on one of my favorite combos: rosemary and thyme.  Finally, I pull the roast out of the pan and let it “rest” on the cutting board for about ten minutes before letting Jason go at it with the carving knife.

I made the second of the two roasts tonight.  We had kind of a late dinner.  (This is a recipe best left for weekends or early-release school days if, like me, you don’t like leaving the oven on while you walk to school to pick the kids up.  Unless you enjoy sitting down to eat at 7:30 and rushing the kids through jammie time and teeth brushing and tucking in.)  Roast #2 was as much of a hit as Roast #1.  This recipe/procedure/whatever is going in my recipe box.  Tonight.

Call It Yum

For Christmas, Jason gave me an envelope full of coupons.  I redeemed one last week, which gave me a full week of no cooking duty.  As in none.  As in, he got up and made the kids breakfast and packed the lunch boxes, too.  Nice.

Well, the week is up, so I’m back in the kitchen again.  I did not feel like cooking at all tonight, but once I told myself to get over it, I felt a sudden burst of creativity.  I’ve never made anything quite like this before, and the whole family loves it.  It seems really complicated now that I go to write it out, but I promise it was easy and super fast to put together.

(I apologize for the lack of proper recipe formatting here.  I find it easier just to write out the process, plus I’m not so good at measuring the ingredients.  Maybe I’ll come back later and break it up into an ingredients list and directions.)

Set a pot of water to boil for pasta, and preheat oven to 400* F.

In a large, oven-proof skillet, heat some olive oil, a minced clove of garlic, 1/4 of an onion (sliced thickly), and a couple of pinches of sea salt.

Prepare the pork chops by sprinkling one side with black pepper.  When the onions have started to soften just a bit, move them to the outer edges of the skillet and put the chops in, pepper side down, pressing lightly on each one for a couple of seconds.  After about thirty seconds, flip them over.

Add 8 oz. of sliced mushrooms on top of the onion, and drizzle them with a little bit of olive oil.  Drizzle everything in the skillet lightly with honey and follow with a liberal shaking of Worcestershire sauce.*  (If your sinuses are blocked, this would be a great time to take a great, deep breath of the steam rising from the dish.  There!  Doesn’t that feel better?)  The oven should be ready about now, so when it’s fully preheated, place the whole pan in and bake for 15 minutes.

The water should be boiling now, too, so put the pasta in.  I used half a box of whole grain thin spaghetti, but any long, loopy noodle will be good.  Once it’s done cooking, drain it and drizzle in a little olive oil, a tiny bit of salt, and a large pinch or two each of oregano and tarragon.

Serve the noodles on the plate, topped with a pork chop.  The mushroom and onion mixture can be served over top, or on the side.  Stick a fork in it, and call it yum.

Now, for the really hard part.  What do we call this?  I suggested, “Yummy,” but Kalen said, “No, Mom.  It has to have a food name.”

Any suggestions?

*I realize that “liberal shaking” could mean practically anything.  I didn’t really use all that much, I don’t think, but the little stopper-spout thingy in the bottle doesn’t let it come out too fast.

Easiest Awesomely Moist Chocolate Cake – Ever!

My friend, Heather, told me about this awesome chocolate cake recipe.  I figured, coming from her, it must be pretty incredible, because she’s not the biggest fan of chocolate cake.  If she says it’s fabulous and moist, it must be!

So, I decided to make it for Jason’s birthday.  Jason is not much of a cake fan, but he always loved my mother’s Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake, because it’s so moist.  Heather’s recipe (which she got from her sister-in-law, who got it from someone else) sounded similar.  But it’s not.  It’s even better.

The recipe calls for baking in a bundt pan, but since I don’t have one, I baked it in two 9″ rounds and made a layer cake.  I must say, frosted as a layer cake, it’s still incredibly good, especially when you buy the triple-chocolate frosting that also has chocolate chips in it.

One word: Yum.

Okay, more than one word: Oh my freaking wow, this is soooooooo good.

THE Cake:

1 box Devil’s Food Cake
1 large box instant chocolate pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Mix cake mix and instant pudding in one bowl.  Mix sour cream, eggs (one at a time), oil, and water in a separate bowl.  Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and stir together.  Batter will be extremely thick.  Add chocolate chips and mix through.  Pour into greased bundt pan and bake for 45-55 minutes.  Let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Turn it out of the pan and continue to cool completely.

Yes, the boys insisted on 35 candles.  He did manage them all in one breath!