Chilly Chili

As it is the season of holiday parties galore and pot lucks, I made this dish for my office holiday part. I should start by saying this dish took me multiple days because I soaked the beans for 24 hrs (when I told one of my friends I was soaking the beans, he was a bit worried I only had done it for 20 minutes, but I some how remembered beans have to soak for a long time. The rest of the recipe did not go as smoothly.) and then had the recipe itself sit over night in the fridge. This helped with the flavors, but I missed some other important parts of the recipe.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

– 5 lbs lean meat ground turkey (the original calls for a mix of beef and turkey, but I don’t like beef so oh well)
– 5 large garlic cloves minced
– 1 large yellow onion
– 3 cans of 14 oz diced tomatoes with sauce
– 1 can of 29 oz of tomato sauce (the original calls for 2 cans of 14 oz of tomato sauce, but you get more sign for your buck if you be just buy the 29 ouncer)
– 3/4 cup tomato sauce
– 1 can of 15 oz black beans rinsed and drained
– 1 can of 15 oz kidney beans rinsed and drained
– 1 tbsp corn meal (this will be explained later)
– 6 tbsp of chili powder
– 2 tsp dried oregano (the original calls for Mexican oregano, I will explains this as well)
– 3 tsp ground cumin
– 1/2 cup brown sugar
– salt and black pepper for taste
– (there should also be some beef stock, and I will explain why this is missing as well)

So this recipe was again made for a holiday party with about 20 people, so I went big! Just an FYI, this recipe needs way more than just one crock pot or just one really big one. I found this out the hard way.

Let’s start with my grocery shopping experience for this recipe. First of all I had made a mental list while at work of all of the things that I would need for this recipe. In my mind, I had corn starch, so I didn’t even put that on my list. False. I had corn meal at home, not corn starch. Hence, why I put in 2 tbsp of corn meal instead of the 1/3 cup of corn starch. Who knows how it would have tasted had this been different? (People who cook regularly probably know, but I am still learning). Next, while reading the ingredients I decided that I had oregano, and in fact I did, just not Mexican oregano. Another ingredient that may have changed the taste of the chili, but it did enjoy the oregano I used. (I have really got to start reading all the details.)

To start off the recipe it calls for the browning of the ground turkey. This actually took a while, as fitting 5 lbs of turkey into one frying pan doesn’t really happen. Trying to put 2 lbs in was really the top/max. So I browned the ground turkey 2 lbs at a time and 1 lbs at the end. While those were browning, I cut up the yellow onion and the garlic. To be honest, I wouldn’t suggest cutting while the turkey is browning if you have never brown ground turkey before, cause it browns quicker than I expected. The first batch definitely was way more than brown. It was crispy on one side.

Next came the cans: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes with juice, and both beans. At this point, I have two crockpots going. There was so much food, so the rest I ended up splitting the rest of the ingredients into each crockpot, and it just didn’t put in any stock of any kind. Two reasons there: there wasn’t any beef, so did I need beef stock? No. Secondly, there really wasn’t any room for any kind of stock in either of the crock pots, so oh well. Then came the ketchup, the brown sugar, chili powder, oregano, cumin and corn meal (which should have been corn starch). Then I put the two crockpots on low for 8hrs. At this point the chili had set/seemed to only need one crockpot and a bowl, so the chili was condensed. (My roommate also needed her crockpot back, so as Tim Gunn says “Make it work!”.)

So much Chili!

Review:

Well reheating the chili after having it in the fridge proved to be difficult, so if the chili had been warm, then it would have been awesome. No one complained, and most got second. I did add avocados, sour cream, cheese and chips as an option to add to the chili. I would make this again,but a smaller batch and make sure I have a chance to heat it up all the way.

The Nitty Gritty:
– Total Costs: $45.00 – the meat was the most expensive
– Total Time: 45 minutes of prep, 8 hrs of cooking and 1.5 hrs of reheating, so 10.25 hrs
– Serving Size: 18 -22 people

Chili Sloppy Joes

In honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to make a meal that my mother sent me. When I said sent me, I mean my mother mailed me! I’m not sure where the recipe is from, but it came from a magazine and my bet is Sunset. That being said, I attempted to make some Southwest Sloppy Joes.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
– 1.25 lbs ground turkey meat
– 1 medium white onion
– 1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce
– 1 can black beans
– 1/2 cup frozen corn
– 1 can (8 ounces) tomato paste
– 2 tbsp brown sugar
– 1 1/2 tbsp Valentina
– 3/4 tsp ground cumin
– 1/2 tsp ground coriander
– parsley

Now let me start off that I had many times where I strayed from the recipe. I would like to say I made those choices consciously, but really. I just forgot to check the recipe and spaced out on some aspects. The first chef freedom I took came with the onions. The recipe said to brown the onions for 5-7 minutes in a sauce pan. I completely forgot and cut the onions up and put them in the crock pot and proceeded to add everything else quickly. It wasn’t until I added the turkey that I realized I had not browned the onions. Now here comes some more of my cooking freedom and I decided not to cook the turkey meat in the sauce pan. The onions appeared to not be affective negatively by my choice not to use the sauce pan, but the meat yes. So use the sauce pan, because otherwise your meat will stay in strands/chunks.

As I was adding in the tomato paste, I didn’t realize that 8 ounces is not the same as 1/4 cup of tomato paste. The next chef freedom I took came with the black beans. This was an honest mistake of I just didn’t check the recipe. The recipe called for drained and rinsed black beans. Now I have never heard of draining or rinsing black beans, so naturally I didn’t do that. Also, I decided not to measure the frozen corn, so again I’m not exactly sure how that proportion turned out. And I forgot to stir all the ingredients until after 6 hrs, another spacey moment of mine.

Basically, what I’m leading up to is that my sloppy joes turned out much more like chili. For a gluten free individual, I bought some buns but I couldn’t wait to heat them up to eat so I decided to go chili style. My roommates followed suit, and even ate some of my gluten free rolls.

The Chili Sloppy Joes as styled by Elyse Aldana.

Review:

Another delicious dish, but let’s call it what it is – a chili dish. It was very delicious, and you must cook the turkey first. Everyone seemed to like it! And I’d make it again for a cold winter day or a rainy summer day!

The Nitty Gritty:
– Total Cost: $30.00 (I had to buy new spices.)
– Total Time: 8.5 hrs, 15 minutes of prep
– Serving Size: 6-8 people