Chipotle Beef and Bean Chili

Chipolte beef and bean chili

For the first time in a long time I spent my Saturday doing odd jobs around the house and watching college football. It was an unusually cool day for September. Perfect weather for a yummy pot of chili to cook and grub on while watching the action on the grid iron.

For my seasoning I replaced chili powder with chipolte sauce, which is found in the international isle with the Mexican cuisine at about any major grocery chain. The sauce is basically a stew of chipolte chilis (smoked jalapeno), onions, garlic and tomatoes. It has a nice smoky heat and is already a well developed flavor in and of itself. For extra boost, I also added cumin and oregano.

I prefer chili without beans, but when I grabbed the package of ground beef from the freezer earlier in the day to thaw, I realized it was only a pound and a half. Usually, I make it with 2 pound packages. To help the chili go further I added a can of chili beans that I had had lurking in the cupboard for some time. The beans really did help the dish go further.

Once the chili was ready I served it up and never even grabbed a spoon. I used corn tortilla chips to eat every bite. The salty chips turned out to be a great delivery method for the smoky, spicy and beefy mix. It had to have been something — because by the time the football ended — I had devoured 3 bowls of chili and a half bag chips!

Eat well, cook often ...

BEEF AND BEAN CHIPOTLE CHILI
 Serves 4 to 6, 2 hours
1.5 lbs ground beef
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 jalapenos, seeded and diced
2 Tbs cumin
1 Tbs oregano
1 can chipotle sauce (7 oz)
1 can chili beans (15.5 oz)
1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz)
2 C water
Tortilla chips for serving

Season ground beef with salt and pepper, brown in a 4 to 6 quart soup pot over medium heat, 5 to 7 minutes, remove to a paper-towel lined plate.

In drippings saute onion and jalapeno until soft, 5 to 6 minutes, season with salt and pepper.

Add garlic, cumin, oregano. Cook until fragrant 1 to 2 minutes more.

Add chipotle sauce, chili beans, crushed tomatoes, water and return beef to pot. Mix well. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer until 3/4 of the liquid evaporate and mixture has thickened, 60 to 90 minutes.

Remove from heat and serve with corn tortilla chips.

Cumin Dusted Chicken Thighs

Cumin dusted chicken thighs

I have become much more efficient with my grocery shopping and eating.

Saturday, I bought a family pack of chicken thighs on sale for 88¢ a pound for a total price of $3.85. I will get at least 4 meals but more than likely 6 or 7 out of this package. That brings my cost per meal way down. And at the end of the week, I will have more money for beer! (Or actually the electric bill, but that's boring)

I opened the package and immediately set two aside to grill for lunch. The others were prepped and roasted for other uses.

I decided to keep it simple and hit the soon-to-be-grilled thighs with my favorite spice of all-time — cumin! I love its flavor

I like to cook bone-in thighs for at least 25 minutes on the high heat of the grill, or until the bone starts to recede from the meat, whichever comes first. To start it though, I like to sear it skin-side down for 8 to 10 minutes, so there is a nice and charred crust on the skin, I'll turn it a couple more times after that, but I make sure that the initial sear is long and hot. There is nothing better than crunchy chicken skin, its my favorite part of the bird!

Once the meat was cooked through I pulled it from the heat and let it rest for at least 10 minutes. It was during this time that I prepared the sides for this meal, which were steamed broccoli and Italian seasoned potatoes. Fresh ingredients steamed in the microwave – supper simple.

As I began to devour this feast, I was completely smitten by the crunchy well-seasoned skin, which I ate first. Then returned to the perfectly cooked dark meat. The potatoes and broccoli were just there for filler and dietary reasons and paled in comparison to the yummy thighs, but they made a nice compliment to the star of the meal.

Once the other thighs in the package were roasted and cooled I removed the bones and shredded the meat so it could be used in two more multiple-serving recipes later this week. The first of which will be, well ...

More on that later.

Eat well cook often ...

CUMIN DUSTED CHICKEN THIGHS WITH POTATOES AND BROCCOLI

40 minutes, serves 2

2 large chicken thighs, bone-in, skin on
2 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1 large russet potato, peeled, cut into chunks
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
2 cups of fresh broccoli
1 microwave steam bag

Prehaeat grill to high heat. Season the thighs with salt and pepper then dust with the cumin. Once grill is ready sear chicken skin-side down for 8 to 10 minutes, turn and cook 12 to 15 minutes more turning a couple time until meat is cooked through or to an internal temperature of 160° remove from grill and let rest at least 10 minutes.

Place potato chunks in a microwave steaming bag, season potato with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. add a tablespoon of water. Seal and microwave for 7 minutes on high or until cooked through. Remove from bag. Rinse bag add broccoli and a tablespoon of water. Season to taste, seal and microwave on high for 3 minuets. Remove from bag. Serve potatoes and broccoli with chicken thighs.

Southwestern Braised Chicken Thighs

When it comes to chicken, I've always grilled, fried or roasted it. Braising was something I hadn't done that often. With bone-in thighs on sale recently, I decided that it was time to get my braise-on and throw together a platter of Southwestern-style chicken.

The main reason I don't opt for cooking chicken in braises or steam, is the skin. I love it crispy! There is so much flavor there. I've been guilty of picking the skin off entire pieces of chicken and leaving what's rest for someone else to finish. A habit that would give me a great shot at employee of the month if I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken!

What I found after preparing this dish was searing the chicken in a hot pan to start with was the secret. The brown crust provided texture on the skin and the fond on the bottom of the pan added yummy-goodness to the tomato-poblano sauce the chicken was braised in.

The braising liquid featured poblano pepper, tomatoes and cumin. This complimented the chicken, gave the rice plenty of flavor to absorb and was the real binder to the recipe's overall flavor.

In the end, I was really surprised by the absolute decadence of this dish. I would make it again for just about any occasion. And here is the best part: The cost of the entire dish – less than $7! (That's with the thighs on sale for 98¢ a pound.)

BEHIND THIS BITE
I haven't been posting as much since I moved last fall, but I have been cooking more than any other time in my life. Now that I'm starting to settle into my new location, I'm finding more time not only to cook but also prepare posts. In an effort to share more, I'm going to be doing a lot more posts that feature just a nice artsy picture or two of the dish. I'm still going to be doing my signature-style recipe graphics, but I want to share more of what I'm doing in the kitchen and I can do a post like this in less than an hour, a recipe graphic takes between 6 and 10!

Eat well, cook often ...

THE RECIPE
Serves 4, 1 hour
3 lbs Chicken Thighs
2 Poblano peppers, diced
1 Red Onion, diced
4 Garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbs Cumin
2 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Red Pepper flakes
1 Can Diced Tomatoes (14.5 oz)
1 C Chicken broth
1 1/2 Rice
3 C water

Brown Chicken
Season chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Heat a little oil in a large skillet over medium high heat, brown chicken on both sides. 4 to 6 minutes per side. Remove to paper-towel lined plate.

Make sauce
In hot drippings, saute onion and poblano pepper until soft, 3 to 4 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add cumin, oregano, red pepper flakes and garlic. Stir and cook until fragrant. 1 to 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and chicken broth, scrape browned bits from bottom of pan and bring to a simmer.

Braise chicken, cook rice
Add chicken to pan, once mixture returns to simmer, cover, reduce heat to medium and let cook 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Stir occasionally. Add rice and water to sauce pan or pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes. Turn off heat, keep covered for 10 minutes more. Remove lid and fluff

Serve
Make a bed of rice on a large platter, spoon half of sauce on rice. Arrange chicken thighs on top. Spoon other half of sauce onto chicken, then serve.

The Great Pumpkin Feast

I have a theory about pumpkins and Halloween. Back in the old days, when people subsisted on the land, families lived on what was growing on the farm. That meant October was filled with a steady diet of pumpkin and other winter squash. If a hard-working farmer was forced to eat pumpkin every night for a month, I can see why he might take great pleasure in plunging a butcher knife into one and carving it into a spooky decoration to scare small children for Halloween.

Printable version

For this recipe, roasted pumpkin is the star of a feast featuring a spicy soup and flat bread which includes spinach and ricotta cheese. The soup is smokey with cumin. The heat is in the seeds that are sprinkled on just before eating. I wasn’t thrilled with this flat bread when I first tasted it. But, other than spaghetti squash, I have never really liked any of the winter squash varieties.

It was when I witnessed my niece slurp chunks of pumpkin off her slice – like a shop vac picking up gravel – that I decided to use it. She and my Mom loved it. If you like pumpkin, you’ll like this. I call this flat bread and not pizza because it contains no sauce and pizza crust was just the easiest option to deliver the toppings. I could have used a number of different breads to the same effect. (For the newspaper version of the column I did call it a pizza.)

BEHIND THIS BITE

While I was making a recipe for spaghetti squash the week before last, I ate it 4 days in a row. I was really tired of it to say the least. My opening thought about pumpkins and Halloween and taking pleasure in carving a pumpkin is what popped into my head. I wrote it down, like I do when any peculiar thought comes to me, something I started doing while I was a working stand up comic. When I started to think about what I was going to make for this week, I decided to incorporate pumpkin. I created this pumpkin feast because of a quirky paragraph I wrote the week before. Ironically it was inspired by another member of the winter squash family. Sounds crazy but here we are.

I really had never made anything with pumpkin before.

I started by roasting it al dente. I knew that I would be applying heat again to it, so I didn't want it to be complete mush when I pulled it from the oven. The first batch I roasted, I seasoned the pumpkin with different spices. I realized then that pumpkin itself is an acquired taste and, unlike beer, I hadn't really acquired a taste for it. The spices didn't help. The second batch I seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper and went from there.

For the soup, I was inspired by potato-leek soup. I replaced the potato with pumpkin. I start with the smokey flavor of bacon and end with the compliment of cumin. The seeds feature smokey chipotle and contain the zing for the dish. If I made this again, I would serve it as a shot with the seeds going on right before it is consumed. I could see this as a gourmet appetizer for a fall party.

For the flat bread, I choose to compliment the rich and creamy flavor of pumpkin with ricotta cheese and spinach - and it worked. As I mention in the introduction, I just don't care for the flavor of pumpkin. The soup features bolder flavors that mask it, the flat bread is all about pumpkin. I really thought my efforts were a bust until other family members – who happen to love pumpkin – couldn't get enough of it. The recipe wasn't bad, it was my dislike of pumpkin that soiled it. I rarely eat pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and have only ever enjoyed the seeds. The soup I would make again for myself, but I'll never crave the flatbread. I would make it for my family but, if I were to make it for myself, I would replace the pumpkin with artichoke and shower it with some fresh grated ... oh wait, that's for another post.

Eat well, cook often ...