Chock-Full-o-Veggies Chili

I hope everyone had a glorious holiday season as I did this year!  Food, family, friends (though I could have used more friend-time), gifts, singing, and all that good stuff--and it's not quite over yet!  I had my share of cookies, cake, pie, rich foods, peppermint mochas, and chocolate--so much chocolate!  Tell me of your holidays, I wish to hear!

Sometimes, you just need a ton of veggies after the holidays.  Like me, you're craving them after the ridiculously rich food and decadent sweets of Christmastime (I'm not kidding, I out-sweeted my sweet tooth this year).  That's where chili comes in--still hearty, filling, and delicious, but incredibly healthy and filled with good stuff!  And you can use up some of that leftover turkey!

UPDATE:  Just a note.  This recipe got rave (RAVE) reviews from my husband, who said that from now on, this is the only chili I will be making.  Just a bonus that it's so dang healthy!

Ingredients:

2 T. olive oil
1 large red onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 stalks of celery, diced
3 bell peppers (of varying colors), seeded and diced
2 zucchini, diced
1 small butternut squash (or any variety, really), peeled, seeded, and diced
3 15 oz. cans of beans, varieties of your choice, drained and rinsed (I used cannellini and kidney)
2 cups leftover turkey, diced or shredded
1 pound ground chicken or turkey, or more leftover turkey
1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
2-3 cups chicken/turkey broth
2-3 T. chili seasoning (we used Penzey's CHILI 9000)
For extra spice: ancho or chipotle chili powder
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

Heat olive oil in a LARGE stock pot over medium heat.  Add onion, celery, garlic, and peppers and sautee until tender and onion is translucent.  Add in the raw ground meat, if you're using it, breaking it apart with the spoon.  Cook until browned a bit.  Add in the zucchini and butternut squash, and cook until a little tender (about 5 minutes--it doesn't quite need to be cooked through).  Toss in your seasonings at this point, and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add in the beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, broth, and leftover turkey--bring to a simmer, turn heat to low or medium low, and allow to cook for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Allow to cook until it reaches the consistency you like (we like our chili thick), and correct any seasonings.

Serve hot and top with your favorite chili toppings!

This could easily be thrown into a slow-cooker (though I recommend browning the onions and meat first for flavor) and cooked on low for 8 hours.

Spicy Tequila-Lime Shredded Beef

So.  Exciting news.

I haven't been posting this week because I have been very busy.

We're moving back to the States in three weeks!!!

Needless to say, we have a lot to keep us busy for a while.  So I apologize for sporadic posts.

It also means I have to use up pretty much everything in my pantry, so yay, new recipes!

Last night:  shredded beef tacos. Inspired by Chipotle's barbacoa.  I shall have you again soon, sweet, sweet Mexican/Tex-Mex food!  If you think Quebec has decent Tex-Mex...excuse me while I laugh.

Ingredients:

2-3 lb chuck roast
1 onion, thinly sliced
3-4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 T. chili powder
1 t. ancho chili powder
1 T. ground cumin
1 T. epazote (Mexican oregano)
1/2 t. salt
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1/2 t. liquid smoke (optional)
1/3 cup tequila

Instructions:

Toss everything into your slow-cooker.  Stir around.

Cook on high for 6 hours.  Flip over the meat every couple of hours.  About an hour before serving, the meat should be falling apart.  Shred it with two forks.  If the liquid has not evaporated off, remove the lid and let it cook off.

Really.  It's that easy.

Serve in tacos, enchiladas, burritos, whatever!  It's very flavorful, tender, and you can adjust the spice however you want!

Ahhhh, I'm so excited!!!

Slow-Cooker Balsamic-Tomato Chicken Stew

Balsamic vinegar is one of my favorite things on the planet.  It's up there with Sriracha.  I'll put it in everything.

Which brings me to this.

Oh my.

Delicious.

Just delicious.

I have nothing more to say.

Ingredients:

1 T. olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 bell peppers, seeded and thinly sliced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T. tomato paste
1 t. anchovy paste OR fish sauce (fish sauce is made from anchovies)
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (depends on how many you're serving)
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 t. marjoram/thyme
2 bay leaves
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 cups of canned, whole tomatoes (San Marzanos are the best)
1 bunch Swiss Chard, roughly chopped
Salt & pepper to tasted

Instructions:

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add your onions and bell peppers and allow to cook until they are beginning to brown.  Add in garlic and stir together, cooking for 1 minute more.  Remove from heat.

Now place everything else except the Swiss chard and the salt and pepper into the slow-cooker.  Set on high for 6 hours.

If you want less liquid, uncover the slow-cooker about halfway through.

30 minutes before serving, add in the Swiss chard and season with salt & pepper.

Serve over rice, pasta, polenta, or, as we did, sunchoke puree!

I can't wait to eat the leftovers.  I think it'd be fantastic as a pasta sauce.

Sweet Pork "Barbacoa"

Ingredients:

2.5-3 lb. pork shoulder, bone-in

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 T. chili powder
1 t. paprika (I did half normal and half "half-sharp")
1/2 t. ancho chili powder
1 t. course salt

1 T. tomato paste
1.5 cups chicken broth

6-7 cloves garlic, peeled
1 onion, thickly sliced

Instructions:

Place the pork shoulder in a Dutch oven OR slow-cooker.  If you're using a Dutch oven, preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix your brown sugar and spices together in a bowl until well-mixed.  Add in the tomato paste and chicken broth.  Pour over the pork shoulder.

Toss in the garlic and sliced onion.

Cook in preheated oven for 4-5 hours, OR on low heat in the slow-cooker for 8 hours.

Once the meat is falling off the bone and much of the cooking liquid is gone, pull out the bone.  Shred. Place back in the oven, uncovered, to reduce any remaining liquid.

The original recipe said that this was to be served in tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc, but I find it far less of a Mexican-esque flavor and more of a barbecue one.  It's quite sweet.

Also, look at my new pretty knife :D!  It's a Shun Ken-Onion chef knife.  This this is scary sharp.  One must respect it.  My Christmas present from my amazing husband!

Chunky Beefy Pumpkin Chili

It's fall, and that means sometimes we need some delicious stick-to-your-ribs, hearty food.  Chili is one of my favorite things--it is so healthy for you, and yet so tasty and satisfying!

This makes a TON of chili.  I froze half of it.  So cut the recipe in half if you want.

I'm trying to write this up from memory.  I apologize if I miss something!

Ingredients:

1 T. olive oil
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1-inch knob of ginger, minced or grated
2 chipotles in adobo sauce, minced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2.5-3 lb beef roast (mine was shoulder), cut into 1-inch cubes
1-2 T. chili powder (to your preference)
1 T. cumin
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
3-4 cups chopped or whole tomatoes (this is approximate, use to your taste)
2 T. tomato paste
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 15 oz. cans of beans of your choice (I used kidney and black)
2 cups fresh pumpkin, chopped into 1-inch cubes
Salt to taste (at least 1 t.)

Instructions:

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large pot.  Add the onions and saute until translucent.  Add in the garlic and ginger, chipotles, and bell pepper, and saute for a few more minutes, until fragrant.

Toss in the beef cubes and cook everything until the beef is browned.

Add in the spices, and saute for a minute or two (let the spices bloom!).

Add in the tomatoes, tomato paste, pumpkin puree, and beans.  Bring to a simmer and cover, cooking for 20-30 minutes or until the beef is tender and cooked-through.

About 20-30 minutes before serving, add in your fresh pumpkin chunks, and cook until tender.

Taste and correct any seasoning and add salt.

Serve hot with your choice of toppings!  This is also fantastic leftover.



NOTE:  You could easily make this vegetarian/vegan by removing the beef.  Also, I think subbing sweet potato or another squash for the pumpkin would 100% work.  All of this could also be tossed into a slow-cooker and allowed to cook all day/night!

Ful Medames

I watch a lot of No Reservations, and in Tony's Egypt episode, he ate this awesome street food breakfast that sounds like "fool". It looked delicious--a reddish bean-y mixture topped with a fried or hard-boiled egg, scooped up with lots of pita bread and eaten by, according to Tony, a large part of the Egyptian population every morning. Hearty, healthy, filling, and tasty.

So I set out to find I recipe, and I think I found a good one after looking through recipe after recipe (and alternate spelling after alternate spelling). Do I know if it's super-authentic? No, I've never had real ful, but it was really tasty.

To compare it to anything else, it feels like having refried beans for breakfast, but no lard and way better. This dish probably, seriously, has at least half of your day's worth of fiber in it. This is why beans and lentils are allowed on low-carb, haha.

Ingredients:

1 pound dried, peeled fava beans (also called broan beans--try to find small ones, these are most authentic)
1/2 cup red lentils
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 cup tomato, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 t. ground cumin
Salt to taste
2-3 T. lemon juice

For garnish: olive oil, butter, a fried or hard-boiled egg, or scallions

Instructions:

Soak your dried beans for 8-10 hours. If you want to have ful the next morning for breakfast, do this 24 hours before. This is where my recipe went wrong--my store didn't have dried fava beans (no matter how hard I looked, they never appeared!), so I had to buy canned ones, and this led to watery ful that I had to cook down. Basically place the dried beans in a pot, cover with water an inch or two above the beans, cover the pot, and let sit.

These are my dumb canned beans. They are large and not authentic, but I had no other option at my store.


After the beans have soaked, place beans, lentils, onion, tomato, garic, and cumin in a slow-cooker and cover over with water 2 inches above the beans (If you use canned beans like me, do not add so much water!). Cover the slow-cooker. Cook on low for 10 hours overnight.


In the morning, most of the water should be gone. Stir in 2-3 T. of lemon juice, and mash the mixture with a potato masher. It should be the consistency of refried beans (I didn't know, so I'm telling you). Excuse my different pot--I had to transfer all of mine to the stove to cook off the extra water.


Place in a shallow bowl and top with your garnish of choice! Eat with pita bread if you are not following low-carb.


Being the heat freak I am, I put in a hearty teaspoon of sambal oelek, and could have added more.


I waited ALL morning for this and it was so worth it. I would have eaten more if it weren't so late in the morning when it was finally cooked down.

Kalyn's Hungarian Pot Roast with Sour Cream & Paprika Gravy

I followed Kalyn's recipe nearly exactly for this recipe, only adding in 8 oz. of sliced mushrooms (they were in my fridge and getting ready to go bad). It's essentially goulash, but pot roast style. Pretty tasty, though next time I might throw in more salt or something to up the umami flavor.

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil
1 rump roast, about 2.5 pounds (I had a blade/chuck roast, which also works)
generous amount of steak seasoning (about 1 T) to rub on roast before browning (or salt & pepper)
4 large yellow onions, cut into slices at least 1/2 inch thick
2 T sweet Hungarian or Spanish paprika (I used more)
1/2 tsp. sharp Hungarian paprika or smoked Spanish paprika (good because it gives it a kick. I used more.)
1 jar (12 oz.) roasted red bell peppers (I used freshly roasted ones from the last post)
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes with juice
2 cups homemade beef stock or low-sodium beef broth
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups sour cream

Instructions:

Heat 1 T. olive oil in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Rub the meat with the steak seasoning and brown well on all sides. This should take about 10 minutes.


Place the meat in the bottom of a slow-cooker.

Heat 1 T. olive oil again, over medium heat, in the same pan. Add onions and paprika(s) and allow to soften and brown (not burn! Mine did a little).


Place onions on top of and around the browned roast in the slow-cooker.

Slice roasted red peppers into 1/2 inch pieces, and place peppers and tomatoes in the crockpot (this is also when I added the sliced mushrooms, raw).


Place 2 cups of beef stock/broth in the same sauce pan as before and reduce until 1 cup remains. Add to the crock pot, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook roast on high, covered, for 4-6 hours, until the roast feels tender when pierced with a fork. Place the roast on a plate. Using a stainer, strain the liquid from the vegetables (KEEP THE VEGETABLES).

Place the liquid in a medium saucepan and, over medium-high heat, reduce the gravy by half. Using a whisk, add small amounts of sour cream gradually and mix until well-blended.

Place the meat and vegetables back into the slow-cooker.

Pour the gravy over it. Cook on high for another 20-30 minutes, or until everything is reheated.

Serve alone, or over brown rice or whole wheat noodles (for lower carb content--egg noodles if you're not following low-carb) and enjoy!


We had it alone, and I wished that there was something to mop up the gravy with. Next time I make it, I'll make a pureed cauliflower "mashed potato" substitute and see how that works out.