I finally cooked again, and it wasn’t disappointing. I made this chili 3 times before, and it’s the most delicious chili I’ve ever had. Granted, I don’t usually order chili at a restaurant, but out of the few I’ve tasted, nothing could beat this one. This is what I call “crunchy” chili as opposed to “soupy” one. The original recipe is inside the quote and my notes are at the end.
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
pinch of chili flakes
2 garlic cloves, crushed
4 oz mushrooms (1/2 of a container)
1 red bell pepper (or green or any bell pepper available)
1 lb ground beef (lean)
1/2 tsp cumin
14 oz canned tomatoes, crushed and keep the juice
1/4 cup red wine (or beef broth)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 can of Kidney Bean, rinced under cold water
2 tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped
Tabasco sauce if desiredFirst I’ve got to tell you that I always buy either lean or extra lean ground beef, even though it’s a bit more expensive then the regular. Just think of all of the fat you pay for when you buy the regular one, in the end it costs the same.
As for the tomatoes, well, a can is usually 19 oz, so just take a little bit out of the can. I usually freeze what I have extra, and put it in a soup.
Always rince any kind of canned bean under cold water, it removes the stuff that makes you get gas. And did you know that the more you eat beans, the less you have problems with gas, you system learns to break it down more easily.
Chop red bell pepper and sliced mushrooms and set aside.
Chop the onion and set aside.
Pour the vegetable oil in a pan and brown, at medium-high heat, the onion with the chili flakes. Add the garlic near the end of the step, it usually takes a few minutes to brown the onion, so put the garlic when the onion starts to look translucent. Garlic tends to burn very easily, and it gets bitter then. Also, for onion (and anything else) to brown properly you can’t stir it all of the time, you have to let it cook a bit and then move it around and let it cook again.
Add mushrooms and bell pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the veggies are tender.
Add ground beef and cumin, and cook, this time stir often, about 5 minutes, until the meat is all cooked.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, wine (or beef broth), Tabasco sauce (if desired) and kidney beans.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for about 1/2 hour to 3/4 hour, but the more you let it simmer the better it is.Add the cilantro.
A few things I did differently:
As always, I used shit load of garlic.
I added about 1/4 cup of sliced jalapeño peppers as well as lots Tabasco sauce.
I didn’t put cilantro and chili pepper flakes, but not intentionally. I just forgot to add them.
I used a can of diced tomato because I thought I had crushed tomato at home and didn’t buy one when I went shopping. I found I had a can of diced tomato, so I used it.
I put just a little bit of salt after it’s done.
I’m usually incredibly intimidated by a recipe with a large number of different ingredients. But this recipe didn’t because, as with most crock pot recipes, after chopping and dicing, you kinda dump everything in the pot and cook the shit out of it. So don’t let the number of ingredients fool you.
Makes 11 servings
1 can (14-1/2 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained You can also use canned whole tomatoes chopped by yourself, if that’s what you have, as my teacher did.
1 can (14-1/2 oz) beef or chicken broth My teacher and I both used chicken broth.
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste I mistakenly bought tomato sauce, but luckily I had frozen tomato paste (I used like a 1 tsp out of the whole can a few weeks ago)
2 medium green peppers I’m having hard time determining how big is big or medium or small because all these veggies in the store look gigantic in size.
1 medium onion Again, the same trouble about the size.
3 celery ribs In case you don’t know, one celery rib refers to one stick of celery.
5 garlic cloves, minced Hehehe… Me loves me garlic… I used more… hehehe…
***You can put the following 5 seasonings all together in a small bowl so that it’s easy to mix them in later***
3 teaspoons dried parsley flakes I don’t like parsely taste and my body rejects it as well, so I dropped this completely.
2 teaspoons dried basil I forgot to buy it yesterday when I went shopping, so I had to make a special trip.
1-1/2 teaspoons dried oregano I bought this yesterday, but turns out I already have it. Oops.
3/4 to 1-1/4 teaspoons salt to taste The original recipe calls for 1 and 1/4 tsp, but my teacher thought it would be too salty, so she only put a little less than 1 tsp and she said it was perfect. I put 1 tsp.
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper to taste The original recipe calls for 1/2 tsp, but my teacher is not too fond of spicy food, so she put 1/4 tsp. I put 3/4 tsp.
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce If you don’t like spicy food, you can drop this completely just as my teacher did. But if you love it as I do put a little more… hehe
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts About 2 big chicken breasts.
1 pound smoked sausage My teacher used polish sausage she already had. I bought Hillshire smoked sausage.
1/2 pound uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined My teacher had some shrimp that were already cooked, deveined and peeled in the freezer, so she used them instead. And I bought cooked shrimp after reading that cause it obviously is less work to use shrimp already cooked.
Hot cooked rice To eat jambalaya with.
****Cooking Trick #1: When you know you’ll have to do a lot of chopping, and cutting, and you don’t want to use lots of chopping boards and knives, start by doing the veggies, ending with the onion and the garlic, then do the meat.
****Cooking Trick #2: When you cut up a green pepper, to chop it, always remove the top, the white part and also the seeds. The white and the seeds are bitter tasting.
Chop celery, green peppers and onion into medium sized bits. Not too finely or too big.
The recipe calls for the garlic to be minced, well it simply means it will be chopped. Again not too finely or too big.
Cut the sausage into two halves or four quarters lengthwise, according to your preference. Then cut them into about 1/4-inch slices.
Remove fat from chicken breasts and cut them into 1 inch cubes.
In a 5-qt. slow cooker, combine the tomatoes, broth and tomato paste. Mix well.
Stir in the green peppers, onion, celery, garlic and seasonings. Mix well.
Stir in chicken and sausage. Mix well.
Cover and cook on low for 4 hours, then add the shrimps, and cook for between 15-30 minutes, depending on if you are using raw or cooked shrimps. If they are raw, cook until shrimp turn pink.
At the same time start cooking the rice.
Not much to add about the instructions since I, surprisingly, didn’t make any booboo, and I’m kinda tired (see the previous post). Mine is still cooking, and I need to add the shrimp in about 5 minutes.
Edited to add…
Dudes and dudettes, you really gotta try this. It’s my new favorite food!
Today is Saturday, which means that I cooked. This time I cooked something I did a few weeks ago because my virtual teacher hasn’t made any new stovetop dish – my oven is not working and I screwed it up trying to fix it too, so I can only make stovetop recipes until I get a new stove. The reason I chose this one to make again, of course, was because it’s the easiest recipe.
I also made mashed potato to eat with it. My first attempt at mashed potato was a few weeks ago, and I was so surprised that I’ve never had better tasting one than mine!!! Probably because most mashed potatoes I’ve had were instant kind. I could mash it the way I like, too – a little clumpy, not silky smooth.
I didn’t like the way the last recipe post looked with my blue comments all over, so I’m trying the blue on the actual recipe this time.
Ingredients
2 lbs of beef stew meat A package of beef stew meat contains beef cut in cube-like shape if you don’t know what it looks like – it’s a pain if you have to look at the description on every single package, you know.
1/2 cup ketchup I suspect most of you know what ketchup is.
1/2 cup chili sauce I didn’t know what chili sauce was but apparently Heinz makes this thing. I found it right next to Heinz ketchup. No, I don’t work for Heinz.
1/2 cup water Water was the only ingredient I didn’t buy when I made it the first time.
1/2 envelope of onion soup mix I didn’t know there was such thing
1/2 tsp regular yellow mustard I bought the mustard, but when I got home I found out I already had it… from 2 years ago. Is it still good after 2 years in the fridge?
1/4 cup vinegar Just normal vinegar without any color.
Instructions
In a bowl, mix all of the ingredients except the meat and set aside. The first time I made it, I mistakenly put the entire envelope instead of just half, so the teacher had me put more water while it’s cooking because it would have been too salty otherwise. She warned me that the sauce would be soupier because of added water, and it was.
Brown the meat at high heat, like a steak. Only a little bit, you don’t want to cook it all the way through.In other words, browning the meat means just cook the outside of the meat until it’s brown.
***Note: In all the crock pot recipes where you need to cook meat, except with ground meat, it is written in a lot of books that you need to brown the meat first. It helps keep the juice in, and also kind of caramelize the meat a little, like when you cook a steak.
Put the meat in the crock pot, pour the sauce on top and mix well. Cook for 4-1/2 to 5 hours at HIGH. Don’t remove the cover until the end. Whenever I cook something with a cover like this, I’m sooooo tempted to open the cover. I don’t know why but I’m always itching to open the cover and take a peek inside. Does anybody else have the same problem?
Hmmm… I’m not sure if this one looks any better than the last one. Any suggestions?
A very nice lady, who’s a member of a pet-related message board I’m also a member of, posts great recipes in Cooking forum with pictures (pictures a big help for idiots like me) for each step, and she teaches me online how to cook and does some virtual hand-holding for me. And yesterday, I cooked Chicken Cacciatore following the recipe posted by her, and oh man, I totally surprised myself. Cause it was heavenly. So without further ado, here is the Chicken Cacciatore recipe.
Ingredients (The texts in blue are added by me.)
6 chicken legs (but you can use breasts too) I used 5 legs because I didn’t think 6 will fit in the biggest pan I have, and I was right. We are debating whether Canadian chickens are smaller than American chickens (she’s a French-Canadian).
1/4 cup flour I know, I know, flour is evil.
1/2 cup of vegetable oil (canola) I used about 3 Tbsp according to the special note further down.
1 small onion, diced small Apparently, dicing is the same as chopping.
1 small green bell pepper (or red), diced I used red because I thought it would look better.
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped I love me some garlic, I’m not telling how much I used.
1/2 tsp oregano You know, the dried spice thingmajig
1/2 tsp thyme Again, the dried spice thing. Dried thyme leaves, NOT ground thyme. hehehe
1 tsp salt Usual salt, not the kind you use on the icy road.
1 tsp ground pepper You know, pepper as in salt and pepper.
1 tsp paprika It’s a red spice which fooled me into thinking it’s spicy hot. But it’s not.
2/3 of a can (28 oz) of either diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes that you chop. I prefer the plum tomatoes, they are meatier, have less juice. I used the plum shaped whole tomatoes. I chopped them on the chopping board, and made a huge mess. I was told later that she does this in a bowl using a fork and a knife.
1 (7-1/2 oz) tomato sauce (NOT tomato paste) I’m pretty sure she added “NOT tomato paste” for my benefit.
1/2 cup red wine Hmm… wine… I usually have some wine at home, but I need to get some cheaper wine for cooking.
Instructions (Not copied verbatim)
Remove skin and fat as much as possible from the chicken. I do this very often to feed my dogs, so I didn’t need any further explanation.
Put the flour in a plastic bag, put the chicken, one piece at a time, into the bag and shake it so that the chicken gets nicely coated with the flour. I used a Ziplock. And you’re supposed to shake the bag, not your booty.
Pour the oil in a pan, and brown the meat on all sides. To brown you have to cook at high (but not the highest temperature or they will burn) temperature. I was told that since no body parts of a chicken is shaped like a cube, “brown on all sides” will still leave some parts pink. Boy, was I relieved. I was trying everything to get rid of those pink parts. But then again, there’s a rumor that Canadian chicken legs have cube-like shapes.
Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. You’ll need a big dish for this.
Cook the diced bell pepper, onion and garlic in the same oil in the pan, stirring occasionally until the veggies are tender and onion turns translucent, at high temperature, but not the highest (7 or 8 out of 10).
After they’re done, remove the excess oil. You can do it with a spoon, or tip the pan over the sink, but it’s a bit harder to do and it’s takes experience, or all your veggies will fall in the sink.
***NOTE: What you could also do, is instead of using 1/2 cup of oil to cook just put about 2-3 tbsp of oil, but be more careful that the chicken legs and the veggies don’t stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. As I said earlier, I chose the easy way for myself.
Put the chicken back into the pan and add all the rest of the ingredients and mix well. I couldn’t mix anything because the chicken legs were so big. I was told to take some chicken legs out and mix next time.
Simmer, for at least 1-1/2 hour, with a cover. And at about 1/2 of the cooking time, turn the chicken legs over, and scraped the bottom of the pan. To protect the bottom of a non-stick pan, use a big wooden spoon. Again, I think the wooden spoon reference was for my benefit. 
Serious Stuff. Seriously
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.NaNoWriMo
Yeah, I'm gonna try this time. I must be crazy... not surprisingly.
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