Chili - Basic Texas Red

A good dish for a cold winter Eagles-game-day Sunday is a nice bowl of chili - a basic Texas Red, with just beef (and no beans).

I was looking back through my postings here, and I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe yet... This is our version of a basic easy chili, adapted from several different recipes. So here's how an east coast Yankee makes a bowl of Texas Red.

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds of cubed "stew" beef (chuck is good)
• 1 large onion, chopped into small pieces
• 1-2 cups of green and red chilis (today I used three Anaheim mild green chilis, 1 red bell pepper and 1 jalapeno), chopped into small pieces
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced (or 1 tablespoon minced jar garlic)
• 1 teaspoon ground chipotle chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ancho chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon generic "chili powder"
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• A 28 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 square semi-sweet baker's chocolate
• 2-3 cups beef stock
• 1 bottle of beer

Steps:

1) Cut the beef into small (1/2 - 3/4 inch cubes or small pieces). In a large dutch oven, brown the beef pieces in a little bit of oil, in batches.

2)  Put all the beef back into the pot, add the onions and garlic, and stir for a few minutes.

Beef and onions and garlic

3) Add the dried spices, fresh chilis and diced tomatoes with their juices. Stir for a few minutes to get the spices mixed in.

Add the spices, fresh chilis and diced tomatoes

Add 2-3 cups of beef stock and one bottle of a good beer (I used a bottle of Sam Adams this time). Also add the one square of baker's chocolate. Mix well. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer, and cook for an hour.

Add beef stock and a beer

At the end of an hour, remove the cover, and simmer it for another 1-1.5 hours, adjusting the temperature as needed to make sure you maintain a low simmer.

Two to two and a half hours later - Chili

Serve with jalapeno corn bread and a salad. We garnish with sour cream, green onions, shredded cheddar (and more sliced fresh jalapeno for me).

Emeril's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo

I looooooooove cajun/creole food. Let's be perfectly clear about that. Unfortunately, to do this kind of cooking right, you need a lot of time, as these recipes are often long and slow-cooking endeavors. Fortunately for me, I had some time today around the house (while working on a remodel of daughter Julia's room) to do just that; a long slow-cooked cajun meal the correct way. The recipe used was Emeril Lagasse's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. Yum. Since it is readily available on the Internet, I will walk you through it here...

First and foremost, this isn't  quick recipe; it states 30 minutes prep time and 3:30 total time, and it is all of that. First you brown smoked sausages in a dutch oven. Then you brown highly seasoned chicken (boneless thighs of course).

Sausage, Chicken, Onions and Peppers

When the sausage and chicken have both been browned (and removed from the pot), you take the next 20-25 minutes making a chocolate brown roux from the drippings, oil and flour. This is the key flavor step for the whole dish and cannot be skimped on.

Starting a chocolate brown roux

When the chocolate roux is done, you add onions, celery and peppers, and soften them. Then you add seasonings and the sausage back in.

Onions and peppers go into the roux

You add chicken stock, bring this to a boil, and then simmer it for an hour.

Ready for a long simmer

At the end of the first hour of simmering, you add the browned chicken to the pot and then simmer it for another hour and a half.

Chicken and smoked sausage gumbo

At the very end, you add in green onions, chopped parsley and a bunch of file powder (not easy to find, but one of the things that gives the dish its authentic gumbo flavor).

This should be served with, or over, white rice (what else?), but I always want to have a nice crusty bread on hand for sopping up the sauce.

This takes an afternoon of commitment to make, but it is not difficult by any means. I can't recommend it highly enough. I have been to New Orleans several times over the years, and this recipe tastes like New Orleans. Very highly recommended.

Chicken Cacciatore

We needed something relatively easy to put together for dinner last night, and we had chicken, peppers, onions and mushrooms that needed to be used, so that looked like Chicken Cacciatore to me. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of tomato sauce dishes in general, but this is a dish that the whole family likes.

When I have made this in the past, I have tended to wing it, with decent but not spectacular results. This time I thought maybe I should actually use a real recipe. I Googled Chicken Cacciatore, and the first link at the top of the list was a Giada De Laurentiis recipe from Food Network. We have made a few dozen Giada recipes and have never had a bad one yet, so this was an obvious choice.

The recipe was simple and straightforward, and the end result was better that I generally think Cacciatore is. I am sure this is because of the sauce. The sauce here was a combination of tomato, white wine and chicken broth, and was lighter than the intensely tomato sauce that I am more accustomed to.

Total prep time was 10-15 minutes, and cooking time was closer to an hour. This is longer than listed, but we made a larger batch, and most of that extra time was the initial browning of chicken in batches.

Which brings us to step 1 - dredging bone-in chicken pieces in flour and browning them in batches. Salt and pepper. Olive oil. Easy. Remove the browned chicken from the pan.

Dredged and browned chicken

Step 2 - Add chopped peppers, onions and garlic to the drippings in the pan. Add some white wine and reduce it a bit.

Onions, peppers and garlic

Step 3 - Add chopped tomatoes and juice, broth, capers and oregano. Bring to a boil. Return the chicken to the pot. Lower to a simmer.

Tomatoes, white wine and chicken broth

Half-cover and Simmer 20-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened somewhat.

Chicken Cacciatore

This was another good Giada recipe, and better by far than I have made when going without a recipe. The lighter and yet still richer sauce was the difference. The stock added some lightness and took away the overly tomato taste, and the white wine added some depth of flavor.

Yes, I did forget the mushrooms. I was making the recipe by the book, which doesn't call for them. After dinner, I sauteed the mushrooms that needed using, and added them to the leftovers in the pot. Even better...

(Faux) Red Beans and Rice

Faux Red Beans and Rice

This is one of our most frequently made recipes, dating back to something that I threw together 12 or 15 years ago and have been making ever since. We called it "red beans and rice" although that is somewhat of a misnomer. It has red beans in it, we eat it with rice, and it is Cajun influenced, but anyone familiar with Cajun food will know that there is a specific dish called Red Beans and Rice, and this isn't it. That being said, it is generally evocative of something along those lines, and we have been calling it this for so long that we can't change now. Us, in-laws, family and neighbors all refer to this by that name, so that is what it has become.

The genesis of this recipe was to throw something together quickly that used easy ingredients, didn't take a lot of time, and was cajun-ish in nature. It proved to be easy, remarkably good, adaptable to variations, and cheap. So we've been making it ever since.

The basic recipe goes something like this (sized for either a lot of people or a smaller family meal with leftovers). We make it in big batches because it is one of those dishes that gets even better as it sits.

Ingredients:

• 2.5-3 pounds pre-cooked smoked sausages, cut into bite sized pieces. In our area, Hillshire Farms smoked sausages, kielbasa, etc, are readily available and are good for what they are. We also often use Aidell's andouille sausage. Anything by Aidell's is great. [Three packages in the 12-16 oz range]
• 1 large onion, medium-large dice.
• 2 bell peppers, medium dice. 1 red and 1 green is nice for color.
• 1 or 2 jalapenos, fine dice.
• 1or 2 14oz cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed. Depends how much you like beans.
• 14oz can diced tomatoes, with juice.
• 14oz can tomato sauce, or a similar amount of crushed tomatoes.
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced.
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4-1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper

Add the sausage to a very hot dutch oven or other large pot and cook 5-7 minutes over high heat, stirring frequently. The sausages are already cooked, so you are just trying to sear the edges for a little crispiness and color. Don't overdo and burn them.

Add the onions and garlic and cook 5 more minutes to soften and get a little color.

Smoked sausage and onions

Add peppers and spices, stirring to mix well, and cook for 2-3 minutes to open up the spices before adding the liquid.

Add bell peppers and hot peppers

Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce/crushed tomatoes. Bring to a boil and then immediately reduce heat to medium (or whatever it takes to get a nice simmer going). Add the beans. Partially cover and simmer for 20 minutes (or more).

Add crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes

Serve with rice and/or crusty bread. Amp thinks everything goes with rice. I believe the same about a good crusty bread.

This can be made further ahead and simmered longer, but if you do a longer cooking time be careful to keep it mostly covered or you will evaporate too much liquid and dry it out. If it does start to dry out, I would add a little water or chicken broth to thin it out. If you add more crushed tomato or tomato sauce it becomes more strongly tomato flavored (although you might like that).

The heat can be adjusted by deleting or reducing the cayenne for a milder version, or adding more hot peppers (of whatever variety) or cayenne, or even a hot chili powder, for a spicier version.

Turkey Chili

Turkey Chili

I'll start out by saying that a turkey chili recipe is not something that I would have chosen to make on my own. However, a request came home from Grace's school for people to sign up for various food items to bring to school for a teacher appreciation week lunch. One of the main course items on the list was turkey chili. We'd never made one before, but had time on Sunday to do this, so that's what we did.

We routinely make a Texas Red chili (no beans of course) and a White Chicken Chili, but didn't have a handy recipe for a turkey chili. A little quick Googling allowed us to synthesize the following recipe by blending a few different simple recipes together. We made it, tasted it (it was really good!) and sent it off to school. No leftovers came home, but the kids, having tasted it while I was making it, asked that we make it again for ourselves at home. So we did, and had it for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:

• A few glugs of olive oil
• 2 pounds of ground turkey (I used 1 lb each of ground breast and ground thigh for a mix of light and dark meat)
• 2 medium onions, medium dice
• 2.5-3 cups chicken broth (or a 32 oz package if you've gone heavy-handed on the other ingredients)
• 1 large (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 regular (14 oz) cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed (white beans or kidneys would be fine)
• 1-2 Anaheim or other mild/medium heat green chili pepper, fine dice
• 3 cloves garlic, minced

Spice Mix:

• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• 1-2 TB chili powder (I used half chipotle and half store bought generic "chili powder"...in deference to the kids we do this on the lighter end and season again for ourselves at the end)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (the chipotle and the smoked paprika combine to give a very nice smoky flavor)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp ground cumin, plus a little more
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• a dash of dried mustard
• a dash of ground coriander

Steps:

1. Heat some olive oil in a dutch oven or other heavy large pot over high heat. When shimmering, add the turkey, breaking it up, stirring and cooking it until it is mostly cooked (5 or 6 minutes).
2. Add the onion, minced garlic and green chili pepper and cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Add the spice mix and stir to distribute. Cook for a minute or two.
4. Add the remaining ingredients (broth, tomatoes and beans). Bring to a boil. Partly cover, reduce to a low simmer and cook for an hour.
5. Check periodically while the dish simmers and add a little more chicken broth if needed (I didn't). You want a good chili consistency, not too thick and not too soupy.

...and a beverage

Some recipes of this type call for the beans to be mashed before adding them, which will serve to thicken the sauce, but I have found that a longer cooking time combined with a routine stirring will cause the beans to begin to break down, giving much the same effect with a slight bit less trouble.

This ended up being a surprisingly good recipe. I would make it (significantly) hotter if it was just for me, but in deference to the kids the above is a manageable amount of heat. This could also prove to be a versatile recipe, as there are a number of other variations on this that come to mind (more fresh peppers, a few nuggets of a spicy sausage, etc).

I would give this high marks for combination of little effort (we made it again on a week night), minimal cleanup, low cost and good flavor. Making this amount for a family of four will also do 2-3 meals, so this is a good recipe to make on a weekend and then have for an easy dinner or two during the following week.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Last weekend we were looking for a new comfort food recipe to try out, and with all the snow and cold we have been having recently, a long slow-cooking braised dish of some sort would be perfect. The suggestion of short ribs came up, everybody liked the idea, and we went poking around for a recipe to try. The recipe we used was from one of the home websites that Amp frequents (www.chrislovesjulia.com), and the specific recipe is here. Since it is readily available for free, properly credited and linked I will repeat it here (ever so slightly tweaked of course...).

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta from the "Chris Loves Julia" website.

Ingredients:

• 8 beef short ribs, silver skin removed
• 2 TB canola or vegetable oil (for searing)
• 10-12 oz cremini or button mushrooms (we love mushrooms and probably went close to a pound)
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced (we used an entire medium onion)

For the braising liquid:

• 4 cups beef stock
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1-2 tsp smoked Tabasco sauce (they make smoked Tabasco sauce?!? We used regular...)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 TB tomato paste
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice

The recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F).
2. Heat a large oven-safe pot over medium high heat.
3. Combine all braising liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.
4. Add the canola oil to the pot and sear the ribs on all sides in batches. They need space or you will end up simmering them instead of searing them. You are just looking for a little crusty color on all sides.
5. Remove ribs from pot and saute onions in the pan juices for 2-3 minutes until becoming translucent (I let them go closer to 5 minutes).
6. Place the ribs back into the pot on top of the onions. Pour the braising liquid into the pot. The ribs should be almost covered, but not completely submerged.
7. Put the lid on the pot, put it in the oven (325 degrees F), and let it cook untouched for 2.5 hours.
8. After 2.5 hours, add the mushrooms to the pot, cover again, and cook for another hour.

When done, serve with polenta. We did a creamy polenta from Giada's Everyday Italian cookbook, which is our standard polenta recipe. We didn't do the fried polenta square that the recipe calls for. For a green side dish, a hearty leafy veg like garlic wilted kale or spinach (or green beans or asparagus) would be nice.

This is an incredibly easy and very tasty recipe that I would make again in a heartbeat.

Searing the ribs in batches

All you do is basically sear some meat, slice an onion, and stick a pot in the oven for a few hours. And it makes the house smell great...

Ribs with braising liquid

I found the list of ingredients for the braising liquid to contain some surprising ingredients (balsamic, cinnamon, allspice...), but the long cooking time took the edge off the balsamic, which was also diluted into a lot of beef stock. Everything came together to make a rich and complex sauce, which is exactly what you are going for in this kind of dish.

Everybody in the pool!

And mushrooms make everything better. So we added more than the recipe called for.

...adding mushrooms

The total oven time for this recipe is 3.5 hours, but honestly, we shorted that, and the result was none the worse for it. The initial cook was about 2 hours instead of 2.5, and after adding the mushrooms we cooked it another 45 minutes instead of an hour. So we braised it for a total of under three hours instead of 3.5, and the meat was still fall-off-the-bone-melt-in-your-mouth. We used very good quality grass-fed beef from Whole Foods, so that may have helped too.

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta

Taste - I'd give this an 8.5 out of 10. Very very good.
Work-to-Result rating - Another 8 or so out of 10. This is as "minimally fiddly" as a recipe can be (so 10 out of 10 in that regard), but it does take close to 4 hours of clock time to make (some searing and sauteing followed by a very long braise where you do nothing). So it's not a week night throw-together dinner.
Cost - Very good. Bone-in beef short ribs are not an expensive cut of meat, and the result is rich enough that you don't need a lot for a satisfying meal.
Overall - Fantastic...9 out of 10. Low-ish cost, very easy to make, we were planning on being home anyway, and the taste was absolutely terrific.

Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

This might be my favorite recipe of all time, and is one of the best loved recipes of my family (and friends). A real cassoulet, a peasant dish of southwest France, is potentially days in the making and has all sorts of not-readily-available-in-America ingredients (in terms of animal parts). This recipe, from the long-ago March 1999 Bon Appetit (page 177), is a wonderful shortcut version that is not at all difficult to make, and doesn't take forever.

End result (no bread cubes and un-garnished)

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs pre-cooked smoked sausages, sliced into 1/4 to 1/2 inch discs or semi-circles. I typically use Hillshire Farms beef smoked sausage and kielbasa.
• 4 large leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced.
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped.
• 1 medium apple, peeled and chopped. I use a Granny Smith or similar, as the firmer texture of a "baking" apple holds up better to cooking.
• 1 TB chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp dried).
• 1.5 tsp dried sage.
• 1/2 cup brandy. I generally use a Cognac, although an Armagnac or a Calvados (apple brandy) from Normandy is terrific because of the apple tie-in.
• 28 oz canned diced tomatoes (1 large or two regular cans).
• 45 oz canned white beans, drained and rinsed (3 regular cans cannelini or Great Northern).
• 10 oz frozen baby lima beans.
• 2 cups chicken broth (maybe more...needs to cover the other ingredients in the pot in step 6).
• 3 TB tomato paste.
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves.
• 4 cups diced country style crusty bread, cut into crouton-sized cubes, and a little olive oil. (optional)
• chopped fresh parsley to garnish at the end (optional).

Equipment:

• A large dutch oven or equivalent stove top and oven safe pot.
• A non-stick skillet (only if doing step 8, making croutons).
• A knife.
• A can opener.
• Something to stir with. Pretty simple.

At end of step 4

The recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).
2. Saute the sausage in the pot over high heat until lightly browned, stirring periodically (perhaps 7-8 minutes).
3. Reduce to medium high heat, add leeks and garlic and cook for 5 minutes or so until softened.
4. Add the apple, rosemary and sage. Stir to combine and cook for a minute.
5. Add the brandy, stir, and simmer 5 minutes. [This is the step at which to inhale deeply and enjoy...]
6. Add the diced tomatoes, rinsed white beans, frozen lima beans, broth, tomato paste and cloves. Season with a little fresh black pepper. Stir to combine (and mix in the big lump of tomato paste). Bring to a boil. [Make sure you are using enough chicken broth to at least mostly cover the other ingredients - see my picture below]
7. Cover, transfer to oven, and bake for 30 minutes.
8. (optional) Meanwhile, cube the bread and saute in a little olive oil to make semi-crispy bread cubes.
9. After 30 minutes of baking, remove the lid from the pot. If doing the optional bread cubes bit (step 8), spread the crispy bread cubes over the top of the cassoulet at this point. Bake uncovered another 15 minutes for a total baking time of 45 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven, garnish if you wish, and serve. Crusty bread and a simple salad are all you need (if anything). And perhaps a nice Cotes du Rhone, Australian shiraz, or similar spicy red...

At step 6

Total cooking time is approximately an hour and ten minutes, and requires very little other than some chopping and stirring. Anyone can make this dish, and the results are amazing. While it may not be authentic in the sense of true rustic French country cooking, it hits the right notes and is evocative of its inspiration.

For comparison, I have pulled Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France (John Wiley and Sons, revised edition, 2005) off the bookshelf. "Cassoulet in the Style of Toulouse" (p. 317) includes as ingredients pork shoulder, ham hocks (or pigs' knuckles), pork skin with hard fat attached, confit (or rendered duck fat), salt pork, sausages, duck legs, etc, etc, etc... Step one of the recipe begins "Two days in advance, season the pork shoulder...". And goes on from there. While this is a fascinating read (as is the whole book), I don't find myself saying "I can do that", or even really wanting to for that matter.

Try this recipe, you'll be glad you did.

Vegetable Minestrone Soup

Vegetable Minestrone

'Tis the season to be cooking. With the holiday season upon us and the prospect of many heavy meals to come, we thought it would be nice to whip up a batch of soup to serve as the basis for some lighter meals in and around the red meat fest set to commence shortly...

The basis of this was a Giada di Laurentiis recipe on a Food Network show we saw recently, but we made it from memory, and so I am not sure how closely what we made mirrors her recipe, but it is somewhat close.

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots, medium dice
• 3 ribs celery, medium dice
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled, medium dice
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes
• 2 cans (15 oz each) cannelini (white kidney) or great northern (white) beans, drained and split out as noted below
• 1 medium plastic clam-shell package of "Power greens" (mix of spinach, chard and kale I think...)
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary
• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan, or a chunk of parmesan rind
• Beef stock (one of the larger box cartons plus a little more)

The carrots, celery, potatoes and garlic are sweated in some olive oil in a large dutch oven (we used a big Le Creuset enamled cast iron one...my favorite pot).

While the veggies sweat, put about 2/3 of one can of white beans into a blender or food processor along with a cup or so of beef broth and puree them together. When then veggies are done sweating, add the diced tomatoes, the puree'd bean/broth mixture and the remaining white beans to the pot. Add the power greens (spinach/chard/kale), the thyme and rosemary and cover with beef stock. Simmer for 40 minutes or so. If you have a chunk of parmesan rind, add it prior to the simmering, it using shredded parmesan, hold off for now. The parmesan rind is really nice if you have it; it adds a richness and depth beyond what a simple sprinkling of shredded cheese will do (and it's the part of the cheese you can't really eat anyway...). It also adds some saltiness, so let it all cook out before checking for salt near the end.

At the end of 40 minutes, if using shredded parm, add it now and simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Total simmer time is close to an hour, although this is probably longer than you really need to cook the vegetables to doneness.

Test for salt and pepper, seasoning more if needed. Simmer a few more minutes and serve. (Because the carrots float more readily than some of the other veggies, the picture is a little misleading in making it look like chunky carrot soup...).

Beef Stew

We have tried a number of different beef stew recipes over the years, and while some have been good and some have been not so good, we hadn't yet found one that really jumped out as the keeper for this dish. Until now.

Veggies, sauce base, and browned beef

As we continue to make recipes from Grace's subscription to the Food Network Magazine, we noticed a good looking beef stew recipe in the November 2013 issue (p. 210). We made it, and it was fantastic. Since it is readily available for free online (see link above), properly credited, I will repeat it in short form here. The recipe is fairly simple but cooks for a long time.

Ingredients:

• 6 TB olive oil
• 3 lbs beef chuck in 1 inch pieces
• 4 carrots, 1 roughly chopped and 3 in half inch rounds
• 4 stalks celery, 1 roughly chopped and 3 in half inch pieces
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1 TB tomato paste
• 1 cup hearty red wine (I used an old vines Cotes du Rhone)
• 2 quarts beef stock
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1.25 lbs russet potatoes, in chunks
• 1 lb mixed mushrooms (cremini, shitake, oyster etc)
• 4 TB unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• chopped fresh parsley

Wine..some for stew, some for me

The meat is salt and peppered then browned in batches. Then the roughly chopped part of the carrot, celery and onion is put in the pot to soften. The tomato paste is added, then the wine. When boiling, the beef and stock and thyme are added to the pot. This is then simmered on low for about two hours to cook the beef to meltingly tender.

After this, they say to strain the beef and veggies into a colander, reserving the cooking liquid. The remaining veggies are then cooked in the liquid for 20 minutes or so. We cheated and simply added the veggies to the pot and simmered for another 20 minutes. Do what we did; you'll never notice the difference. Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms in a skillet for 10 minutes or so, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Lastly, make a blonde roux with the flour and butter, and whisk some of the cooking liquid into the roux. When incorporated, add the roux into the stew, stirring to distribute it. Add the cooked mushrooms. Simmer another 5 minutes or so to thicken the sauce and you are done. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

Lots of mushrooms

We had this with a nice crusty bread, a simple salad, and the remainder of the bottle of wine used for cooking. And maybe another bottle.

Finished Product

Prep time is maybe a half hour, but total cooking time is around 3 hours, so while this is not a difficult or overly fiddly recipe, it does take a good amount of time. It is well worth the effort. The assorted mushrooms really make a big difference in this richness of the overall flavor. Highly recommended.

White Chicken Chili

Another favorite kids' recipe is White Chicken Chili (p. 365, More Best Recipes, America's Test Kitchen, 2009). I generally make this on a weekend so that we can have leftovers for the work/school week ahead.

The recipe calls for browning chicken pieces, then making a thin salsa-like mixture of onions and different varieties of green chili peppers in a blender or food processor. The blender mixture goes back in the pot with more minced chilis, cumin, coriander and garlic.

Chili and onion base cooking down

This cooks for a while, then some of it goes back in the blender with some white beans, and gets pulsed again to break down the beans. This will help thicken the sauce so you don't end up with soup. The vegetable-bean mixture goes back in to the pot with stock, more whole white beans and the chicken to simmer until done. In the version in the picture I added a diced red bell pepper to add a splash of color.

Final simmering

Total cooking time is close to an hour and a half, but much of that time is different phases of simmering. As far as work goes, there is a decent bit of chopping, and there are a couple of different uses of the blender. It's not a difficult recipe by any means, but does require your attention for good portions of the cooking time. The spiciness can be adjusted depending on the types of green chilis you use. The dish can be garnished the same way you would for a beef chili: green onions, shredded cheese, sour cream, sliced jalapenos, etc.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Last night we had arranged for brother Dave and his Darling Wife to come over for dinner, followed by some long-overdue guitar playing. I wanted something fun to make and a little off the beaten path, but not too difficult or requiring too much prep or cooking. The Labor Day holiday cookout at the neighbors will be a red meat fest, so I thought a chicken dish would be good (which is also in deference to Darling Wife's sensibilities). After some thought, I remembered a Madhur Jaffrey dish I had made once before that was very good, and not too involved.

The dish is Vietnamese Chicken Curry from page 94 of Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs; Recipes From the Indian Spice Trail (Clarkson Potter, 2003). I took the easy route and used boneless skinless thighs and breasts instead of bone-in pieces. First the chicken is rubbed with curry powder. Then a "blender paste" of shallot, ginger, garlic, crushed red pepper and lemongrass is made (with some water). Oil, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, lots of chopped onion and the paste make a base for this dish, to which is added diced tomato and then the chicken. After cooking for 7 or 8 minutes, potato, carrot, fish sauce, sugar and water are added, and then the dish is simmered for close to a half hour to cook everything through. In the last few minutes, coconut milk is added to make the richness of the sauce (salting to taste). We had it with simple green beans and of course lots of rice.

Work - Pretty easy. Chunk up some chicken, chop some veggies, throw some stuff in a blender, and then add stuff to a pot in batches. Nothing difficult here, and not overly fiddly.
Time - About an hour, start to finish, but only the first half of that requires active work, the last half hour is periodic stirring only.
Cleanup - Not bad at all. I used a blender, two cutting boards, a dutch oven and a few utensils and measuring stuff.
Cost - Fairly inexpensive. Needed to shop for chicken (about 3 lbs when doubling the recipe), some veggies and the coconut milk. All of the spices, fish sauce and other minor ingredients were pantry items for me.
Rating - 6.5 or 7 out of 10. A good solid coconut chicken curry. The flavor is good, with some heat (we moderated this for the kids). It's not a knock-your-socks-off recipe, but the good taste coupled with the relatively low cost and effort involved make this a keeper.