Ingredients:

• 2 Green Bell Peppers
• 3-4 Jalapeño Peppers
• 1-2 White Onions
• 1 Large Can Tomato Sauce (~29 oz)
• 1 Can Tomato Paste (~12 oz)
• 1 Bottle of Beer
• 3 Cans of Beans (16 oz each)
• 1 Pound Ground Chicken
• 1 Pound Ground Turkey
• 1 Pound Thick Cut Bacon
• Seasoning Mix (described below)

Seasoning Mix:

• 2 tbsp. Chili Powder
• 1 tbsp. Seasoned Salt
• 1 tsp. Onion Powder
• 1 tsp. Garlic Powder
• 2 tsp. Cumin
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 tsp. Oregano
• 1/2 tsp. Paprika

1. Finely chop onions and peppers into ~1/4″ pieces.   Put peppers, onions and beer into  a large pot or slow cooker.  I used a bottle of Yeungling Lager, but most beers should work and will add their own unique flavors.  For stove-top cooking set to medium heat, or for slow cooker set to highest setting.
2. In a large frying pan cook the bacon.  Remove from heat when the strips are a dark pink.  Even if you like to go whole-hog and get your bacon super crispy keep in mind these will be in the chili for a very long time so getting them just-done is the way to go.  Set aside the strips on a plate between paper towels to absorb excess grease.  When all the bacon has been cooked pour out excess grease from the pan into a metal or glass container, leaving about 2-3 tbsp. in the pan.
3. In the same pan cook the ground chicken with about 1 tbsp. of the seasoning mix. When the chicken is fully cooked, drain and add to the pot or slow cooker with the vegetables. Repeat the process for the ground turkey with 1 tbsp. of the seasoning mix and 1-2 tbsp. of bacon grease. After the chicken and turkey have been added to the mix reduce heat to low.
4. Pat excess grease off of the bacon with a paper towel and slice the bacon into small pieces (about 1/4-1/2″  wide). Add bacon to the pot.
5. Strain all liquid from the beans and add to the pot. I used a combination of kidney beans, black beans and navy beans. Add tomato sauce, tomato paste and remainder of seasoning mix to the pot and stir thoroughly.  Fresh tomatoes could be used but I like to keep the tomato as a liquid base for the other ingredients.  If fresh tomatoes are used you should finely chop enough tomatoes to constitute about 1-1.5 quarts (32-48 oz).
6. Allow to simmer for 3-4 hours or longer if possible, stirring occasionally.  I ended up cooking the chili overnight for a total of about 12 hours.  This allowed a richer flavor to develop which I think worked out well. However it did end up burning slightly on the bottom which ended up making the flavor a little smokier, but unfortunately also caused the bottom quarter or so of the pot to be thrown out. In general it would be best to cook this throughout the day so as to keep an eye on it at all times.

This makes I believe about 6 quarts of chili. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream or ranch dressing.

• 1 quart of roma tomatoes (or 1 can of crushed tomatoes) – a quart was about 8 or 9 tomatoes for me
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion or shallots
• 1/2 cup peas
• 1 cup vodka
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup torn fresh basil

If you’re using fresh tomatoes, first cut in an X on the end of each tomato and drop them all in a pot of boiling water for about 4 minutes.  You’ll start to see the peels starting to separate. Take the tomatoes out and put them in cold water to bring the temperature low enough that you can handle them.  Peel the skin off with your hands – it should be super easy!

Next, use a serrated knife to chop the tomatoes roughly. Stick the tomatoes in a strainer of some sort – a colander should be fine. You want to get a good deal of the liquid innards out so that the sauce isn’t to watery later. I finished up the chopping by using kitchen shears (you can transfer it back to a board to chop as well, I just find shears to be a lot easier), and then crushed them a bit with a spoon.

Heat up a deep pan (I like to use a wok) with some olive oil, and start sauteeing the garlic and onion/shallots.  Continue sauteeing until the onion looks soft.  Throw in the vodka, and cook it down by at least half.

Add the tomatoes and chicken broth, stir. Throw in some salt and pepper.  Cook it down again for 3-4 minutes. Add cream and peas, turn heat to low, and stir gently to incorporate.  Simmer a bit longer until it looks nice and thick.  When it’s about ready, take it off the heat and stir in the torn basil.  Serve with pasta! I like to use penne.

If you like some heat with your sauce, try adding red pepper flakes to taste. I actually added a few pinches of it and it was good!

There is a version that Emeril Lagasse makes that involves bacon – you cut the bacon into small pieces and cook it first, using the fat to cook the onions afterwards. YUM. I’ll have to do that next time!

Tonight, Michael was off having fun with friends, so we took the opportunity to make something not only with vegetables, not only vegetarian, but vegan (gasp)—ratatouille. Unlike most French fare, the recipe for this rustic vegetable stew is somewhat flexible. We opted for the stovetop route, adding non-traditional yellow squash and substituting red bell peppers for the typical green, resulting in a very colorful dish (red, orange, yellow, green, and purple are all in the mix). It’s really very easy, once you assemble and chop up all the ingredients! Also: surprisingly delicious despite not having any suffering in it.

Rainbow Ratatouille

• 5-6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6 cloves of garlic (or to taste), broken/crushed with the back of a knife and then chopped
• 1 large onion, sliced thin
• 1 large eggplant, cut roughly into 1/2 inch cubes
• 2 large zucchini, sliced into long strips and then cut into quarter-strips
• 6 small crookneck squash, cut into thin circular slices
• 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 5 medium tomatoes (preferably slightly overripe), chopped roughly
• 1 tbsp each of dried thyme and oregano (or to taste)
• 1 cup shredded fresh basil
• red pepper flakes (to taste)
• kosher salt (to taste)

Sprinkle chopped eggplant and squash with salt while you start. Heat half the olive oil on medium-low, then cook the onions and garlic until onions have softened. Add the remaining oil, turn the heat up to medium; let the oil heat, but don’t let it smoke. Add the eggplant and cook until the eggplant is soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the zucchini, crookneck squash, and bell pepper, cooking for another 10-12 minutes (stirring to prevent scorching). Finally, add the tomatoes and the seasonings, allowing everything to soak through. Let that stew for another 8-10 minutes (uncovered, as the tomatoes add a good deal of water). Serve with a baguette (and/or Rice-a-Roni if you have an entire shelf of your pantry dedicated to it because it is always on sale… *looks around shiftily*).

(Picture was taken right before the tomatoes went in.) Tomorrow: Sausage cappelini (with homemade pesto!) and bruschetta. :9

I consider pork to be the most mysterious of all the meats. An extremely reputable online encyclopedia has this to say:

Meat refers to animal tissue, especially that which is consumed as food. There are various kinds of meat, ranging from white meat such as (chicken or turkey) to red meat (such as beef). Some meats, such as ham and pork (both being meats of the pig) resist such strict classification.

As you can see, even creation scientists are baffled when it comes to pork. So far, pork is the most difficult meat I’ve tackled in the kitchen… Every now and then I get an urge to make something with lobster (like bisque! :q), but those recipes always begin with “dispatch the scuttling space monster by stabbing it in the brain stem, or by boiling it alive, you genocidal monster.” Yeesh!

The Pork Problem is probably well-known to all, but let me summarize: Pork sold in America has fairly low fat content, probably due to some arbitrary decree by the FDA. This means that it would be best not too cook it too much (as it dries out quickly on the stove), but! pork has also been known for centuries to harbor foodborne diseases (though less so today), so people are very wary of undercooked pork. Thus, if you want a nice juicy pork tenderloin without the whole “parasite” side effect, you really have to “cook it twice”: brown it in a pan, and then stick that pan in the oven for a while (until it has reached the federally mandated internal temperature of 150˚F).

Anyway, here is a unorthodox interpretation of a delicious pork-based meal I had while over in Germany, modified to fit the stuff in our CSA box this week + also a recipe from Gourmet that sounded yummy.

Curry-rubbed pork tenderloin with tomato-peach compôte (adapted from Gourmet 07/2009)

• 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp ginger, minced
• 1 tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper
• 2 3/4 lb pork tenderloins
• olive oil for browning
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3/4 lb tomatoes, chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 1 peach, pitted and chopped (I did into eights and then those into quarters)
• 3 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 425˚F. Smash the garlic, ginger, and curry powder into a paste using your favorite paste-making method. The Gourmet-recommended method is using a mortar and pestle, but we have neither mortar nor pestle, so instead we used the flat part of our Ikea meat tenderizing mallet and pressed down really hard with our huge manly muscles. *flex* Anyway, once you make the paste, rub your tenderloin (lol) down with salt and pepper, and then rub it with the seasoning paste. Delish! Brown the two tenderloins in an oven-safe* pan for 5 minutes on one side, then flip over and thrust into the middle of the oven, cooking for 10-15 minutes**, or until it is done all the way through, or a meat thermometer registers something between 145 and 150˚F when inserted into the thickest part of the meat. (Hehe… meat.)

Alright! Remove the pan from the oven (the handle will be hot… I touched it with my hands because I am dumb it was not fun guys). Place the pork on a cutting board and let rest while you make the compôte. With the hot oven-pan on the range (all its pork juices intact), heat it to medium-high, then add the chopped onion and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent and soft. Add the chopped tomato and peach, and cook until soft, 3 to 4 minutes about, depending on the kind of peach. Slice the pork against the grain, serve with compôte and also the pork-fruit-juice stuff that runs off.

* If you don’t know if your pan is oven-safe, here’s a good tip: Any pan made entirely out of metal automatically is (and up to 500˚F if it’s got Teflon). If it has plastic, it’s eitiher labeled or you shouldn’t try.

** Ours took about 30 minutes, but we had doubled the recipe. I’m still not really sure this makes any sense.

The next item on the menu is something my mother makes every Christmas. She makes it from a pre-packaged mix, though, so I thought I’d try to make it from scratch. It was pretty hard and it didn’t come out quite right the first time (still not sure why that is). Anyway… maybe you will have more luck?

Kartoffelklösse (German potato dumplings)

• 6 medium potatoes
• 1/2 c flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs

Boil the potatoes until they are cooked through but still relatively firm, I’d say 15-20 minutes, then rinse them in cold water, dry them, and refrigerate them for at least two hours. Then grate them with the fine mesh of a cheese grater into a large mixing bowl. Add the flour, the salt, and the eggs, and stir it all up until it forms a pliable dough. If it’s too sticky, add some flour, and if it isn’t sticky enough, maybe add half an egg? it’s hard to say.

If you can form it into fairly solid 1-inch diameter balls, then it should be done. Do so, and then throw in “gently boiling” water for at least 5-7 minutes, or until they float to the top. Then remove and set aside.

And finally, something with vinegar to set the other flavors off. If you don’t know what caraway seeds are, they are what makes rye bread taste funny. They are not for everyone, and they are potent little f-ers, so “to taste” is key.

Summer squash “sauerkraut”

• 2 large summer squash, sliced into long, thin strips, then crosswise diagonally into 2-3 inch length slices (whatever!)
• 1/2 c white wine vinegar
• 1/4 c apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp salt (plus more to taste)
• 1-2 tsp caraway seeds, to taste

Just toss the ingredients together, adjust salt and caraway to your taste, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serve cold.

And this is what it all looks like when it’s done:

I actually thought it came out very well, though the dumplings were less spherical and tasty than I had anticipated (do a google image search for “german potato dumplings” to see what I mean). The pork was juicy, and I actually really liked the squash stuff. I think it might be “what I do with summer squash from now on”… since I always kind of struggle with them. =)

• The giant tomatoes I used the first time were a better balance of rice-to-tomato, but since they were hot-house grown, the little ones I used the second time actually tasted better. My advice: hold out for good tomatoes – preferably non-refrigerated.
• On roasting potatoes: the second time, I put them in their own dish, cut them a little thicker, salt-and-peppered them, and made sure to really really coat them with oil. I also cooked them at higher heat (~450F) for the last ten minutes after I took the tomatoes out. Some combination of these things helped a lot.
• Dried basil is an okay substitution here for once, since it gets cooked so much.
• I made fresh breadcrumbs the second time, whereas the first time I used “Italian” breadcrumbs in a box – texture was probably better the second time but if you don’t have a loaf of nice bread and a food processor sitting around it’s not a big deal.
• No really, do roast the tomatoes for that full time. They need it.
• And, as for a risotto, it really does need to be arborio rice.
• Correspondingly, if you’re making this for company, remember that you can’t skimp on the baking time and they may hate you forever if dinner is an hour late (I’m just saying. This is also why I didn’t pause to take pictures!)

For the dinner party last night, I made a green salad and topped it with sliced roast chicken breasts so we could pretend there was protein, and this was basically way too much food for everyone (in a good way). We had it with a cheap Montepulciano which was lovely – although it’s a veggie dish, warnings about pairing reds with heavy tomato sauces apply. I have leftover tomatoes so I’ll probably do it again in a week or so – the prep doesn’t take that long, and it’s warm and comforting and also looks deceptively fancy.

The dough:

• 1 tsp. white sugar

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tbsp. active dry yeast
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

The directions:

1. Dissolve sugar in warm water in large bowl. Sprinkle yeast over top and let sit for 10 minutes.

2. Stir in salt and olive oil, then flour.
3. Knead. Cover with towel and let sit in warm place for an hour. Knead. Cover with towel and let sit in warm place for another hour.
4. Do other stuff.
5. Bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes.

1. Cut up lots of mozzarella cheese. Put on pizza.

2. Cut up a tomato. Put on pizza.
3. Tear up a lot of fresh basil. Put on pizza.

I’m not entirely happy with this dough; it’s serviceable but not flavorful. Suggestions for herbs to add that might help? Still, it works out pretty well, especially when rolled thin (in pre-rolling pin eras, I just smooshed it into a pan and it was usually too thick and chewy) and covered with enough cheese to feed an army. Or at least cover said army in cheese.

1. Eat.