10 Pepper Chili

This recipe is pretty similar to the butternut squash chili I posted back in November. I recently made it at a family reunion and was asked for the recipe so I figured I'd set it down for posterity.

Despite the name, it's not that spicy, although you can always increase the heat by using spicier peppers (or more cayenne) - but you may wish to go easy on the peppers if you prefer milder foods.


Ingredients:

1/3 cup canola or other cooking oil
2 medium onions, diced
8-10 button mushrooms, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 each of a green, yellow, orange, and red bell pepper, diced
1 serrano pepper, diced
1 anaheim pepper, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 yellow chili pepper, diced
2 avocados, diced
3-4 fresh tomatoes, diced (or 2 cans of diced tomatoes)
3 cups of water
1 can black beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can refried beans
2 tbsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp salt

black pepper to taste

2 apples, diced (optional)

2 tbsp lime juice (optional)

Heat oil in a large (5.5+ quart) soup pot over medium heat. Add diced onions and sautee for approx. 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they become translucent.  Add mushrooms and garlic and sautee 2-3 minutes more, stirring. Add diced bell and chili peppers and sautee 2-3 minutes more, stirring.

Increase heat and add tomatoes, water, and black and kidney beans. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat to low and add refried beans and apples and lime juice (if using).  Let simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add avocado and spices.  Let simmer 15 minutes more, continuing to stir occasionally, or until the desired thickness.

Butternut Squash Chili

This is a nice seasonal recipe I came up with a few weeks ago that was pretty popular.  Anaheim peppers are milder than jalapeño or serrano - feel free to upgrade if you want an extra kick.



2 tbsp canola or olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
1-2 anaheim peppers, seeded and deveined, diced (optional)
4 cloves garlic, minced (or to taste)
1 large can tomatoes (or approx. 5 fresh tomatoes)
1 medium-large apple, diced
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed (note: Costco sells packages of pre-cut/peeled  if you don't feel like wrestling one in your kitchen - they're tough to cut)
1 can black beans
1 can refried beans
1 can of corn (optional)
3 cups water
1 tsp turmeric (optional)
Cumin, paprika, salt and pepper to taste*

(* I used about 3 tbsp cumin, and 2 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp paprika, and 2 tsp cayenne instead of black pepper. Since it's a large volume doing a little more or a little less probably won't hurt)

In a large pot, heat the oil and begin sauteing the onions.  When they start to get translucent, add the bell and anaheim peppers and the garlic.  Give it 5-10 minutes, then stir in the remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer approx. 45 minutes (or until desired thickness), stirring occasionally.

Taking a Beeting

(Author's note: other titles rejected for this post included Beetniks, Just Beet It, and The Beetitudes)


I recently signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box after reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (his most recent article is here). A CSA box provides you with a hearty helping of organic produce, supporting local independent farmers instead of agribusiness giants - click the CSA link above for a farm in your area (yes, even in Las Vegas).

Since they give you whatever is in season, it means you need to be creative. For example, in the past few weeks I've wound up with 6 beets. I wasn't even sure they were beets at first, having never seen an actual beet. My Russian ancestors would be so ashamed. Actually, apparently this is not true, since chard is also a beet (!) but I have not seen the body.

But it is a root vegetable, which means theoretically that you should be able to do anything to it that you do to a potato. As mentioned before, potatoes are to nutrition what the Real Housewives of New Jersey is to art - so you get the bonus of something with vitamins and, you know, flavor.

My first thought was to do yam fries, substituting beet for the yam. This being my first encounter with beets, I didn't know how to tell when they were cooked; my batch wasn't (areas of lighter pink are a good sign; when those areas start turning brown it's getting close to burnt).

Then a friend suggested beet chips - which is effectively the exact same thing, you just cut the beet differently. All the recipes I found suggested using a mandoline because it's hard to get the beet sliced thin enough; I used a peeler the first time and I think it was too thin and also ended up making my kitchen look like a set for CSI. You don't need to peel them if you clean the outside well enough, which is good, since beets are juicy and messy; prepare accordingly.

Ingredients:
1+ beet(s), sliced reasonably thin (about the same thickness as a potato chip)
Oil (canola or olive)
Optional: salt, paprika, grated parmesan, etc.

The first time around I tried deep frying. I just heated oil in a pan (enough to cover) and then put in the sliced beet(s). Stir occasionally, and when you notice the lighter areas getting brown and them looking more like chips, put them out on a paper towel to cool a bit. Add seasoning if desired, although they're pretty darn good plain.

You can also shave a few hundred calories from the recipe by putting a tablespoon (or more if you have 3+ beets) of oil in a bowl and toss the beet chips in there and then evenly distribute them on a cookie sheet and bake them at 400 degrees. The recipe I read said 45 minutes to an hour but I burned the first batch and undercooked the second so I recommend frequent checking. It also said to flip part way through but I'm not sure how necessary that is. Anyway, the 3rd picture is deep fried and the 4th is baked but I defy anyone to tell the difference - assuming they're cooked properly.

One final note: be prepared for the beet-ness to pervade your trips to the bathroom for the next 24-36 hours. No, you don't have an intestinal hemorrhage, that's just the beets. Hopefully.

Fun with Food Processors 2: Venergy Drinks

If I had more business acumen, I might try spinning Venergy Drinks into a retail shop. Like Jamba Juice, except...with a different name. And different ingredients. In fact, I did wonder briefly whether I was making a mistake putting this up online - until I realized that I only have three confirmed readers so far (hi gals!) and that places like Jamba Juice do you one better, and let you see all the ingredients and exactly how to make it, free with any purchase.

For the record, these aren't completely like Jamba Juice. I am also ripping off V8.

These are highly customizable, and excellent if you are like me and getting a box of seasonal organic produce once every two weeks. It's basically a smoothie with vegetables in it. It's one of the single healthiest things you can consume, with the caveat that your body reacts differently when you chew something than when you drink something and so it's probably not great for your digestion. I've actually noticed these are really filling, but that actually seems like a pro, rather than a con.

General guideline is that you want about a 1:1 balance of fruit to vegetables, something juicy enough to make it drinkable (or add water), and something other than fruit or veggies to give it flavor (in addition to the spices listed below, I've also tried peanut butter). If the fruit doesn't give it enough sweetness on its own, add honey or agave nectar.

Venergy Drink 1 (aka V8*)
1 grapefruit
1/2 cucumber
2 carrots, peeled
3-4 handfuls of blueberries
1-2 handfuls of grapes
1 inch piece of scallion
1 tsp ground ginger
2 sprigs of fresh parsley
1 tsp of honey

Venergy Drink 2 (aka V12 - pictured above)
1 peach, pitted
1 large orange
2 carrots, peeled
1/2 cucumber
3-4 handfuls of blueberries
1-2 handfuls of grapes
1/4 cup of salad (mixed greens, cabbage, chard, lettuce, etc)
1/4 cup of broccoli
1 tsp cinammon

Go easy with the spices, a little goes a long way and you can always add more. For the record, of the two above I preferred the second one - the peach has so much fructose in it that I didn't need to add anything else to it to sweeten it. I made one this morning using apple and nectarine but had to add about 2 cups of water to get it to be liquidy enough.

* I am using the apparent V8 definition of what constitutes a vegetable, as their recipe includes the herbs parsley and watercress, as well as tomatoes - which, despite what the Supreme Court might tell you, are a fruit.

Novelties: Veggie Pizza with Portobello Mushroom Crust

This was one of my more inventive ideas - along with Venergy Drinks, coming soon. I still think it is theoretically possible to pull this off, but I'm not convinced the effort is worth it, since you can cut the stem off a portobello to make a mini-pizza anyway.

The basic idea, though, was to make a pizza crust without using dough. I've played around with roasted portobello mushroom dishes and decided that if I threw some mushrooms in my food processor and added some oil, I could make a crust. I threw in a few cloves of garlic, because why not get that in the "crust" directly if you can?

Ingredients:
2-3 portobello mushrooms
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup (maybe? Eyeball it) olive oil
1/2 cup tomato sauce, or canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano
diced veggies/toppings of your choice
cheese of choice - enough to cover

Then the toppings are just like a basic pizza. You could theoretically do whatever you want.

I baked it for over an hour at 350 degrees. The "crust" never cohered, and burned a little around the edges. Although you couldn't eat it like a pizza, which was my main goal, it still tasted pretty good.

I'm thinking an egg or something else with emulsifiers might work better to bind it if I try it again. I may try to make the crust thinner, too. Pre-cooking or drying the crust may help as well.

Fun with Food Processors 1: Sun-Dried Tomato Tapenade

Tapenade is a French word for "delicious on bread." Typically its made with olives. This recipe adds sun dried tomatoes because it's cool like that.

Ingredients:
Olives
Olive oil
Garlic
Sun dried tomatoes
Lime juice (optional)
Paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

You can probably do this in a blender but I recommend a food processor instead. If you're not sure about the operation, just remember that ingredients go inside the food processor, and body parts stay outside.

I haven't put in measurements because I usually eyeball it. I go for a roughly 1:1 ratio of olives to sun dried tomatoes. I recommend draining the olives first so that the salt from the brine doesn't ruin it - something I've learned from experience.

You can pick your poison as far as the olives are concerned - I've used kalamata, Spanish, and black, but the olives should be a secondary taste to the tomatoes. And the garlic. Mmmm, garlic.

If your tomatoes came in a jar with oil in it, you can use some of that oil in the recipe. If they are dry (like mine were, above), you will need to either add some water or some olive oil to get the consistency right. I'm not sure about the lime juice, but I had some around last time I made it and figured it might fill out the flavor some. It'd be fine without, though, so if you're skittish, you can omit it.

Aside from being amazing on bread, you can also use it in wraps or with eggs. It's amazing with bread, though.

Sweet Potato/Yam Fries

Potatoes are one of the biggest crops in the world (along with corn and wheat), but they are a nutritional black hole. Yams aren't exactly a nutritional goldmine, but they're way better than non-sweet potatoes - and they actually, you know, have a flavor, instead of tasting like moist spackle.

Recipes abound for baked yam fries...which I should try ones of these days. I just used the way I learned to make fries and substituted yams for potatoes (N.B. - the oil adds calories, though, so calorie-conscious folks are better off baking).

It's really easy: peel the yam, saving the peels for stock if you like. Slice it into a pleasing, fry-like shape. You should get a lot of fries from a single yam - if not, you may be using a carrot by mistake.

Heat canola oil in a large saucepan. Add fries. Cook. I will sometimes reserve the excess oil in a jar to re-use later.

These are good with ketchup or mayo (unless Vincent Vega will be joining); if your local super market stocks it and you like spicy food, wasabi mustard works well, too.