Chili... it's one of those strange comfort foods. One that I kind of really, really love. I've been craving it for some time now, especially when it's been cold out. Travis and Jen brought some turkey chili in the other day and it was soooo good!
On this weekends market adventure, ground lamb was on sale, so I picked some up and was thinking: what could I possibly do with all of this lamb? Put some in my wonton mixture and the rest...uhh.. duh! of course! MAKE CHILI.
So, this recipe I am about to post will fix my craving with gluttonous proportions (it makes at least 3 quarts of chili... or so it seems) that I am going to be eating this for what seems like the rest of the quarter.
A few things to note, I've been crazy for making Indian foods lately and at the international market bought BAGS of cumin, coriander, red chili powder, tumeric and garama marsala that are straight out of the motherlan India. Be aware of the red chili powder heat index and adjust accordingly. In the Whole Foods bulk spices section, they will tell you the heat index. The bag that I bought from the international market doesn't state the heat index but.... it is hotter then any other normal red chili powder. So. Be warned, this recipe is HOT.
Lamb Chili
ingredients
1-1.5 lbs ground lamb
1 tblspn oo
1 bell peppers (1 orange, 1 green), chopped
2 Serrano peppers, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 tblspn minced garlic, divided
1.5- 2 tblspn cumin
1.5- 2 tblspn red chili powder
1 tblspn coriander
2 tsp red chili flakes
2 tblspn dark brown sugar
1.5 tblspn Worchester Sauce
1 cup chicken broth
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can white or red kidney beans
1 28 oz can of crushed tomato
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 tblspn bacon fat, optional
instructions
1. In a large, deep pan, heat the oil and brown the lamb with 1 tblspn garlic, lightly salt and pepper, until the lamb is about 2/3rds cooked through. Remove from pan. Also, try not to over stir the lamb while it browns to avoid getting little crumbles
2. Drain the fat back into the pan and reheat. Toss in onions, peppers, remaining garlic and sauté on medium high heat until brown. Lightly salt and pepper. Here is where you can add the optional bacon fat to sauté the vegetables in.
3. Add in spices, sugar, Worchester sauce, coating the vegetables well.
4. Return ground lamb into the pan, evenly distributing the lamb throughout the pan
5. Add in chicken broth, beans, and tomato sauce.
6. Simmer for 10-15 min, splatter shield on.
7. Taste the mixture and adjust spices, add salt and pepper as needed.
Makes about 2.5-3 quarts.
Showing posts with label red meat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red meat. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, October 23, 2009
Bison Stir Fry over Brown Jasmine Rice
Back home in Connecticut, somewhere between Buttonwoods Farm (best ice cream EVER) and my house, there is a Bison Farm. All summer long Andrea, Vaughn and I discussed doing from scratch, homemade burgers (condiments & buns included) and using Bison as the protein. But before I knew it, summer came and went and I was packed to the brim in my little Corolla and making my way to the Windy City! Our homemade burger endeavors never came to fruition. Bummer.
I'm also not going to lie when I say I've been wanting to try bison for quite sometime. It's a red protein and it has less fat, calories and cholesterol then chicken! I've had just about everything else: rabbit, venison, veal, quail, squab, ducks, turkeys, what ever, but the Bison! It's eluded me FOREVER.
So I thought I was going to get to fulfill the dream of having Bison when I was in Colorado. For some reason, I was under the impression that there was a bounty of Bison everywhere! And that when I got to either Boulder or Breckenridge, I would be stuffing my face in a nice, delightful, tasty, Bison Burger. That was a Fail alright!
Christel was like "Lisa I don't know why you thought that there would be Bison here." I don't know either Christ, I sure don't.
Anyhow, with a craving for red meat, on the hunt for some quality beef, I stumbled across this fridge full of South Dakota Bison at the local Whole Foods. The stars aligned just right and that was it. It was love. Today was the day. I was finally going to have some Bison.
I did an overnight marinate of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, garlic, chopped basil, brown sugar, agave nectar, chili flakes, shallots, splash of red wine vinegar and olive oil.
Then with a myriad of veggies: mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, red onion, & red bell peppers, I sauteed them up in olive oil, garlic, crushed fresh ginger, and a splash more of soy sauce (salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste of course).
Over all success: I'd rate pretty high. It's hard to screw up a stir fry... unless the Salt Lady came and fell right into your dish... but thankfully, that didn't happen! Bison itself, if you gave me beef stir fry or bison, I wouldn't have known the difference. Next time, I am going to have to try to just as it, grilled with some sea salt and cracked pepper.
I'm also not going to lie when I say I've been wanting to try bison for quite sometime. It's a red protein and it has less fat, calories and cholesterol then chicken! I've had just about everything else: rabbit, venison, veal, quail, squab, ducks, turkeys, what ever, but the Bison! It's eluded me FOREVER.
So I thought I was going to get to fulfill the dream of having Bison when I was in Colorado. For some reason, I was under the impression that there was a bounty of Bison everywhere! And that when I got to either Boulder or Breckenridge, I would be stuffing my face in a nice, delightful, tasty, Bison Burger. That was a Fail alright!
Christel was like "Lisa I don't know why you thought that there would be Bison here." I don't know either Christ, I sure don't.
Anyhow, with a craving for red meat, on the hunt for some quality beef, I stumbled across this fridge full of South Dakota Bison at the local Whole Foods. The stars aligned just right and that was it. It was love. Today was the day. I was finally going to have some Bison.
I did an overnight marinate of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, garlic, chopped basil, brown sugar, agave nectar, chili flakes, shallots, splash of red wine vinegar and olive oil.
Then with a myriad of veggies: mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, red onion, & red bell peppers, I sauteed them up in olive oil, garlic, crushed fresh ginger, and a splash more of soy sauce (salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste of course).
Over all success: I'd rate pretty high. It's hard to screw up a stir fry... unless the Salt Lady came and fell right into your dish... but thankfully, that didn't happen! Bison itself, if you gave me beef stir fry or bison, I wouldn't have known the difference. Next time, I am going to have to try to just as it, grilled with some sea salt and cracked pepper.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Turkey & Beef Meatballs
So I had the most ridiculous craving for meatballs and pasta today. Highly usual as that is not a typical Lisa food to eat.
Perhaps it was Shena's talk of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" that sent me into a "I want to make meatballs and pasta" mode. Or maybe because during my Pharmacology lecture, instead of paying attention to the blah blah blahs of cholinergic or adrenic receptors and the Autonomic Nervous System, I was surfing the internet for recipes on making quinoa anything, pasta anything and shoes. (I justify by saying I read ahead for this lecture....)
Stumble upon a little Alton Brown and my favorite go-to recipe blogger, Elise, Simply Recipes 5 o'clock rolled around and class was done for the day and I was off to the grocery.
I fused both recipes together plus my own here, there's and maybes. I went with a mix of ground turkey and grass finished ground beef (90/10). I added chopped apples, which actually makes the meatballs super moist and adds the slightest hint of sweetness.
The recipe I am going to post makes a lot, so you might want to consider halving it. Even though I recognize I am only cooking for myself, I still haven't learned to portion for two and end up making enough food for the entire Dugger Family.
I didn't have time to make sauce from scratch and instead took 1 jar of regular pasta sauce and doctor-ed it up with some sauteed green bell peppers, onions, garlic and a can of stewed sliced tomatoes. You don't have to, but it gives me the false sense of gratification that I sort of "made my own sauce."
Since everything needs to be minced, if you have a handy chopper, that is a great tool to make this process go a bit more efficiently. The longest part of making these meatballs is the prep.
Turkey & Beef Meatballs
ingredients
1 lbs ground beef, 90% lean
1 lbs ground turkey
1 c minced cremini (baby bella) mushrooms (~1 package)
1 c. minced sweet yellow onion (~1/2 large onion)
1/2 c. minced carrot (~1 medium carrot)
1/2 c. minced apple
3 eggs
3 cloves minced garlic
2 tblspn chopped, fresh basil
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1.25 c. bread crumbs (seasoned)
1 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp tarragon
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp fresh, cracked pepper
2 tblspn olive oil
instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Dump everything but the olive oil into a large bowl and start mixing it. I'm lazy, so I put everything into my stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mixed on low until everything is uniformly mixed, ~ 5 minutes
3. Form golf ball sized balls
4. Rub olive oil on each ball
5. Place on a cookie sheet
6. Bake for 25-30 min.
After you bake, they are technically done.... so you can proceed forward to the eating part but I did a little more...
7. To my doctored up sauce, I dumped in the meatballs and let them simmer in the pot for another 30 minutes.
8. Serve over your favorite pasta noodle!
yields ~40 golf ball sized meatballs
Perhaps it was Shena's talk of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" that sent me into a "I want to make meatballs and pasta" mode. Or maybe because during my Pharmacology lecture, instead of paying attention to the blah blah blahs of cholinergic or adrenic receptors and the Autonomic Nervous System, I was surfing the internet for recipes on making quinoa anything, pasta anything and shoes. (I justify by saying I read ahead for this lecture....)
Stumble upon a little Alton Brown and my favorite go-to recipe blogger, Elise, Simply Recipes 5 o'clock rolled around and class was done for the day and I was off to the grocery.
I fused both recipes together plus my own here, there's and maybes. I went with a mix of ground turkey and grass finished ground beef (90/10). I added chopped apples, which actually makes the meatballs super moist and adds the slightest hint of sweetness.
The recipe I am going to post makes a lot, so you might want to consider halving it. Even though I recognize I am only cooking for myself, I still haven't learned to portion for two and end up making enough food for the entire Dugger Family.
I didn't have time to make sauce from scratch and instead took 1 jar of regular pasta sauce and doctor-ed it up with some sauteed green bell peppers, onions, garlic and a can of stewed sliced tomatoes. You don't have to, but it gives me the false sense of gratification that I sort of "made my own sauce."
Since everything needs to be minced, if you have a handy chopper, that is a great tool to make this process go a bit more efficiently. The longest part of making these meatballs is the prep.
Turkey & Beef Meatballs
ingredients
1 lbs ground beef, 90% lean
1 lbs ground turkey
1 c minced cremini (baby bella) mushrooms (~1 package)
1 c. minced sweet yellow onion (~1/2 large onion)
1/2 c. minced carrot (~1 medium carrot)
1/2 c. minced apple
3 eggs
3 cloves minced garlic
2 tblspn chopped, fresh basil
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1.25 c. bread crumbs (seasoned)
1 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp tarragon
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp fresh, cracked pepper
2 tblspn olive oil
instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Dump everything but the olive oil into a large bowl and start mixing it. I'm lazy, so I put everything into my stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mixed on low until everything is uniformly mixed, ~ 5 minutes
3. Form golf ball sized balls
4. Rub olive oil on each ball
5. Place on a cookie sheet
6. Bake for 25-30 min.
After you bake, they are technically done.... so you can proceed forward to the eating part but I did a little more...
7. To my doctored up sauce, I dumped in the meatballs and let them simmer in the pot for another 30 minutes.
8. Serve over your favorite pasta noodle!
yields ~40 golf ball sized meatballs
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