Chili Verde

Hey Blog, I still remember your password!  After an excellent ski trip and a lackluster restaurant chili verde, I ask myself: “why don’t I make my own?”  Problem solved.  H/T everydaypaleo for providing an easy recipe to start from.

Serve with: rice, corn tortillas, or whatever else you want with a Mexican stew.

Calorie Estimate: 1400

Ingredients

• 2 T cooking oil
• 1 lb. pork shoulder cubed for stew
• 1 lb. fresh tomatillos
• 3 Anaheim or poblano chiles or other mild peppers with a “smokier” flavor
• 1 jalapeno
• 2 cups chicken broth/stock
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bunch cilantro
• juice from 1 lime
• 1/2 t smoked paprika (or red pepper powder or whatever you like)
• 1 T cumin
• 1 t black pepper
• salt to taste (don’t add more than a pinch or two until toward the end of cooking, as it cooks down)

Tool I don’t normally use

• Food processor or blender or stick blender and large bowl

Preparation

1. (See also step 4!) In a heavy stew pot or dutch oven, brown the pork over the oil (5 – 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and be careful not to burn the stuff that might stick to the pan).  When browned, remove the pork and set aside.
2. Add the onion and garlic with a little more oil if necessary and sweat (5 – 10 minutes).
3. Add the spices and cook them for a few minutes, then add the chicken broth. Be sure to dissolve all the bits off the bottom of the dutch oven.  Add the pork back to the pot and lower the heat if you’re not ready to finish step 4.
4. Peel and wash the tomatillos and seed the peppers (but otherwise leave them intact). In a dry skillet over medium/high heat, char the tomatillos and peppers, turning often. When charred, blend the peppers, tomatillos, and cilantro until smooth.  (We’re charring for flavor and not to remove the skins, but I suppose if you want the skins removed, after roasting, put them in a paper bag to cool and then peel.)  Add the green puree to the dutch oven after you’ve completed step 3.
5. Simmer uncovered for a least 2 hours until pork is tender and the sauce has thickened (reduce about half in volume). Toward the end, add the lime juice, salt to taste, and enjoy!

Notes

This was my first attempt.  It turned out good but was maybe a little too sweet (especially the next day).  Next time, I’ll remember the cilantro (oops!), try another pepper, a couple fewer tomatillos, and char for longer (I wasn’t that patient).  Otherwise, it was better than the typical chili verde I’ve had a random restaurants.

Chicken Paprikash

Edit: this recipe gets and “ehh” from me.  It smelled wonderful as the chicken browned, but the taste was pretty boring–sorta like cheap italian red sauce that happened to have chicken in it.  I’ll have to do more research before I try it again, especially given the smell of the browning chicken.

Stolen almost verbatim and slightly repentantly from chow.com. I got my hands on some excellent hot paprika from my friend’s visiting German boyfriend awhile back.  So far, I’ve only used it to good effect in polenta, but here’s a traditional-ish recipe.  The only major changes I made were to use 6 drumsticks instead of a whole chicken and to leave out sour cream because I really have almost no place for that stuff in my life.

Calorie Estimate: 2400 (without noodles or sour cream)

INGREDIENTS

• 6 chicken legs (1.75 lbs)
• Kosher (coarse) salt to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Garlic powder to taste
• Dried oregano to taste
• Sweet or hot Hungarian paprika
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium-size onions, finely chopped
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes, coarsely chopped, juices reserved
• 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (if using sweet paprika)
• 2 large green bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
• 1 pound white mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup nondairy sour cream (optional)
• Hot cooked egg noodles, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Season the chicken on both sides lightly with salt. Then lightly sprinkle pepper, garlic powder, and oregano over the chicken. Finally, season with the paprika—very liberally if using sweet, a light sprinkling if using hot. Set the chicken aside.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cook, stirring, for 1 minute more, and then transfer the onions and garlic to a plate.
3. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil to the pot. When the oil is quite hot but not smoking, add the chicken pieces and brown them on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side.
4. Remove the chicken from the pot. Stir the tomatoes with all their juices, tomato paste, the reserved onion/garlic mixture, and the red pepper flakes (if using sweet paprika) into the pot. Return the chicken to the pot, making sure to cover all the pieces with the sauce. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add more paprika if desired too.
5. Add the bell peppers and mushrooms and continue to simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 30 minutes.
6. Just before serving, remove the chicken from the pot and keep it warm. Add the sour cream, if using, to the sauce and heat it over medium-low heat, being careful not to let it boil. Serve hot, spooning the sauce over the chicken and noodles.

http://www.chow.com/recipes/27903

Beef, potato, and spinach stew

Due to a lack of planning, I accidentally bought the ingredients for half of 2 recipes today (this and this). Now, to improvise!  Let’s throw together what I did buy, merge the meat and the starches by way of tangy canned jalapeno and canned tomatoes, and spice in the general ballpark of a curry.  This was a winner, and looked so nice in the pot that I had to take a picture.

Calories: 2600

Ingredients

• 1 T olive oil
• large onion, diced
• 10 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb stew beef
• 2 baking potatoes (1.75 lbs), 1/2 inch dice
• 1 lb spinach
• 1 cup long grain rice
• 1 can diced chilis
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 4 cups beef broth
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 T black pepper
• 1/2 T hot mirchi ground pepper (or 1 T cayenne)
• 1/2 t allspice
• 1 t celery salt
• 1 T cumin
• 1 t coriander
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• salt to taste

Preparation

1. Make a soup.  By that I mean, look at any other soup recipe on this website and do that.

Winter Squash Ratatouille

Just had a great Sunday dinner with my friends Jon, Diane, and Sharri and her housemates.  Jon and Diane made a nice salad, sunchokes, and a great apple pie (not too sweet, and Vietnamese cinnamon?!).  Sharri made a chicken–a delicious free-range bird with a garlic, apple cider, and other wonderful things glaze.  And I made this take on ratatouille.  This is the first recipe I’ve come up with prettymuch from whole cloth in a while, and it was quite a success, with the help of a fortunate mistake (adding the eggplant “too early”, or so I thought) and my friends (“lots more garlic!”).

One thing I’m starting to learn about vegetable dishes like this one is taste very often!  The amount of vegetable matter and it’s native variability makes it hard to get the seasoning just right.  Taste often and season slowly.  Add salt and pepper slowly over the course of cooking, as the flavors develop.  When you’re close, stop, wait awhile, and taste again.

Calorie Estimate: 1900 (lots of improv was going on, check this next time)

Ingredients

• 1 really large onion, diced
• 12 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter
• 3/4 can tomato paste
• 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, 1/4″ dice (about 2 lbs worth)
• 2 very small eggplant (about 1 “italian” eggplant), 1/3″ dice
• 1/2 lb fresh chanterelle mushrooms, bite size pieces
• 1/2 oz dried lobster mushrooms
• 6-10 T diced celery
• 2 cups water
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1 T or so fresh rosemary, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• truffle oil to taste (less than 1 t, added slowly and tasting often)

Preparation

1. Make a mushroom broth.  Rehydrate dried mushrooms in 2 cups of water (I used lobster ’cause they’re awesome).  In the simmering liquid, add a diced slice of onion (thumb-width wedge), finely-diced celery, and 1 finely-diced chanterelle.  For this dish, add red wine vinegar since the acid will help counter the sweetness of the squash.  Some salt and pepper, a bay leaf if you’ve got it (I didn’t), and simmer slowly for an hour.
2. Dice the onion, garlic, and veggies before you start cooking.  To a big pot over medium heat (an enameled cast iron dutch oven would be awesome), add the butter.  Then, add the onion and garlic.  Soften, but don’t brown for 5-7 minutes or so.
3. Add in the tomato paste about 1/2 can.  Mix it around until it coats everything.  Try to brown it a little, 5 minutes or so.  Later on in the cooking, if it needs more paste, it’s okay to add it then.
4. Add in the squash, eggplant, and mushrooms, then the broth.  Stir everything together.  Salt lightly at this point to help pull the moisture out of the vegetables.  I thought adding the eggplant this early was a mistake, since it really broke down by the time the squash finished 45 minutes later, but it turned out to be key to the velvety texture.  Unlike regular ratatouille with zucchini, the butternut squash is much sturdier, and so the broken down eggplant binds this dish very nicely.  If the eggplant had some texture left, it may have conflicted with the toothsome squash.
5. I kept stirring for most of the cooking time, since we were hanging out in the kitchen, but it could probably cook covered with the occasional stir.  Pretty early on, I added about 1 T of chopped fresh rosemary. More wasn’t necessary later on, although it might’ve made a nice garnish if I was serving the food plated instead of family style.
6. Toward the end of cooking (about 45 minutes), add truffle oil, slowly, stirring and tasting often.  You want to stop the instant you become aware of its presence.  Truffle oil is a secret that adds a lot of character, but it can quickly dominate.  Also, dial in the salt and pepper at this point.
7. A few minutes before letting it rest, add 1 T of balsamic vinegar for a touch of color and the flavor.
8. Be sure to let the dish rest for at least 15 minutes so it really comes together.

Ratatouille

Taken from Cooking for Engineers.  This is hearty and delicious while also being very healthy and low calorie for the flavor and volume of food.

Calorie Estimate for the batch: 1500

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 T tomato paste
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 C chicken broth
• 1 large zucchini, 1/4 inch dice
• 1 large eggplant, 1/4 inch dice
• 1 large green pepper, 1/4 inch dice
• 2 large portobello mushrooms, 1/4 inch dice
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 T (+) Herbs de Provence
• fresh basil if you’ve got it
• salt (1T ish) and pepper (1-2 T)

Preparation

1. Heat oil in large soup pot.  Add garlic and simmer for 1 minute.
2. Add onions and simmer for 4-6 minutes
3. Add tomato paste, stir around until it coats onions.  Toast until paste starts to darken, 2-5 minutes.
4. Pour in broth.  Stir well. Bring to a simmer.
5. Stir in eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and mushrooms.  Simmer for 12 or so minutes, stirring often.  Eggplant will release a lot of tasty moisture.
6. Add can of tomatos.  Add in seasonings at this point.  Stir in and cook for a minute or three more until it looks like you want it to.

Seafood gumbo (Creole stew)

This is not officially lazy as it took me almost eight years to zero in on the correct way to do it, but now that I have done all that work and it was not my recipe to begin with, I feel that the world needs it.  Really, this gumbo will make the world a better place, or at least you will feel that way when you smell it and dig in.  Tribute to the late Charles Hebert Sr.-

Ingredients

Roux

-1/3 c. butter

-1/3 c. oil

Plus as much flour as that will take, get the oils warm (low heat) and slowly whisk in the flour and just leave it on the back burner whisking occasionally.  A roux developes over time it will go through several colors – pale yellow, amber, brick, brown and then all of a sudden burnt to a stinking mass of garbage.  Stop this one at brick.  It will also get thinner as it sits there and the cooking will accelerate.  Watch it.

4 medium Andouille sausages (NOT CHICKEN!)

1 lb. raw shrimp (I love rock shrimp for this  but they are highly seasonal)

3/4 c. each – celery, sweet onion chopped finely

several cloves of garlic

one package (15 oz. I believe) frozen okra (unfortunately in Seattle you will never find fresh)

1 can black-eyed peas

1 can tomato sauce

1 tsp. or so each – Paprika, cayenne pepper, thyme, black pepper, 1/2 tsp. celery salt, three bay leaves, dash Worcestershire (DASH), Dave’s Temporary Insanity to heat as needed

Peal and chop up the sausage into bite sized pieces.  Place in a skillet over medium-high heat and start browning, it doesn’t need to fully cook.  Add the shrimp without draining (any fishy liquid will actually be great in this).  Again, they don’t need to fully cook.

At the same time, get the fresh veggies and garlic  in a deep pot with some olive oil and start getting them soft over medium-high heat.

Whenever you can’t take the aroma of the sausage-shrimp mixture any more, add about a cup of chicken stock and bring up to barely boiling.  Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan.

Mix everything.  That is to say, add the sausage-shrimp-stock and roux (which ought to be brick colored by now) to the large pot full of soft veggies.  Add the tomato and spices and the black-eyed peas.  If it seems like there is not enough liquid, add enough chicken stock to cover everything.

Let this simmer and thicken, at least one hour if not two if you can stand it.  I think a younger tempranillo or some sort of syrah would be the perfect wine for this.  I will be posting a photo shortly because now I really want to make this.

A little on the lighter side since I got impatient with the roux and stopped it at what might be called “pecan” in roux parlance.

Beef Stew (Good Food)

Calorie Estimate: 2100

Prep time: 10 minutes  (+ 20 minutes of occasional stirring)

Cook time: 2.5 hours

My beef stew is the ultimate lazy recipe.  It’s so lazy that I can’t even call it my recipe because all you have to do is open packages.  But, for such extreme effort, you get a tasty, very satisfying meal that reheats excellently.  I won’t claim this is a great beef stew because it isn’t.  It’s good though, and while I’ve had better stews, none were so much better that they’re worth the any-effort they require unless you’re trying to impress somebody.  The recipe below makes for four filling meals.

Tools

• big soup pot with tight lid
• wooden spoon or ladle

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds stew beef (cubed in package)
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 2 pounds frozen stew veggies (carrot, onion, potato, onion, and maybe celery)
• 3 cans of beef broth (or equivalent in buillion)
• 2 packets of McCormick Beef Stew seasoning (1 is okay)
• splash of olive oil

Optional ingredients

• 1/2 pound mushrooms
• 1/2 pound frozen peas

Method

1. Place a big soup pot over high heat.  Put a splash of olive oil on the bottom of the pan and toss in the meat.  Brown the meat for a few minutes, but don’t worry about it too much—the browning in this dish doesn’t make that much of a difference.
2. Put everything else in the pot and put the lid on.
3. Stir every couple minutes until it gets to a strong boil, and then turn the heat to low.  Make sure nothing stays stuck to the bottom of the pot at this stage.  Stir it a couple more times after you lower the heat, and then walk away for a couple hours.  The time is required to let the meat become tender and release all the wonderful gelatin that gives stew its texture.
4. Eat.

That’s that.  This is one of my favorite meals to make for myself.  Tastes good, no work, fills you up.  Enjoy.