Slow Cooker Chili

I used to find the flavor of chili a bit monotonous after a bowl or two and then wondered what to do with the rest of the pot. Not any more! I've finally found a combination of ingredients I really like. Plus, the additional toppings add fantastic freshness and flavor. 

One of the beautiful things about this recipe you'll notice, besides the fact it's conveniently cooked in the crock pot, is that most of the ingredients are added in twos, so it's easier to shop for the ingredients at the spur of the moment without the recipe on hand. You can add more meat and less beans, though, if that's your preference.

Here's what you need:

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 large cloves garlic
• 2 29-oz cans tomato sauce 
• 2 cans pinto beans
• 2 cans kidney beans
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp dried oregano or marjoram
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Chili topping options (very important!): 

• Scallions, chopped
• Fresh cilantro or parsley, chopped
• Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• Avocado, diced and tossed with lemon or lime, salt, pepper
• Fresh lime wedges
• Sour cream
• Hot sauce

Here's what you do:

1. Dice onions, celery, carrots, and garlic.
   
   
2. In large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ground beef with a dash salt and pepper. Break up beef with spatula. Let brown for around 5 minutes.
   
   
3. When beef is starting to get brown, add veggies to skillet along with a bit more salt, pepper, and a dash garlic powder. Saute 5 minutes until veggies begin to soften.
   
   
4. Meanwhile, drain and rinse beans. Add beans and tomato sauce to crock pot.
   
   
5. Next, add meat and veggies to crock pot, along with cumin, chili powder, and oregano or marjoram. Mix well.
   
   
6. Cook on high for about an hour, then cook on low 4-6 hours (or you could just cook on low 5-6 hours).
   
   
7. Before serving, prepare your toppings. Serve up chili in bowls, and let everyone top their own chili.

This chili goes great with corn bread. It makes a crock pot full, and two adults can easily eat 2-3 meals. My toddler prefers finger foods, so I put chili on toast for him, covered with a bit of cheddar, cut into squares, and he loves it!

White Wheat Pancakes

I love this recipe because it's easy, delicious, and doesn't require buttermilk. I love buttermilk pancakes as much as anyone, but I often find that I'm in the mood for pancakes when I have no buttermilk on hand.  

These pancakes are wonderfully tender with just milk, and they are a bit healthier than most other pancakes, because they use white whole wheat instead of regular white flour. White whole wheat offers all of the nutrition of whole wheat, but with a mild flavor, so it is perfect for things like pancakes, muffins, and cookies. I love this brand. But you could substitute with your favorite flour.


Here's what you need:

1 cup flour (white whole wheat recommended)

1/2 tsp raw sugar/stevia blend (or 1 tsp sugar)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 beaten egg 

1 cup milk (cow's milk or almond milk)

Dash cinnamon

Dash vanilla extract

Butter or bacon drippings for frying
Optional: 1/2 cup blueberries

Here's what you do:

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar/stevia, baking powder, salt, a dash cinnamon; mix with a fork.

2. Use your fork to make a little well in the center of your dry ingredients, and pour beaten egg, milk, and dash vanilla in the well.

3.  Using your fork, mix wet with dry ingredients until just blended. Fold in blueberries if using. Avoid over mixing the batter or pancakes may be tough; lumps are okay.

4. Melt butter or drippings in large skillet over medium heat until sizzling.

5. Scoop 1/4 batter for each pancake into the pan. Fry until edges are golden and small holes develop in the batter. Flip and brown on the other side.

6. Serve with real maple syrup or honey. Makes approximately 5 pancakes.

Corn Chowder with Bacon and Cheddar

The key to this delicious chowder is fresh, sweet white corn. Not only is the corn tasty, but the leftover cobs are simmered in the stock to give the chowder even more flavor. (And remember to shuck the corn carefully, so you'll have nice husks to make corn husk dolls!)

This is the best corn chowder that I have ever tasted, and it makes the perfect pot of soup for autumn! This chowder tastes even better the next day, so it's great for entertaining, because you can prepare it the day before your guests arrive and simply reheat it before serving.

Here's what you need:

6 cobs of sweet, white corn
5 cups chicken stock
2 cups half and half
8 slices bacon, chopped
1 sweet white onion, diced
2 scallions, chopped
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp dried thyme (or 1 tbsp fresh)
2 tbsp fresh dill
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
dash turmeric 
dash nutmeg
salt and pepper


Here's what you do:

To prepare the corn: Hold corn upright in a large pot or other container to catch the corn kernels, and with a sharp knife, carefully slice down to cut the corn from the cobs. Save the cobs, because you will use those to flavor the stock!

1. In a large stock pot, saute 8 slices of chopped bacon until crisp, around 5-6 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, in another pot, bring 5 cups chicken stock to a boil along with the leftover cobs. Cover and simmer at least 10 minutes. Simmering the cobs in the stock will add wonderful corn flavor to the stock.

3. Once you've removed and reserved the bacon from the pot, to the bacon drippings, add the onion, carrot, celery, scallion, and dried or fresh thyme. Saute until veggies begin to soften.

4. Once the veggies are soft, add flour, and stir to coat veggies thoroughly.

5. Pour in the stock (with cobs removed) and the half and half. 

6. Add potatoes. Bring to a hard boil, and let boil for a few minutes until potatoes soften.

7. Add corn to the pot, fresh dill, a dash turmeric, and a dash nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper.

8. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until corn is cooked. It will still have a bit of crunch.

9. Add reserved bacon and shredded cheese (if making the soup ahead, wait to add cheese when you reheat the soup).

10. Taste for seasoning, and garnish with more fresh dill if desired.

Serve with homemade bread and salad for a filling lunch!

Life-changing No-knead Yeast Bread

I care about you. Your happiness is important to me. That's why for my first blog post I'm about to share with you the single most life-changing, earth-shattering recipe of my life. Yeast bread that requires no work. No kneading. No fussing. Absolutely perfect fool-proof bread. 

I love homemade bread slathered in real butter so thick you leave teeth marks in it. I can remember as a little girl visiting my aunt's house after an all-day bread baking marathon. The kitchen counters were crowded with bread loaves, dinner rolls, and buns of all sizes. This was back when you weren't shunned for eating white bread instead of whole grain. Her cloverleaf dinner rolls were my favorite, because you could pull them into three parts and butter each section. One of those with a bowl of her rabbit stew...yes, please!

You may have seen a few no-knead bread recipes floating around online. I believe the rage started when the New York Times published a recipe in 2006. I tried a different version of the recipe a few times, and while the results were good, I wasn't blown away. The recipes I tried either used the wrong flour, too much salt, or called for overly complicated and unnecessary steps. Recently, I decided to try again with a few tweaks, and the results are outstanding! I haven't purchased bread from the store in over two weeks. You really must try this recipe.

Overnight No-Knead Bread

3 cups unbleached white bread flour*

1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups cold water (yes, cold)**

* I strongly recommend King Arthur Unbleached White Bread Flour. Bread flour makes all the difference here. If you can't get King Arthur, try another unbleached bread flour. I've tried white wheat, and the resulting bread was gummier and less flavorful. I also tried whole grain spelt on a lark, and well, don't ask. I might experiment with a mixture of white wheat and bread flour, but for your first loaf, I suggest all unbleached white bread flour, so you can see what this bread is capable of. It's okay; you have my permission to eat white bread.

**I always use water at the temperature of cold tap water rather than refrigerated water (from, say, a Brita pitcher), so I can't attest to the results of super duper cold water, though it may be fine. If you want filtered water, I'd either use freshly filtered or let refrigerated water warm up a tad. Again, it may not matter.

Here's what you do:

1. Mix the ingredients together with a fork in a large bowl at night before you go to bed. You'll have a shaggy dough that looks like this:

2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then a clean dish towel (I also lay a pan or cutting board on top to help lock in warmth and to make sure our cat Chloe doesn't get any wise ideas). Just set it on the counter, and go to bed. 

The next day (usually about 12 hours later for me), you'll be met with a beautiful, bubbly dough that's risen considerably, like this:

3. Dump the dough out (using your hand to gently loosen the dough from the bowl as needed) onto a well-floured cutting board or pan (something you can carry over to the oven later), and fold the dough over on itself a few times to form a ball.

4. Cover the dough with your plastic wrap and dish towel again, and let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes, but preferably 45 or so minutes. I find the longer resting time gives me a slightly bigger loaf. However, it won't rise much during this time. That's okay; it's resting. Relax.

5. Meanwhile, get your baking vessel out. Now, here's the important part: You will be preheating the dish in a very hot oven; you must use a dish with a lid that can withstand 450 degrees. I don't have a proper dutch oven. In fact, I cracked the bottoms of two dishes trying similar recipes before I realized I had the perfect pot, one that my brother-in-law had gifted us. It's a hard-anodized stock pot that looks similar to this one.The lid is glass, so I'm afraid to use it in the oven, but no matter, because a regular old baking sheet makes a perfect lid.

6. Preheat your bread pot with lid in a 450 degree oven.

7. Once your bread has finished resting, your oven is fully preheated, and your baking vessel hot, carefully dump the dough into the hot pot (coax it off the cutting board/pan with your hand), and put the lid back on.

8. Set your timer for 30 minutes exactly. Don't open the oven fretting about whether the bread is rising or browning. It is. It'll be gorgeous.

9. When 30 minutes have elapsed, carefully remove the hot pot from the oven, and dump the bread out onto a cooling rack.

The finished loaf will have a lovely shape and fantastic crust.

Let it cool before slicing. I've found the bread is much easier to slice thinly for sandwiches the next day (if it lasts that long!), and it refrigerates beautifully. Look at the gorgeous air holes in the sliced bread, big enough but not too big:

Though it's hard to beat homemade bread with plain butter, I suggest making a little herb butter to serve with this bread. I usually use dried herbs, because I always have those on hand. But you could use fresh herbs, just increase the amounts from 1/2 tsp to 1 tbsp or so.

Herb Butter 

1 stick real butter, softened
1/3-1/2 clove garlic plus pinch of salt
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil

1. Depending on the size of your garlic clove, use 1/3 to 1/2 of the clove (we want a subtle garlic flavor; we're not making garlic bread). Crush or finely chop garlic onto a cutting board. Sprinkle with a little salt (a coarse salt works well). Then, with the back of a spoon, mash the salt into the garlic until you have a smooth paste. The paste will have a more mellow garlic flavor than straight garlic.

2. Add garlic paste and other herbs to your butter and mix well. Let flavors meld a few hours before serving. It's perfectly fine to refrigerate and pull out to re-soften later.

Enjoy!

Have you tried the bread? Let me know what you think.