Vegetarian Chili

I’m just going to be honest here and say that while this chili is very, very good, it would be even better with meat in it.  I’m going to post it as is though because this is what I’m eating these days and there are vegetarians (Hi Miriam!) who read this blog who might like it.  Plus it is low in fat and high in fiber so I suppose it would be good diet food too.

But it really is delicious.  Rich, who dislikes both chili and the word “vegetarian” tried it and declared it to be “good”.  I was expecting, “blech” so I’m going to take that as high praise.

 Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 jalapeno, chopped finely
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium zucchini, grated
• 3-4 medium carrots, grated
• 1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
• 2 cans Ro-Tel with liquid
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can navy or Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained and rinsed
• 2 cans red beans in chili sauce with liquid
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
• 1 packet chili seasoning 
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• salt to taste

 1)  In a medium pan, saute onion and jalapeno until the onion is very soft.

2)  Add onion and jalapeno along with everything else into a slow-cooker.

3)  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

4)  If you’re not vegan, serve with shredded cheese and/or a dollop of sour cream.

Note:  I know you think it’s weird to add in the carrot and zucchini and they aren’t really necessary BUT most chili recipes call for a bit of sugar and the carrots provide that.  Plus both of those veggies are really good for you.  They’ll look scary when you add them in, but after cooking all day you’ll barely be able to see them but you’ll feel really good about yourself because you added extra nutrition and fiber to the dish.

Nutrition facts provided by Calorie Count based on 10 servings

The Process Of Chicken Soup

I don’t have an exact recipe for chicken soup.  I have ingredients that I use, but the quantities are negotiable.  This dish is more about the process so bear with me.  The good news is that while this process is time consuming, you should get 4-6 meals out of it.

First of all, you’re going to need a big ‘ol stock pot.  You don’t have to spend a ton of money on this - you can find perfectly good ones for under $50.  I know - $50 is not a small amount, but mine is 15 years old and still going strong.  You really, truly can not make decent stock without a pot this size because

1) You need a lot of ingredients.

2) You need a lot of water.

So get a big stock pot and put chicken parts in it.  For this batch I used one whole chicken, a chicken carcass that I had in the freezer from the last time I made roasted chicken and a couple of chicken breasts.  You want chicken that has bones in it because bones = flavor.  That’s why the carcass is in there.  There’s not much meat left, but there is still a lot of flavor.

Put the chicken parts in the pot and add water.  Leave about 2 inches of space between the top of the water and the top of the pot and turn the burner up high.

When the water starts boiling, turn the heat down so it’s simmering.  You’ll notice a rather nasty looking foam rising to the top. 

Scoop the foam off with a spoon.  My friend’s Russian grandmother used to call this “skimming the scum” which is really fun to say so that’s what I call it too.  I keep a bowl nearby and just dump it in there.  You’ll have to do this several times, so keep checking back.

While the chicken is cooking, assemble your vegetables.  I used a head of celery, two large onions and about 8 cloves of garlic.  I should have thrown some parsley in there too.  You’re not going to actually eat these vegetables, so just give them a rough chop.  I halved the onions and the peeled garlic cloves.

When the chicken is cooked through, fish it out of the pot and set it aside until it’s cool enough to handle without burning your fingers.  You can go ahead and throw the vegetables in at this point and add more water until it’s back up near the top.

For some reasons, the vegetables will make scum too. 

I don’t know why.

Just skim it off and throw it out.

When the chicken has cooled, you’re going to pick it apart with your fingers and put it into two piles:  edible and non-edible.

The non-edible pile is the bones, skin and little bits you’re too lazy to pick off.  Don’t throw this pile away!  It may not look appetizing, but what you see here is a pile of flavor.

Really.

Throw that pile of flavor back into the pot with the vegetables.  Set the lid of the pot at an angle so that some steam can escape, but the water doesn’t evaporate too much and then just let it simmer.  It can go as long as you want it to.  I would say minimum two hours and as long as five, adding more water if it drops more than three inches from the top.  You’re trying to cook all the flavor out of the contents and transfer it to the liquid so the long cooking time is necessary.

Back to the edible parts:  Take the chicken you pulled off the bones and just chop at it with a knife or shred it with your hands until you have bite-sized pieces.  We’re going for a “rustic” look here so don’t worry about uniform pieces

Now you have a decision to make:  Do you want to add veggies or just have chicken in your soup?  I put carrots in ours - just carrots.  But if you like chunky soup, you could add chopped onion, celery, turnips…whatever floats your boat.

Whatever you decide, cut up your vegetables and divvy them up.  I figured I had enough cooked chicken for three pots of soup, so I divided it among three freezer bags and added 3-4 sliced carrots to each bag.  Throw the bags into the refrigerator - you’ll deal with them again tomorrow.

When you finally get tired of simmering your stock, remove the pot from the heat and take off the lid.  Using a big, slotted spoon fish out all the bones and cooked vegetables and throw them away. 

What you have now is a gigantic pot of extremely hot liquid.  You can’t stick it in the fridge because it will make it too warm in there.  You could let it sit on your counter but you run into food safety issues after a couple of hours.

If you’re making this soup on a really cold day, you can put the lid back on and stick it on the back porch for a couple of hours and then transfer it to the fridge - I’ve done that many times.  On this particular day though, it was 60+ degrees outside so I just threw in all the ice cubes from my freezer and stirred until they were melted which cooled the broth enough that I could stick it in the refrigerator.

The broth is going to need to chill overnight.  This is so that it gets cold enough to easily remove the fat.  In the morning, get the pot from the fridge. (Yes, I have a lot of eggs.)

See how all the fat has come to the top?  And it’s nice and firm so all you have to do is grab a spoon and scoop it out and throw it away.

Pour what’s left through a strainer (to remove and bone or veggie fragments that may be left) into a big bowl.  You now have world class, wildly delicious, super-flavorful chicken stock.

Ladle it into the bags of chicken and carrots that you made yesterday.  Tip:  Put the bag into a bowl to help it stay upright while you put in the liquid.  I figured this out the hard way one time after mopping chicken broth off my counter and floor.

I filled the bags until they were about half full.  This stock is very concentrated in flavor so when you make the soup you’ll add more water.

Now you can seal the bags and lay them flat in your freezer.  You now have a pot of soup ready to go for the first snow fall of the year or for the first bad cold or just the next really busy night.

After I had put those three batches into the freezer, I had a lot of stock left over.  At this point you could pull out some quart-sized freezer bags and freeze the stock in two cup portions.  Most recipes call for chicken stock in 2 cup increments because that’s how much is in the can you buy at the store.

This tastes sooooo much better though and, at this point, contains no sodium.  About the sodium:  you’ll notice that I have not yet mentioned salt even though I think it’s pretty essential.  That’s because when you are making stock, you boil off so much liquid that if you added the salt at the beginning, you’d run the risk of overly salty soup.

So I could have frozen this stock in batches at this point, but my kids had spent the whole day before smelling chicken soup cooking and they wanted it NOW.   I also had an opportunity to bring dinner to a friend so I went ahead and cooked up four boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut up the meat.  Then I sliced more carrots and divided the meat and veggies between two normal sized soup pots.

Besides salt, all you need to finish the soup are two things:  really good noodles and 3 drops of yellow food coloring.  (The food coloring is just to make the broth pretty.  It’s not essential.)  These particular noodles take 25 minutes to cook which is about how long the carrots take so I filled the pot with broth until it was half full then added water until it reached abou 2/3 full and set it over high heat.

When it came to a boil, I added the noodles and simmered it, partially covered, until the noodles and carrots were soft - about 25 minutes.  Then I tasted it and added salt (about 2 teaspoons) until it tasted right to me.  (Rich will add more at the table of course.)

Finally, two days after I started, I had soup.  Wonderful soup.  Soup that tastes like love.

Ham And Potato Soup

4 cups peeled potatoes - 1/2 inch dice

1/3 cup finely chopped onion

1 cup diced cooked ham

4 cups chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground white or black pepper, or to taste

5 tablespoons butter

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups milk - 2% or whole

2-3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1) Combine the potatoes, onion, ham and chicken broth in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the salt and pepper.

2) In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour with a fork, and cook, stirring constantly until thick, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in milk as not to allow lumps to form until all of the milk has been added. Continue stirring over medium-low heat until thick, 4 to 5 minutes.

3) Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through. Slowly add 1/2 - 1 cup shredded cheese, stirring until melted.

4) Serve immediately, topping bowls with extra shredded cheese if desired.  Makes six servings.

Beef Barley Vegetable Soup

You do too like barley, you just don’t know it.  Remember Campbell’s Vegetable Beef soup?  Those little white things in it were barley.  It’s a grain just like oats or wheat.  It’s not scary at all.  In fact it’s delicious and nutritious and makes great soup.

1 (3 pound) beef roast or stew meat

Lawry’s seasoning salt

1 bay leaf

1 onion, chopped

4 cups beef broth

1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

2-3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp Soy sauce

2 tsp dried basil

1 tsp chili powder

(16 ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables

1/2 cup barley

hot water

salt and pepper to taste

If you’re using a roast (cheap meat is good here), cut it into bite sized pieces.  If you’re using pre-cut stew meat, just check it to make sure there aren’t any huge chunks.  Put the cut meat into a bowl and sprinkle fairly liberally with the Lawry’s.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, dump it into the crock-pot with the bay leaf, onion, broth, tomatoes, Worcestershire, soy sauce, basil and chili powder.  The longer you cook this, the better.  I started mine at 6:30 a.m. and cooked it on low all day. 

Around 1:00 I threw in the package of frozen vegetables.  If you aren’t home in the middle of the day, about an hour before serving microwave the veggies first until cooked through and put into the soup along with the barley .  While adding the veggies and barley, add enough hot water to get the consistency you like and then taste the broth and adjust seasonings as necessary.

After an hour, the barley will be cooked and your house will smell marvelous.  Ladle into bowls and enjoy.

White Chili

Staff potluck at school today. I loooooove potluck. I signed up to bring chili and decided to make the white kind just to add some variety. I made it in the crock pot of course. You could just as easily make it on the stove. Try it if you’re not the crock pot fanatic that I am. This recipe is sized for a 6 qt crock pot.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 onions, diced small
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large jalapeno pepper, finely diced
2 (4 ounce) cans chopped green chile peppers
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons white pepper
1 tsp ground ginger
3-4 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
2 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts cooked and cut into cubes
4 (15 ounce) cans white beans
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Slowly cook and stir the onion until tender. Mix in the garlic, jalapeno, green chile peppers, cumin, oregano and pepper, ginger. Continue to cook and stir the mixture until tender, about 3 minutes. If mixture gets dry, add a few tablespoons of chicken broth.
In the crock pot, pour in about 3/4 cup of beans. Mash them with a potato masher. The mashed beans will help thicken the liquid as it cooks. Add in the chicken, beans and onion mixture. Stir to combine. Pour in chicken broth until the crock is nearly full. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8.

Spoon chili into bowls and stir in a few tablespoons of cheese. Enjoy!