Friday, February 24, 2012

February 21, 2012: My Birthday=Menopause and Chili

Happy Birthday to me! I had to work today, even though it was the infamous "double nickel" birthday. Oh well. So work + social event = slow cooker AKA crockpot. Somehow, chili has been a feature recently at our house and tonight was no exception.
Tonight I made a very easy chili that only took about 4 hours on low to make. It isn't as spicy as most of the ones I make, but I think it turned out well. Here are some of the positive feautures of this chili: ground turkey which is non-red meat(!), canned precooked beans which is a big time saver. Ingredients 1 pound ground turkey 3/4 cup diced onion 3/4 cup diced celery 3/4 cup diced green bell pepper 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 (10.75 ounce) cans tomato puree 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans with liquid 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained 1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans with liquid 1 T. tablespoon chili powder 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon dried basil 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce 2 tsp of adobo sauce Directions 1. Place the beef in a skillet over medium heat, and cook until evenly brown. Drain grease. 2. Place the beef in a slow cooker, and mix in onion, celery, green bell pepper, garlic, tomato puree, kidney beans, and cannellini beans. Season with chili powder, parsley, salt, basil, oregano, black pepper, and hot pepper sauce. 3. Cover, and cook 4-6 hours on Low Joining me in my birthday suare were my husband, Paul and my eldest niece, Paige who kindly brought me a gorgeous birthday bouquet of flowers.
My hubby's opinion of this turkey based chili with beans: A mild chili, but very flavorful. My niece's opinion: Tastes good to me! Then we went to see MENOPAUSE THE MUSICAL. This was way kitchy and stupid but still funny. If it had lasted longer than 90 minutes without an intermission, I would have drowned in the schmaltz, but overall I laughed plenty. And who laughed twice as much?
That's right. The one, the only Paul Parris.... ENJOY!

1 comment:

  1. Happy birthday! When you said double nickel my first thought was, is she ten? It took me a moment, but I figured it out. We don't use ground beef at all anymore in any of our chilies, it makes the whole dish greasy. We don't use turkey very often either, as it can be a bit uncooperative with the dish. Ground chicken though, that's a pretty good meat for chili. It's better at blending in with the favors of the dish and is still lean enough that I don't feel guilty getting seconds.

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