blog-maryBlog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


My Favorite Chili – 1 December 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

Last night I started cooking my favorite chili in our large slow cooker set on “high.” To two pounds of dried, small red beans, I added ten cups of hot water and one chipotle pepper (smoked jalapeno pepper).

I used our Vita-Mix blender to blend the chipotle pepper with water which I then heated in the microwave oven, two cups at a time, before adding it to the slow cooker. Before going to bed, I turned the cooker setting down to “low.”

This morning I turned the cooker setting back to “high” before adding the rest of the ingredients. I added the molasses* and the seasonings – chili powder, cumin, paprika, and cinnamon – to the beans in the slow cooker. I pureed the onion and garlic in the Vita-Mix, and then heated them and the crushed tomatoes in the microwave oven before adding to the slow cooker. Then I cooked the sweet potato pieces in the microwave oven until they were slightly softened and added them to the rest of the ingredients in the cooker.

After cooking the chili for a few more hours on “low,” I turned the slow cooker off. While the chili was cooking, I finished making a large fresh, tossed salad with pieces of romaine lettuce, red cabbage, green cabbage, broccoli, onion, carrots, and celery. I put this in the refrigerator until later.

Then I made a veggie smoothie (vegan, of course!) for breakfast, which we enjoyed while having fun playing Boggle.

*Note: Through experience, I’ve learned to make sure that I use plain Barbados unsulphured molasses – not “blackstrap” in our chili. We have both, but we’ve noticed that the plain unsulphured molasses tastes better in chili.

We make enough chili to last several days refrigerated. All we have to do is heat some up in the microwave oven.

Now it’s time for us to enjoy our chili and salad. Yum!

For this chili recipe, see:
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes/chili-smredbean-swpot.html 

See also Recipe Table of Contents:
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html

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