Slow Cooker Pinto Bean & Veggie Chili (Dark Days 3)

I'm a little behind with the Dark Days Challenge - I think everyone else is on their 4th or 5th post or so?  But anyway, I'm doing my best, and I managed to squeeze in one more local meal in between finals (my last ever!) and Christmas.  This dish was a chili, entirely local (except for the chili powder and cumin, which if I remember correctly are organic, so there you go) and mostly organic.  After my last Dark Days disaster, I was really excited just to have had this idea (which also uses my slow cooker!), and even more so when it came out so good!

Here's the "recipe" along with my specific sources.  All frozen things were defrosted in the refrigerator overnight.  It made a little over 3 quarts.

Beef, Pinto and Veggie Slow-Cooker Chili

THE NIGHT BEFORE: In a skillet, saute 1 lb ground beef (Cherry Grove Farm) until browned.  Set aside.  In the same skillet, cook 2 chopped medium onions (Whole Foods), stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes.  Add 3 diced small carrots (CSA) and 4 chopped giant garlic cloves (Cherry Grove Organic Farm - a different farm than the ground beef) and cook for about 5 minutes, until the mixture begins to soften.  Add 1 diced red bell pepper (CSA, frozen) and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add 1 1/4 tsp cumin and 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp mild chili powder, stirring evenly to distribute it.  Turn off the heat and stir in the ground beef.  Let it cool for a few minutes, then put it in a container (ideally glass) and refrigerate overnight.  Pick through, rinse, and soak overnight 2 cups pinto beans (Cayuga Pure Organics).

THE NEXT DAY: In your slow cooker, spread the beef mixture to cover the bottom.  Drain your pinto beans and layer those on top of the beef.  Next, layer ~2 cups corn kernels, from 3 ears of corn (Princeton farmers' market, frozen, probably not organic), ~2 cups 1/2-inch cubes kabocha or other winter squash (CSA, frozen), and ~2 cups zucchini, cut in quarter circles about 1/2 inch thick (CSA, from frozen).  On top of this, pour 2 undrained pint jars fire-roasted tomato pieces (CSA, home canned) and 1 drained pint jar tomatillos (CSA, home canned).  Fill each of the tomato jars with water once, and pour over the pile in the slow cooker (about 4 cups).  Cook on HIGH for 8 hours.  When ready to eat, taste and add ~1 1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt, ~1 Tbsp + 2 tsp chili powder, and/or as much/whatever spices you want, to taste.  Top with grated Garlic Peppercorn Jack cheese (Cherry Grove Farm) to serve.  You can also top with cilantro, which I did have from a local source (Terhune Orchards), but when I finally got to eat at 9pm I just didn't feel like washing and chopping it.

The final product was just slightly more watery than I am used to having in chili - but I really liked that!  The cheese made it even that much better.  And I usually make vegetarian chilis, so the ground beef was a great touch too.  I think this is a great way to eat meat - a small amount of local, grass fed beef surrounded by a ton of local and mostly organic beans and vegetables.  The meat adds a lot to the texture and flavor for such a small input.  After this recipe, I feel a little more confident in my ability to cook without a recipe.  Maybe my best Dark Days meals in the future will be ones that I make up myself.

Black Bean Enchiladas

These Black Bean Enchiladas were on the roster for the Deborah Madison feature months on 101 Cookbooks Library.  I was a day late in making them, but since I already had the Black Bean Chili made and this exact quantity set aside in the freezer, as well as some tomatillo sauce that I had frozen from a canning session a few months ago, it was just a matter of assembly and a brief baking time.  Who can say no to a quick and easy dinner?  I ended up trying this with both the black bean chili and the black bean and butternut squash chili as fillings - I liked Deborah Madison's black bean chili better in the enchiladas.  The cotija cheese was oozy and gooey but I felt I went a little overboard with the amount.  The tomatillo sauce was an interesting sauce, but it didn't really envelop the enchiladas, even though I used more than the amount called for in the recipe.  Ultimately, this was an OK dish - A+ for ease and speed, but not so interesting to eat.  Ken had some leftovers for lunch and seemed to like it.  I would like to try enchiladas again, maybe with the red sauce that Deborah Madison recommends as a substitute for the tomatillo sauce, but I'm not in a rush to have them anytime soon.

A pictureless summary

While I'm waiting for my official photographer to send me our Thanksgiving photos, I thought I'd share some notes on recipes that I haven't gotten around to posting about.  I've got a few posts started for recipes that I never photographed - since the main point of my blog is to post about the food I make and to avoid making the same mistakes twice, I'm going to share them quickly all at once, instead of dedicating a separate post to each.  Tune in later this weekend for our Thanksgiving post and for some Italy pictures!


Coconut Granola Bars
The coconut granola bars, from NY Times Recipes for Health, were a tasty treat on our vacation.  We snacked on them at the airport and on the plane, crumbled some into yogurt at the continental breakfast, and left a few for Deanna's roommates too.  They were super easy and very crunchy.  If you like those Nature Valley crunchy oats and honey granola bars, you'll like these, and you'll be eating a home-cooked, less-processed (and therefore BETTER) version of them.

Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanuts and Cilantro

I found the recipe for this salad in Deborah Madison's book, Local Flavors.   I made a number of changes to this based on what I had on hand. (It was good, but I thought it would be even better as written.) I didn't have any lettuce, so I used entirely cabbage, and a bit more than called for, a change I think was great! I omitted the scallions because I didn't have any, so I added in a shallot with the dressing. I made the dressing in the blender, and I also added the cilantro to the dressing instead of the salad. I skipped the basil and mint because I didn't have any. Next time I would add extra carrots too!

Fire-Roasted Tomato Stew with Eggplant, Bulgur, and Chickpeas
This one comes from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals.  It's been a while since I made it (eggplant season), but it was good.  I stuck a bit in the freezer for lunches.  The chickpeas are an optional addition, but I think it's always better to toss in some vegetable-based protein when you have the opportunity.  I used bulgur instead of farro, because it's cheaper and I wasn't sure how this would turn out, and also because I thought it would go better with the other flavors.  I was a fan of the golden raisins - if I remember correctly the recipe called for regular dark raisins, but I prefer the golden ones, and I thought they gave the stew an interesting dimension of flavor.

Slow-Cooker Black Bean Mushroom Chili
I made this chili recipe in the slow cooker I got for my birthday.  My old slow cooker is very temperamental and the temperatures seem to be off (thanks to the internet, I've found that this is a very common complaint with that particular brand and model).  My new one lets you set the time by the half hour, and you can jump straight to warm if that's what you want.  This chili recipe uses dried beans, which cooked very well in the 8 hours in the slow cooker.  One complaint is the fresh tomatillos I used - I don't think we scrubbed them well enough and their sticky coating lent a slightly bitter taste to the chili.  The mushrooms gave it a nice meaty element and the spices were a little unusual and interesting.  I would try this one again, maybe with the tomatillos I canned several weeks ago in place of fresh ones.

Shrimp in Tomatillo and Herb Sauce

This picture may look gross, but don't let it fool you.  It tasted amazing.  (Well, the shrimp and sauce were amazing.  The rice and squash, well, I guess you can't just eat shrimp by itself for dinner.)

I recently got a new phone.  I don't know how to use it but Ken set some stuff up for me.  One of the things now on one of my 20394899 home screens is a little feed of NY Times articles - I specifically requested the food section, of course.  On the first day I had this, I saw that they were featuring tomatillos along with several recipes.  All I had been able to find up to this point was salsa verde!  Naturally, I was thrilled.  I chose to make Shrimp in Tomatillo and Herb Sauce. 

As I said, this was delicious, but we did run into a problem.  This is the first year I have ever (knowingly) eaten tomatillos, and I've been getting them from our CSA.  On the pick-your-own board every week it says "poor quality" next to the tomatillos.  This may or may not have been a factor in our problem.

What was this problem?  (I've been building it up a little too much.)  According to the recipe directions, you are supposed to puree the tomatillos and herbs in a blender, then simmer the sauce on the stove with the shrimp in it.  Maybe it was our tomatillos, but we had next to no liquid in our sauce.  The blender wouldn't even work - we had to get the food processor dirty as well too.  (Next time I'll use my judgment, though, and go with the food processor the first time.)  We tried adding oil and water in small amounts but it wasn't doing any good.  We briefly heated the sauce in a skillet, added the shrimp, and miraculously we were able to coat them without any problems.  The sauce stuck to them like glue.  In the end, it was more of a pesto, but it was certainly delicious.  Another note to myself: picking the two largest serranos for this tiny amount of sauce was not necessarily the best idea you've ever had.  Next time, go with the two smallest instead.

Salsa Verde

I've gotten to try some interesting new things thanks to our CSA membership.  Beets - I hated those.  Kale - now one of my favorites.  And this week, tomatillos.
I have never really heard of doing anything with them other than salsa, so I decided to look for a salsa verde recipe.  I found this recipe on the Food Network website, from famous chef Rick Bayless.  I made an adjustment based on the comments - I added a clove of garlic.  I also broiled the tomatillos for only a minute or two less.  I used one jalapeno, since I'm afraid of heat, and this recipe had none - next time I'll use several.  (After this, I made a tomato salsa - more like a sauce, since it pretty much liquified in the food processor - and used three serrano chiles before I was happy with the level of heat.  Guess I like it after all!)  I also excluded the 1/4 cup of water called for.  I found that simply scraping down the food processor was enough to ensure it mixed properly, and I had read in the comments that it becomes more liquidy as it sits.  This didn't happen, but I do like a thick salsa.  It would be worth experimenting with adding a tablespoon or so of water at a time.

This made an interesting condiment for our tacos and I think will make a nice snack with tortilla chips as well.  I don't know what else to do with the tomatillos, so I'm sure I will be making this again.  One advantage of the recipe is that it calls for only 8 ounces of tomatillos.  I'm sure you could multiply it, but since we only received a small quantity it was perfect.  The recipe includes instructions for both a roasted version and a raw version, so maybe next time I'll try it raw instead!