Category: Other stuff

Mmm…..chili

So it’s no secret that I watch the Food Network a lot. In addition to being entertaining, I get a lot of new ideas for my culinary experiments.

Lately I’ve been seeing a commercial with Rachel Ray hawking Ziploc bags, which she then uses to store her ancho-chipotle turkey chili. That got me thinking – “Hey, I like chili. I like chipotle, and I’ve got a bag of ancho leftover from that chicken molѐ experiment! Let’s DO THIS!!”

The only thing that made me pause was the turkey. Not really something that I would normally want to see in my chili. But, that was a snag that was easily rectified. I used beef instead. Because I’m badass like that. I also threw in a can of red kidney beans, since I like beans in mah chili. And for once, I took the time to snap a few crappy iPhone pics while I was cooking.

Started with seeding/stemming the dried ancho chiles. I’m sure there must be some sort of technique to do this more efficiently, but I’ll be damned if I know what it. I just tore them apart and scraped out the seeds:

Next up, had to re-hydrate the ancho in some chicken stock. Fortunately, I made some stock last week, so all I had to do was thaw it out and drop the chiles into the pot:

Now comes the part that I was really excited about when I first read the recipe. If I have to explain, then maybe you should find another blog to read:

Next up, the chipotle. Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything clever or witty as a lead in to the next pic. I can, however, tell you that these things are messy, and smell fantastic as soon as you pop open the can:

Also needed an onion and some garlic. Recipe called for 4 cloves, but I recently acquired some massive purple garlic from the farmer’s market, and the cloves are about twice the size that you normally see:

From this point, it was fairly standard – brown the beef, add the veggies, et cetera:

Then, the very best part of the whole process – deglazing the pot:

Recipe called for a Mexican beer, but since the only I could find was Corona, I opted for my favorite brew instead. Honestly, I’d rather drink cat piss laced with cyanide before I would let Corona enter my body in any form.

The ancho/chicken stock combo got pureed and added to the mix, but I forgot to take pics of that part. Wasn’t terribly exciting, so you’re not missing much. After a good long simmer, this was the result:

Now, I could post the recipe, but since it took me nearly an hour to write this post, I’m just going to give you a link instead. Again, I swapped out the ground turkey for ground beef and added a can of red kidney beans, but other than that, this one is all Rachel.