Conk's Blog - Latest Comments in Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

shawnblog — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:48:02 -0000

Agree on the homemade chicken broth. I do the same.

Warning on using sausage in chili: use sweet, not hot. The spice in the hot sausage just doesn't blend well with that in the chili.

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

Conk — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:42:07 -0000

For those into totally homemade food and intensive labor --
We have since switched to homemade chicken broth, and it makes a tremendous difference - tastes much better.
Don stews a chicken in (he actually stews 2 at a time and freezes excess broth in quart freezer bags for future use):
1/2 gal (4 pints) water
1 t thyme
1 t salt
6 crushed peppercorns
1 bay leaf
medium onion
celery stalk
1 carrot
Bring water plus ingredients to a boil. Put chicken in for 25 minutes (he does one chicken after the other bc he's had difficulty getting them to cook properly when both are in the pot). Take chicken out, cool, remove skin/bones and place back into broth. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours. Allow to cool and refrigerate. After it's cooled, skim the fat, use what you need and freeze the rest.

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

shawnblog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:57:38 -0000

I'm going to make this with the last of a bottom round roast and some kind of sausage. I only loosely follow recipes, but you've given me some good ideas here. I just started making chili last year, so I'm still perfecting my passion! I'll try to report back :-)

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

tilapia recipes — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:39:51 -0000

"You may notice the big difference in spices between the original and our recipes. Our recipe uses 1 T chili powder plus 1 t each of ancho, arbol and piquin ground chiles in addition to 1/2 t crushed red pepper and a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper." - ah, that's the difference.

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

conk — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:44:10 -0000

Don buys it at Super-Low Foods, which carries many ethnic foods. I
guess you'd call it a specialty store, but we call it a reasonably
priced produce store, because the produce is much less expensive than at
Jewel's. Ideally, if you really want to be super healthy, you'd make the
chili with organic beans, celery, sweet peppers and diced tomatoes, and
even organically fed, free-range turkey. We buy the ground turkey at
Sam's - Jennie-O 93/7 comes as two 2.5 lb packages for a total of 5 lbs.
Turkey contains "no added hormones or steroids." If you can't find the
ground Mexican spices, just use chili powder. Don has also tried
habanero peppers, sorrento peppers and jalapeno peppers chopped fine,
but the habanero, in particular, has a very distinctive overwhelming
taste, which overpowers the other flavors. Chili powder has a
combination of many different chiles along with garlic and other spices
and will be fine if you can't find the spices locally. Don searched out
many different chili recipes on the web, and most of the chili contest
winners contained the spices he uses, which is why he uses them. I've
made it plenty of times with chili powder, and it's still delicious.
Nicest thing about it is it's great for leftovers or snacks and keeps
very well in the frig, probably due to the capsaicin. You should google
capsaicin sometime - it and its fellow capsaicinoids are amazing
compounds. Love, Conk

Re: Healthy Chili Bursts with Flavor

Meredith — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:16:07 -0000

Thanks for sharing this recipe! Nathan and I are excited to make it. Where do you find all of the spices? Does TJs carry them - or did you have to go to a specialty store?
Thanks again!
Love,
Meredith