Subtle Glow

My friend asked me to send her a recipe for chili.  I do love my chili recipe (no beans, no beef, yet delicious), and it’s not that I keep it secret or anything it’s just that I don’t exactly measure anything when I cook.  Yet: Delicious!  Also, probably highly annoying for people who need to measure and follow a recipe exactly (aka: my brother who you would see rolling his eyes when he sees me pouring measurements freehand while I’m the kitchen.  If you keep watching you will also see him going back for seconds and thirds of all my cooking.  Yeah.).
To illustrate, I will share with you what my “recipe” entails.  This is sort of cheating, because I am cutting/pasting it from my email to this entry.  Anyway.

I’m sending my chili recipe but you know I don’t actually measure anything so all measurements are approximate (or, in fancier cooking language: “to taste“).  Ok, don’t hate me - I am NOT scientific with my cooking.  So, to help explain the gist of it I have notes instead.

Notes:
1. The seasonings are to flavor the meat - so however you like it flavored. You can add in flavorings you like - because that’s what will make it taste good to you.  You don’t have to use what I used, is what I’m saying.  I read the ingredients on a pre-packaged thing of chili-flavoring and that’s how I came up with my seasonings.
2.  The cumin gives the chili that “smokey” flavor and the chili powder/cayenne pepper gives it the heat, mostly.  I put 2-3 tablespoons of ground cumin for the recipe below but honestly - I have NO idea.  It was a LOT of cumin.  And still… delicious chili.  So start with 2-3 tablespoons and go from there.  If you think you put too much in, add a dash or two more anyway.  Hell, you’re going to cover it with cheese and maybe even sour cream later anyway.  Plus you don’t want a bowl of flavorless meat later on - you want chili!  So dash a little more in there.  Then add a crack or two more of some pepper.
3.  Anaheim chilis are not very spicy, but I feel like it’s not chili without a chili pepper, so that’s why it’s there.  I remove the seeds from mine, too so that also eliminates more of the chili heat.  If your family can handle it then leave them in.  Still not as crazy-spicy as some peppers.
4. If you are a bean eater, you’re more than welcome to add in a can of beans - which I guess you would do when you add the tomato parts.  If you do add the beans - you might need to adjust the cooking temperatures and times indicated to allow the beans to be all cooked when you eat them.  For all I know they are cooked when they come out of the can but since it’s not my thing I’ll leave that precision to someone who would know. 

Ingredients:
1 package ground turkey
1 red bell pepper, cut in bite size-ish peices.
1 green bell pepper, cut in bite size-ish peices.
1 anaheim chili (or one fresh chili pepper of your choice - serrano, jalpeno, etc. depending on the spice you like), cut in bite size-ish peices.
2-3 green onions (you can use whatever kind of onion you like, and as much or as little as you prefer in your food), sliced/diced.
2 tbsp cooking oil (can use olive oil, too)
1 can petite diced tomatoes (not sure the exact size but it’s the one closest to a regular soup-can size) - I do not drain the liquid out of mine.
1 small can tomato paste
2-3 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tsp (or more, or less!) ground cayenne pepper
chopped, ground, sliced or minced garlic (as much or as little as you like)
salt, pepper (as much or as little as you want)
1/2 to 3/4 can of water (I used the diced tomato can…)

OMG - finally the recipe directions!

Directions:
Sautée the onions in the cooking oil for a bit, until they lose their sharpness.  This flavors the oil which will then flavor the meat.  I sautée mine until they almost start to blacken.

Actually that’s a lie - I had them in the pan while I cut up the peppers and the chili and then noticed they were almost burning and thought OH, shoot-Time to put the meat in the pan!

Add the ground turkey, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne to the onions.  Woohoo - burnt onion crisis narrowly avoided and we’re back on track!  Crumble the turkey (or, you know - just stir) as it browns.  Add more spices as it cooks until you think it’s good.

When the turkey is almost done cooking - add in the peppers and chilis, as well as the garlic.  Give them a few minutes to “mingle” over medium heat.

Then:
Transfer meat to your crock pot.  I didn’t bother to drain the meat since it’s turkey and pretty lean anyway.

This step is optional:
Mix the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and a little bit of water in the now empty pan over medium pan - just enough to break down the paste and get a nice thick sauce going.  You can add this stuff directly to the crock pot if you want to and stir it all together there.  I worry about tomato paste “clumps” so I do this extra step. In reality once the stuff heats up in the crock pot it will all mix together just fine.

Last step:
Stir in the tomato mixture with the meat in the crock pot.  Add water until you think you have the right consistency - remembering that the crock pot “creates” liquid so only add enough water until it’s a little bit thicker than what you want the end result to be.  Don’t worry if you add too much liquid - you can always just pour some out later or use some bread to soak it up.  If it’s too think later you can add in liquid to smooth it out.  Whatever!

I started my chili at about 2:30 and wanted to eat at 5, so I put it on high and stopped to stir (or, taste) every hour or so.  Smells delicious!  It was all ready to go at 5.  If you wanted to put it on low and leave it for a couple hours more it shouldn’t be a problem.

That’s it!  It took me longer to type this out than to make it.  :p

I didn’t include the part where you top with cornbread or sour cream and cheese or whatever you put on your chili because if you need me to tell you that part, then you probably shouldn’t be making one of my recipes to begin with, only because I don’t tend to spell out all those obvious parts like adding CHEESE.

I’m going to write an entire cookbook of “recipes” just like this.