Chili - Smoky and Deep

I wanted to make a deeper, spicier, and smokier chili than I normally make.

I had several different kinds of dried chiles - Guajillo, ancho, new mexico, morita, unknown small red ones.

I dry toasted these on medium high heat.  After they cooled a bit, I added some water and let them soak for 30+ minutes. 

Brew a cup of the smoky caravan tea, with a few things of cardamom in the tea strainer as well.

I seared some round steak on one side, cubed it, and put it into the crockpot.

I browned up some mild pork sausage with a poblano pepper, and put it in the crockpot.

In the same pan, I sauteed up some onions with turkish cumin, smoked paprika, smoked pepper, and some "southwest" seasoning.  Put those in the crockpot.

Cut up some butternut squash, put that in the crockpot.

Cut up a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, and an anaheim pepper.

Cut up some jarred fire-roasted red peppers.

Put the soaking chiles into the food processor, added a few chipotles in adobo sauce, and whirred until pasty and smooth.  Put this all over the stuff in the crockpot.

Add the tea to the crockpot, a few shakes of fish sauce, some garlic powder, a little bit of coconut aminos, and a can of fire-roasted tomatoes.

Put on low to cook overnight.  In the morning, I may add:

zucchini

chocolate

whiskey

We'll see if this is any good!

Scoot

Backpacking Chili Attempt

So, this post will be in a work in progress.

Chili:
Chop one large onion, saute in some chipotle olive oil.  Add 2 lbs. ground beef.  Do your best to break it up into small pieces.  Add chili spices as desired - I added smoked paprika, chili powder, and cumin.  After that is all done, add another onion and 2 bell peppers.  Let that all saute for a while. (5 minutes.)

Pulled out a little bit of the food and put in a different container for eating tonight.

Add 1 large can (28 ish oz.) and 1 small can (14 oz ish) diced tomatoes of desired flavors.

Bring to a simmer for 15 minute or so.

Puree with an immersion blender (to make the pieces smaller and more uniform for both dehydrating and re-hydrating purposes.)  Make good looking chili look like dog barf.

Peel and shred 2 smallish sweet potatoes.  Add to the mixture.  Makes it look even more unappetizing with the orange intrusions.

I'm letting it simmer for a while, then will cool and dehydrate.  We'll see!

Scooter

Update 3/28/12: Actually measured and dried these - dried one cup per sheet.  After drying, I put 2 sheets in ziploc bags, and smushed them around to make the pieces smaller again.

Rehydrating test:  Added one bag to 2 cups warm water, brought to a boil, turned the stove off and put the lid over the pot, let sit for 5 minutes.  It rehydrated really well, was still delicious, and was easy.  We'll call this one a win.

Chili (Epically scaled up)

Cooking chili for ~30 peeps:

10 lbs. ground beef, browned
7-8 onions, sauteed with garlic in chipotle olive oil
6 ish bell peppers
Thing of celery
4 ish sweet potatoes, cubed and par boiled
3 ish medium zucchinis
Unknown but many cans of diced or stewed tomatoes.

Used roaster oven from work to simmer the chili, it was filled to the brim.

Looks like around 16 ish quarts of chili, with around 5-6 quarts left over from 25-26 people eating, with plenty of other food/sides.

Oh yeah.

Scooter

Chili (Paleo)

In a large pot, heat up olive oil.  Add:
1 large chopped onion.  Cook until starting to turn translucent.
Then add 1 lb. ground beef.  Cook until not pink.  Add a little bit of minced, dried garlic.
Then add 1 chopped bell pepper, and 1 chopped yellow squash.  Cook for a few minutes.
Add 1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, a few shakes of cumin, and a few shakes of chili powder.

Simmer for 20 minutes.

Scooter