Thursday’s Side Dish: Dressing Leftover Chili

A second serving of spicy chili

Remember that you can dress this chili for a second meal.  We recommend serving leftover chili with al dente pasta, which makes it a hearty rendition of “chili mac.”  This will make it a hit with the kids.  Serve our chili with fresh veggies, such as carrots and cucumber, to make every bite more nutritious.  Try making a Mexican scramble for breakfast or lunch with spare chili.  Lastly, make a healthy spin on chili cheese fries by using blanched broccoli spears instead of fried potatoes.

Wednesday’s Helping: Making This Chili Better

A healthier serving

How can you make this chili better for you?  We suggest substituting the ground beef for ground turkey or even ground chicken.  Otherwise, make sure to select leaner ground beef, which can be pricier so make sure to plan accordingly.  Also try adding a hearty portion of chopped veggies, such as bell peppers, carrots, zucchini, or tomatillos.  If you stay with original recipe, remove the rendered beef fat once the meat has had a chance to brown.  This means a little bit more time and effort but each serving will also contain less fat and calories.          

Tuesday’s Cupful: Background on Chili W/ Hominy

Hearty comfort food

What inspired our chili w/ hominy?  The notion of making another traditional pot of chili with beans made us cringe.  Also, hominy has subtle nutty flavors that we think enhance the combination of spicy chili powder and ground cumin.  The Mixed Stew crew also added some real beef soup bone pieces that give this dish a “slow cooked” taste and consistency.  Basically, our Chili w/ Hominy tastes like it’s been cooking for much longer than just 90 minutes.  Remember too that servings of hominy are a good source of fiber.   

Monday’s Bread Bowl: Chili W/ Hominy

A spicy and rustic favorite

 We added hominy to this recipe of Beef Chili.  The gritty ingredient adds extra bite to each serving plus it’s a welcome change compared to beans.  Here’s the recipe:

What you will need:

1 large stock pot w/ lid

1 wooden spoon

1 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped small

3 tbspns canola oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

4 ½ to 5 cups water

2 ½ - 3 lbs ground beef

1 lb beef shank, chopped small

1 (29 oz) can crushed tomatoes

1 (29 oz) can hominy, drained

1/2 tbspn chili powder

1/3 tbspn cumin

2 tspns dried oregano

ground cayenne pepper to taste  

Salt to taste

Cooking and Directions:

Heat large pot at medium-high heat.  Add oil, onion, and garlic once pot becomes hot enough.  Sautee ingredients until onion turns translucent.  Next, crumble in ground beef and beef shank meat.  Allow meat to brown (10-15 minutes).  Stir well.  Add water and crushed tomatoes then cover. Reduce heat to medium-low.  Let ingredients slowly simmer for 20 minutes.  Pour in hominy.  Sprinkle in dried ingredients and and cover.  Let ingredients simmer for another 25 to 30 minutes while occasionally stirring.  The chili is now finished.  

Friday’s Last Spoonful: Food Surf

Best bets on mustards

Food Surfing will feature fun food links from around the Blogosphere, including leads to other interesting sites. These recommended links may give you other interesting ideas for making your life taste better.

SLASH FOOD put 20 different brands and different varieties of bottled mustard to a taste test.  Here are the tasty and tangy results.  Yum.  Yum.

Meanwhile, serious eats sampled (Yes, really.) over 35 brands of bottled mustard in their own taste test.  What do you think of the outcome?

Finally, theKitchn features 6 different recipes for homemade mustard.  We recommend the Cognac and Seeded Agave flavors.

Thursday’s Side Dish: Inglehoffer Mustards

Fancier mustards in a pinch

The Mixed Stew crew was able to pick up a small jar of Inglehoffer brand name mustard.  Don’t let the fancy packaging and foreign name fool you.  These premium mustards, which come in different flavors like Sweet Orange –N- Honey or Stone Ground, are produced and distributed by Beaverton Foods in Oregon.  Consumers can expect to pay $ 1.50 and up for a 4 oz. jar of this line of mustard.  That constitutes a pretty price hike compared to purchasing regular yellow mustard – French’s or otherwise.  We recommend selecting and serving Inglehoffer mustard on special occasions, such as office parties or holiday brunch parties.  Look for this food item at almost all major supermarkets.         

Wednesday’s Helping: Other Broccoli Salad Fixings

Some cool substitutions

Tweak our original rendition to keep a palette of rotating flavors for this dish.  If you’re out of imitation crab meat -- we suggest canned crab meat, canned shrimp, or diced (cooked) shrimp.  Meanwhile, we suggest substituting the crushed egg for 3/4 cup loose corn or blanched and chopped carrot pieces.  Wanna go completely vegetarian?  Substitute the seafood component for ½ cup sliced sundried tomatoes in that come bottled in olive oil.  Remember that 1/3 cup bacon bits or 1/3 cup minced olives can also add a savory flavor dimension to this salad.