Potluck Chili

I was invited to a potluck, so I wanted to do something legitimate compared to my past potlucks where I made fried rice (sounds better than it was) or edamame beans. Since I now possess a slow cooker (thanks mom), my roommate and I decided to make chili! Since he's Muslim, we went out to buy 2 pounds of ground halal beef. We followed a recipe (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/slow-cooked-chili/Detail.aspx) but replaced a can of kidney beans for chickpeas, added a 4-inch long jalapeno pepper, cilantro, basil leaves, garlic cloves, oregano, and the other can of kidney beans was replaced with a mixed-bean can. 

After setting it on low and leaving it for 10 hours (yes, 10 hours), it looked like this:

It was pretty spicy for my taste, but my roommate didn't find it spicy at all (then again, he's Indian). We brought shredded mozzarella cheese to the potluck to top off the chili too. Since there was pizza at the potluck, my chili also turned out to be a great dipping sauce for the crust too :P 

There were some leftovers so we brought it back home. It made for a great snack/fast meal. Here it is topped with mozzarella and that herb I just love so much.

I think next time I'll try other types of meat (steak, ground turkey), and maybe cook the meat with onions before throwing it into the slow cooker (which would have some raw onions as well). So many possibilities!

Chili, The Weekend Pizza Pocket, and a Deconstructed Sandwich

I've always wanted to make chili for the longest time, but never had the guts to do it I suppose. It's just one of things that seems like a daunting task until you actually do it. So I did it :) Instead of ground beef, I bought a flank tip steak and chopped it up into bite size pieces (my family doesn't like to buy ground meat...I guess we're paranoid about contamination) and browned it with onions in a hot pan for about 5 minutes. Then, I added red/green/yellow bell peppers, V8 juice, and mixed beans. Threw in some garlic cloves, bay leaves, and chili powder and let it simmer for 45 minutes.

It turned out okay, but my roommate said it was really good so I'll trust him on that :P I just felt there was something missing, so next time I think I'm going to make it from scratch (without the V8 juice). However, it was super easy and quick to make, and has been added to my repertoire :D

This weekend, I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches just like I had back in the days of camping haha. I packed Monterey Jack cheese, pasta sauce, and cilantro in between two pieces of olive bread, and minced garlic to spread on the outside of the olive bread. I pan fried them on med-low heat, sprinkling oregano, salt, and pepper on top. The meal kinda doesn't match well with the whole 'eat healthy' thing I've been doing, but it was just one of those days where you give in haha. For three sandwiches.

For dinner I worked on my pan-fried fish (in this case, salmon) topped with a salsa made of onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. I planned to have the salmon sitting on top of the salsa, sitting nicely on top of the rice (like I would imagine it in a restaurant), but that didn't really work out... Not bad though, just needed some salt.

Finally, I threw together a spinach/cilantro omelette, olive bread, and chopped vegetables today for a Deconstructed Sandwich. Now, it's not just my fancy name for this dish, because as I ate it, I would sometimes take a bite of each ingredient or I would build a mini open-faced sandwich playing with the order of the layers of food (wow that was a long sentence). In other words, I played with my food because I'm still very a much a kid at the dinner table.

(For my omelette I use two eggs and I add egg white for extra protein and volume of food)