Simple Three Bean Chicken Chili

This is a basic chili. I figured it’d be a good point to start my chili entries, since it’s so simple and easy to build on.

So, let’s get to making some chili!

INGREDIENTS:

1.5lb cooked, shredded chicken. I used leftover chicken from the night before, that we grilled by the pool. Deliciously charred dark meat and it’s skin, but only about two drum sticks worth of skin, not too much fatty mcfat.
1 can each of kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can of corn, drained
5 large tomatoes, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small white onion, diced
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 tbsp Sweet Baby Rays Sweet & Spicy bbq sauce
3 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes
Salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary

 

DIRECTIONS:

I use bacon grease to cook the vegetables in the beginning. Just about a tablespoons worth or less. I keep it in the fridge, in a little Pyrex custard dish with a lid. Some people do this, some don’t, but my brother and I cook A LOT and were raised by a Southern grandmother, and we save our bacon/sausage grease for cooking. If you don’t like it, use olive oil.

In a large crock pot, combine: Chicken, tomatoes, beans, bbq sauce, chili powder, red pepper, and about a teaspoon of black pepper, thyme and rosemary. You will salt to taste at the very end, if at all due to the bacon grease.

Use about a tablespoon of bacon grease in a large pot heated over medium to sauté the garlic for about a minute before adding the onion and bell peppers. Sauté until the peppers are soft and the onion is translucent, but not caramelized and add to the crock pot.

Stir well and let it cook on high for about 4 or 5 hours. Stirring occasionally and taste testing, adjusting the taste after about 3 hours, when everything has blended well. Doing this too early, before the tomatoes break down and the acidity changes everything before the flavors have had a chance to make friends, will really eff up your process.

That is it.

This is the easiest of all my chili because it involves cooked meat. I doubled this batch and froze half and will no doubt have another entry when I thaw it out and switch it up!

Enjoy!

The Best Turkey Burger. EVER.

I say that with confidence, that this truly is, the best turkey burger ever. I only know because I’ve been making them this way forever, it took me a long time to get this just right, and I’ve ordered a turkey burger, EVERYWHERE I’ve eaten in the past few years. They ALL pale in comparison. Red Robin’s turkey burger made me so sick I stopped ordering everybody’s turkey burger and settled on the fact that mine, reigns supreme.

I had always planned to do this post a little differently. But, we defrosted some turkey, yes, I will defrost for burgers, and decided we would rather grill by the pool than make tacos. The pictures are not nearly the quality I had hoped for, I wanted a juicy burger with the cheese, a sexy bun and some condiments. That’s right, I said condiments. I ended up with this…. But I hope that it sparks somebodies interest and they make this burger…. Because you’ll see that sexy doesn’t always equal effing delicious. 

INGREDIENTS:

1 Lb ground turkey
1 Large brown egg
1/4 White onion
1/4 Green bell pepper
1/2 Smallest can of diced green chiles
1tsp Black pepper
1tsp Garlic Salt
1 Large handful of bread crumbs. Any kind, I use the seasoned stuff.

Your choice of cheese, buns and condiments. We use whole wheat toast, because I don’t dig the excess, bleached, flavorless carbs that buns possess. 

DIRECTIONS:

Process the bell peppers, onions and chiles in a food processor.

Combine everything in a bowl.

 

Mix it well, with your hands…. There’s just no other way to get it done. Once mixed well, form in to 1/4 lb patties. If you find that the meat is falling apart and isn’t firm enough to hold it’s shape, add more bread crumbs and keep mixing until you get a consistency you can work with. If they’re too mushy, they won’t flip right, they’ll break apart in the pan and you’ll have ground turkey, again. If you’re going to grill them, use a griddle or a sturdy pizza pan. They stick to the grill really bad and you’ll end up with flaming balls of turkey. Like we did…

My darling grill master was able to salvage some of them, so this is what we ended up with!

I hope you try these burgers, they’re delicious and have SO much less fat than beef!

Enjoy!