Hearty Pork and Beef Chili

_________________________________________________

                            FOOD FUNNY
_________________________________________________

Here's a cute one from Rosemary Zwick:

Jane was a typical four-year-old girl -- cute, inquisitive, bright
as a new penny. When she expressed difficulty in grasping
the concept of marriage, her father decided to pull out his
wedding photo album, thinking visual images would help.

One page after another, he pointed out the bride arriving at the
church, the entrance, the wedding ceremony, the recessional,
the reception, etc. "Now do you understand?" he asked.

"I think so," she said, "is that when mommy came to cook
for us?"

__________________________________________________

                            TODAY'S RECIPE
__________________________________________________

Several alert and well-informed readers wrote to point out that
kidney beans contain a potent toxin when eaten raw or under
cooked. The cannellini beans and great Northern beans (both
types of kidney beans) in yesterday's recipe might not be
cooked sufficiently in a slow cooker to destroy all of the toxin,
so I have made a couple of modifications to the recipe to rectify
this oversight. Please discard the recipe from yesterday's edition
if you saved it and replace it with this version.

Tuscan White Beans with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

1 lb (450 g) dried cannellini or great Northern beans, picked over and
rinsed
6 cups (1.5 L) water or chicken stock
2-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3/4 cup (180 ml) chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil
12-15 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

Soak the beans in water for at least 5 hours or overnight.
Discard the soaking water and boil the beans in fresh water
for 15 minutes. Drain the beans and proceed with the recipe.

Combine all the ingredients except the tomatoes and olives
in a slow cooker and cook covered on high until the beans
are tender, 4 to 5 hours. Stir in the tomatoes and olives and
cook covered for 15 minutes.
Serves 4 to 6.

Here's a pot of chili that's bound to please the meat lovers in your
family.

Hearty Pork and Beef Chili

1 lb (450 g) boneless pork, cut into 1/2-inch (2 cm) pieces
1 lb (450 g) fully cooked beef sausage, cut into 1/2-inch (2 cm) slices
1 large onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, sliced
2 green bell peppers (capsicum), cored, seeded, and chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 15-ounce (425 g) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-ounce (425 g) can chopped tomatoes with their liquid
1 cup (25 ml) water
2 tsp (10 ml) chili powder
1/2 tsp (2 ml) ground cumin
1/2 tsp (2 ml) dried oregano
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook covered
on low for 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to 5 hours, until the pork is
tender.
Serves 6 to 8.

A Word About Slow Cooking

First, the good news: you don't need a slow cooker, Crock-Pot*,
or other fancy gadget to slow cook. All of the recipes this week
are easily cooked on the stove-top or in a conventional oven.
Here's how:

Most slow cookers on the market have two settings: low and
high. The low setting cooks foods at approximately 200F (95C),
and this heat setting can be approximated in a conventional
oven or on a stove-top burner set on the lowest setting. Similarly,
the high setting (about 300F, 150C) can be reached on
conventional ovens and on stove-top burners set on very low.
All you need to cook any of these recipes is an oven (or stove-
top) and a casserole dish or oven-proof baking dish with a
tightly fitting lid.

When adapting slow cooker recipes for use with conventional
equipment, follow the directions in the recipe and set the
thermostat accordingly. Because slow cookers typically have
lids that fit very tightly and therefore retain much of the moisture
in the dish, you may need to monitor the dish during cooking
and add additional liquid if necessary. If you keep this in mind,
all of your slow cooker recipes will turn out great.

The benefits of using a slow cooker include reduced energy
consumption and ease of preparation (i.e. start it and forget it),
as well as its ability to produce exceptionally tender and
succulent dishes, especially when less expensive cuts of meat
are involved. These benefits (with the exception of reduced
energy consumption) extend to the home cook who uses
conventional equipment.

The bad news? There isn't any, so have fun.
Received on Thu Jan 27 17:01:40 2011