Another "Recipe" and Embroidery Progress

Tonight I made the most divine chili and cornbread.  Chili is one of the best ways to use up random pantry items in a tasty, economical supper.  I always make my chili a little bit different, it depends what I have on hand, but there are a few things it MUST contain.  First you need a good chili seasoning, I personally like to keep Carroll Shelby's Chili Kit in the pantry at all times, it tastes great and comes with the seasonings, masa flour, salt, and chili powder packaged individually so you can play with your proportions.  I am a meat eater, so I need a beast in my chili.  I've tried ground beef, turkey, chicken, sausages, and bacon.  And finally there must be some good veg in there to balance things out, I've put just about any vegetable you can think of in chili at some point, but I really like peppers, corn, onions, and beans, I just mix them up with whatever else I have around and omit what I don't. 

So the "recipe" part: Tonight I used chorizo, quinoa, chocolate, flax, green bell pepper, onion, canned tomatoes with green chiles, and kale.  Have I mentioned I am from California?  This was an amazing combination!  It was similar to a molé sauce (I added some sugar to make it nice and sweet) with a complex smoky flavor because I got distracted by the spring rain when I went outside to pick the kale and burned the chorizo a bit...  ahem.  I also made a kellerweiss hefeweizen cornbread (just substitute the beer for milk in Jiffy cornbread).  This was so tasty I don't know if I will ever make normal cornbread again.  Gotta love the folks over at Sierra Nevada for making this spicy gem of a beer (thank you Scott your beer is delicious).  I mixed up a double batch of this bread and baked it at 325 for 30 minutes in a loaf pan covered in foil, then I removed the foil and cooked it at 350 for 15 more minutes.  Unfortunately this wasn't quite enough, it was perfectly golden around the edges but still moist in the center.  Luckily there is a great trick for this- just take the bread out of the loaf pan and microwave it for one minute.  It will cook the center without the risk of burnt edges you get with the conventional oven.

Okay, enough about dinner let's see the embroidery progress

Tada! Now I'm off to bed, good night.

Leftovers Again... F!@# Yeah!

I made a nice roasted chicken last week, AND I remembered to use the leftovers for stock, AND I even picked off all the chicken meat, AND threw it in my freezer.  Amazing right?  So tonight I used the stock and chicken meat to make an Asian fusion chicken and dumplings!  So delicious and quick I must share...

8 cups chicken stock
2 stalks of lemongrass (crush lightly with mallet)
1 leek sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic (pressed or chopped fine)
1 thumb of fresh ginger peeled and cut into large chunks
1-2 cups shredded chicken meat
1 small bunch of kale (or whatever greens you have on hand)
2-3 Tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
1-2 Tablespoons sugar
Prepared dumpling dough (I used Bisquick, but you could make them from scratch)
Prepared chile sauce (I like Sriracha)

Heat stock, lemongrass, leek, garlic, and ginger to a boil over a medium-high burner.  Add chicken, kale, tamari, and sugar.  You may adjust the tamari and sugar to suit your tastes.  Prepare dumpling dough, and shape into 2" balls.  Reduce heat to medium, carefully drop in your dumplings, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.  Serve hot with chile pepper sauce.