Chili

I made some chili yesterday using some gorgeous ground pork from Stillman's (my meat CSA), as well as some of the remaining veggies that I had from my CSA: carrots, parsnips, celery and a type of chile that I believe is called a colorado chile??? It looks like a tomato and is sweet hot, not hot hot. It is a good chile to pickle.
Here's how it all went down:
First, I got all my aromatics cut up. I only used 1 tomato chile because I really didn't want too much heat. Louise happens to love chili, so it had to be Lou friendly.

Here is the chile that I have been referring to:


First, I got my pork going:


Then the onions and garlic, the rest of the veggies, and off it cooked for a while....

In went the liquids. My secret ingredient is, yup, coffee:


In went diced tomatoes w/their juice and some beef broth, and lastly, the kidney beans:

For spices I used garlic powder, ancho chile powder, cumin, epazote and Mexican oregano, and of course S+P. Epazote is an herb that smells like rubber tires, but is a classic Mexican herb and adds undertones of Mexican food that you can't really get anywhere else....
I also cut the stems off some cilantro and put them into a disposable tea bag (for loose tea). That way, you can incorporate the flavor of the cilantro, but you are able to pull the stems when the cooking process is done:



After about an hour of simmering, this is what it looked like:
It was ready to get thickened up a bit. I did that with Masa Harina. Masa is ground corn, used to make corn tortillas (as well as empanada dough and arepas and other things). Have you ever had an arepa? Oh my, so good. I haven't had a "true" arepa since I was in college/grad school, should I date myself??, nah, I don't need to reveal that.
Anyways, I was dating a guy who was of Colombian descent. We would go down to Jackson Heights, Queens to a restaurant there called La Pequina Colombia (here's a link: review, nice to see it's still in business). We would always get arepas there, though they are street food and are sold at carts on the streets. They were made of 2 layers of masa dough, cooked on a griddle and stuffed with an oozing white cheese. I'm not sure what the cheese was, but it was sweet and delicious. Man, I could go for one of those right now..... Anyways heres how the Masa comes packaged:

I added about 6 TBS (a little more than 1/3 cup), and it thickened the chili right up. The last thing to do was pull the cilantro stems and re-season w/S+P, and stir in a ton of chopped cilantro. I served it with cheese, chopped scallions, lime wedges and for myself, plain Greek fat free yogurt.

It was good and thick and delicious. Hungry yet?

CSA

My CSA is over :( I still have a bunch of carrots, potatoes and winter squash kicking around, and the farm stand is still open for a couple more weeks, so I'll stock up on what I can.
I made a meatball vegetable stew with Stillman's awesome lean ground beef from the Belties on their farm. The meat is ~93-95% lean, and is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. First I made the meatballs and browned them on my flat griddle.

I cut up yellow and orange carrot from the farm, some red potatoes (also from the farm) as well as some celery, onion and garlic, and sauteed them all in a Dutch oven.
Once the aromatics and potatoes cooked for a bit, I added diced tomatoes, chicken broth and Stillman's cabbage and let that simmer for a short time before adding in whole wheat flax pasta.
I also added back the meatballs to cook them through.
It was delicious - nice for the cooler weather that has crept up on us.

Sesame crusted Tuna

One of the PAs at my husband's office has a boat and so every couple months we seem to get a dose of fresh tuna. The last time we got some, I crusted it in sesame seeds, both white and black, and pan sauteed it. I am in the school of cooking it through unless I'm eating sushi. Here's my dinner :)

The pieces of tuna:


Dish of sesame seeds - I pressed the tuna right into it:Into the saute pan:
Flip it:
Yum:
It was very yummy. We got some more last Wednesday, but I was off to teach Spinning, and did not eat any. Most of it went into the freezer, so I'm sure I'll revisit it at some point soon.