Three-Bean Turkey Chili

This is another post of some of my old recipes, from November 3, 2011. I still cannot find my charger for my camera and there are a ton of more recent pictures on there. Alas.

So, I love making chili in the crock pot because it's basically what it was designed to do -- I mean, you can cook anything in a crock pot, but soups, stews, and chilies definitely come out the best. This Three-Bean Turkey Chili is from the Crock Pot Slow Cooker Best-Loved Recipes cookbook. This might actually be the first recipe I'm posting from there! The cookbook is good, but there are definitely some overlaps with the Crock Pot Incredibly Easy Recipes cookbook.

This is amazingly easy. Basically, you brown ground turkey and chopped onion on the stove and then put it into the crock pot after draining off the fat. Then you add everything else: diced tomatoes, chickpeas, kidney beans, black beans, tomato sauce, diced green chilies, and chili powder. What makes this super easy, is that all those ingredients are canned, leaving only the ground turkey and onion for the cook to prepare. Anyway,  you stir everything together, then cook it on high for 6 to 8 hours.

This is what it looked like before turning it on.

This is what it looked like when it was finished cooking.

You definitely want to stir the chili when it's done before serving.

Now, while the chili was cooking, I made cornbread from a Trader Joe's mix and I ended up serving the chili with cornbread and a salad. Great meal. Of course, the cornbread doubles the amount of calories in the meal, but it was so yummy! I wrote in my cookbook that this was a "really good, solid chili" and to "serve with cornbread."

So the recipe says that it makes 6 to 8 servings. For 8 servings, then, the calorie count for the chili alone is 285. Since a serving of the cornbread is 290 calories, that makes the total, including salad, about 725 calories. Not bad. For 6 servings, you have 380 calories for the chili alone and 820 for the whole meal. Without the cornbread, this is pretty low-calorie chili.

I chose to make this because I already had black beans, chickpeas, ground turkey, and chili powder on hand. Thus, for 8 servings I would have only paid $1.09 per serving, and that includes the cornbread! For 6 servings it's not much more: $1.45 per serving. Of course, if you had to get everything, it'd be $2.52 per serving for 8 servings and $3.35 per serving for 6. (Without the cornbread, it'd be $2.18 per serving for 8 servings and $2.91 per serving for 6.) Of course, and I can't believe that I haven't said this on the blog yet, but YMMV depending on what part of the country you live in -- food could be more or less expensive there. Regardless, with this chili you can have a nice, healthy meal for less than $5 per serving!

Traditional Chicken Curry

The last semester was really hectic for me with teaching for the first time and applying for dissertation fellowships and this blog has clearly reflected that, in that I didn't have any time to update. But this upcoming semester should be a lot calmer, so I'm going to try to be a little more consistent with updating and plan to do so about twice a month, around the 1st and the 15th of every month. This gives me a little more leeway than trying to update every other weekend.

So I made this Traditional Chicken Curry from the Indian Slow Cooker cookbook over a year ago (on 28 September 2011), but I can't update with anything I've made more recently because I can't seem to find the charger for my digital camera and all the photos that I have on there are stuck there for now. I'll keep looking... I'm sure I put it somewhere after my France trip and I'm pretty sure that I didn't leave it in Paris... (For my vegetarian friends, I just noticed that the same author now has a Vegan Indian Cooking cookbook, that apparently has both slow cooker and stove-top recipes.)

This is a pretty simple recipe, but you need a food processor for it. I was able to use the "food processor"-type attachment for my immersion blender which was effective, but it's not great for these things, especially because of the size. My parents got me an 11-cup food processor for Christmas, so from now on I'll be able to use that for these types of things. So first, you mix onion, tomato, ginger root, and garlic in the food processor until it comes out smooth. Now, I didn't have the exact amount of ginger for this that the recipe called for, so I added some dried ginger as well, approximately according to this substitution policy. Would it have tasted different if I had used all fresh ginger? Perhaps, but this recipe worked with a mix of fresh and dried.

After you have a paste, you add salt (though, knowing me, I probably left out the salt), turmeric, garam masla, vegetable or canola oil, plain yogurt, red chile powder, and dried methi leaves. I got the methi leaves from Amazon.com (this is the kind I purchased, but I would have gotten ones that were Prime eligible, so I didn't get these exact ones).

This paste gets poured over chicken in the slow cooker. Now, the recipe calls for "3 pounds (1.36 kg) skinless whole chicken, cut in about 8 pieces including the breast, legs, and wings (boneless can also be used)." As people who have followed this blog can guess, I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

To this, you add a cinnamon stick, green cardamom pods, whole cloves, and halved green chiles. I also got the cardamom pods from Amazon.com. Then you cook it on low for 8 hours.

This is what it looked like before I turned it on.

And this is what it looked like after cooking for 8 hours.

An optional step is to add 1/2 cup boiling water toward the end of the cooking time if you like your dish with more broth.  I did not do this. The recipe suggests serving this "over a bed of basmati or brown rice or with roti or naan." As you can see from the pictures, I served it over basmati rice with a salad.

Now, since this was so long ago, I don't remember how many servings I got out of this, but the cookbook says you get 6-8 servings. I imagine that a lot of this depends on how many pieces of chicken you end up with. In terms of calories, this is a pretty substantial meal, especially if you only end up with 6 servings. Not counting the rice, I calculated that this is about 380 calories for 8 servings and 510 for 6. With the rice, that ends up around 530 to 660 for the meal, not counting the salad which, with dressing, can bring your total up to over 700 or 800 calories -- a full mean for someone my size and even substantial enough for my husband (though I'm sure he went back for seconds).

Cost-wise, this is still under $10/serving if you have to buy everything. I calculated based on my purchases around $5.81/serving for 8 servings and $7.74/serving for 6. I had to get most of the ingredients for this recipe, though I already had turmeric and garam masala from the Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes I had made over the summer (and the vegetable oil, of course). So I spent around $4.64/serving for 8 servings and $6.19/serving for 6. You could eat this meal for 3-4 days of a week and have spent under $50 total for your dinners for that week. Pretty good for those of us still on a graduate student's budget.

Red Beans and Greens

At the end of last February, I made another vegetarian dish from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook: Red Beans and Greens. Even though I've noted several times that this cookbook has helpful suggestions on the side about which tell you which steps you can do ahead of time, since last year when I was only working on my dissertation prospectus and often not going to campus at all I just made the whole thing in the morning.

In this case, though, because the beans needed to soak overnight, I followed their suggestions and made part of it the night before and stuck it in the fridge so I could just quickly throw everything together thing the morning and just turn on the crock pot.

In this case, I cooked onions and celery in a skillet with some oil until they were soft, then added minced garlic, oregano, salt (except I skipped the salt), pepper, thyme, allspice, and bay leaves. After that cooked for about a minute, I added some of the broth and then put everything in a plastic container in the fridge for the night.

The next morning when I got up, all I had to do was add the mixture from the fridge, the beans, and some more broth.  It cooks on low for 8 to 10 hours or high for 4 to 5 hours, so I turned it on low and went off to campus.

When I returned from school in the evening, I cooked the greens, steaming them until they were cooked, then tossing them with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper.

This is what the beans looked like when they were done cooking,

before adding anything else.

After cooking the greens, I made a mixture of paprika dissolved in boiling water that I stirred into the bean mixture and took out the bay leaves. Then I added the greens to the mixture, and ate!

This was really good and I noted on the recipe that I served it with rice. The recipe says that you should get 8 servings out of it, but I actually think I got less, maybe about 6, because even though the recipe doesn't say it, I think the author intended this to be a side dish. Regardless, it was really good and I would definitely make this again. And, if you compare the picture below, the picture almost actually looks like what I made (theirs is just less liquidy)!

So, if you had served this as a side dish, it would be 174 calories per serving for the 8 servings. However as I served it, it was 232 calories per serving plus the rice, so about 382 calories. That plus a salad is a reasonable meal for me.  It might not be for my husband, but for me that's fine. Now, I should note that I didn't use the full amount of greens that the recipe calls for, just what I had in my produce delivery, but I calculated the calories based on the recipe, not what I actually did. Now, for a side dish, this ends up being pretty pricey! $5.70 per serving for everything (but a more reasonable $2.38 per serving as I made it). Of course, if you get fewer servings out of the recipe, serving it as a main course instead, the price jumps to $7.84 per serving if you have to get everything. Of course, since I had many of the items on hand, it was only $3.17 per serving for me -- basically, I ended up getting a whole week's worth of dinners for around $20 -- and that will really stretch your stipend.

Dum Phukt-Style Potatoes with Cauliflower

My husband doesn't like cauliflower. He always eats it when I cook with it or put it on our salad, but he doesn't like cauliflower. So, during spring break while he was away camping (and I was still here working on my dissertation prospectus), I made this Dum Phukt-Style Potatoes with Cauliflower from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook for myself.

Now, the directions say to "peel and cut potatoes in half lengthwise, then cut each half into 4 wedges," like in this picture, but I found this to be a little too long so after the first batch I ended up cutting each wedge in half. Since I was planning to serve it over rice, I wanted smaller pieces.

So, you brown the potatoes a bit in a skillet with olive oil then add them to the crock pot. Then you do the same with the cauliflower.

After that, you add the onions and let them cook, adding minced ginger root, minced garlic, salt (which I didn't use), pepper, a cinnamon stick, some whole cloves, and a couple bay leaves once the onions are soft. Then you also add half a cup of water.

You put everything in the crock pot and stir carefully to combine everything. Although the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook normally tells you that you can do some of the steps ahead of time and refrigerate whatever you've made until you're ready to cook, this one does not have that suggestion.  I guess they don't recommend making anything ahead of time, though obviously you could cut everything the night before so you just have to do the cooking in the morning.

Interestingly, this recipe cooks with a large piece of parchment paper over the mixture to catch the moisture (see image below too). It cooks like this on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours, basically until the potatoes are cooked through.

This is what the parchment paper looks like after cooking.

Now, while the potatoes, cauliflower, and onions are cooking in the crock pot, you make the yogurt sauce, combining yogurt (this recipe said full-fat, but I used non-fat anyway), curry powder, and "long red chile peppers, seeded and diced." I had trouble finding red chile peppers in my grocery store, but a quick google search (thank God for smart phones) told me that I can substitute jalapenos or serrano peppers for the red chiles. I went for the serrano peppers which made the meal really spicy (yum)!

This is what the combined yogurt sauce looks like.

Once the potato-cauliflower-onion mix is done cooking, you carefully remove the parchment paper so the water doesn't get into the mix. You take out the whole spices (cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaves -- though I couldn't find all the cloves so I just left them in there and discovered them as I ate it), then you add the yogurt mix and stir everything together carefully and cook it all on high for 10 more minutes.

This is what it looks like when everything is done.

Now as I mentioned above, I served this over rice and it was AMAZING.  I really liked it and when my husband got back I fed it to him without pointing out the cauliflower and he even liked it! Now the recipe says that it makes 4 to 6 servings and I remember this not lasting as long as I had thought it would, but I don't remember exactly how many servings I got out of it. So, calorie-wise (without the rice) it'd be about 262 calories per serving for 4 servings and 174 calories for 6 servings (with the rice, that'd be about 411 and 324 -- a totally reasonable meal for someone like me if you add a salad). In terms of cost, it's a little bit pricey per serving. It's still under $10 per serving, but if you have to buy everything it would be $8.83 per serving for 4 servings and $5.89 per serving for 6 servings not counting the rice. Of course rice isn't all that pricey so it would only be $9.17 and $6.12, respectively. Of course, I picked this recipe because we had received a cauliflower in our produce delivery and I already had most of the other items (I had run out of onions and potatoes though, and didn't already have a couple of the spices), so for me it was $3.45 per serving for 4 servings and $2.30 per serving for 6 servings. Even though I don't remember how many servings I got, either one of those is totally reasonable for several dinners and/or lunches without using up too much student loan money.

Miso-Spiked Vegetable Soup with Barley

In the beginning of February I tried out this Miso-Spiked Vegetable Soup with Barley from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook. This involved sending my husband to the international grocery store that I had just discovered (not to far from me either) to find miso because I couldn't find it on my regular shopping trip. So he brought back a giant tub of miso, but if you have to get a giant tub like we did, there are tons of things you can add miso to, as the August 2012 issue of Cooking Light pointed out.

Now, I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but my sister got me these awesome prep bowls (see image above) so now I can be like those chefs on TV who have all their ingredients already cut up when they make the recipe. Anyway, you start out this recipe by cooking onions, carrots, and celery in a skillet with some oil, adding some thyme and pepper after its been softened.

Then you add the barley and some vegetable broth. Now I think I mentioned this before, but one of the cool things about this cookbook is that it tells you what steps you can make ahead and refrigerate. So you could make the recipe up to this point the night before and then put it in the fridge overnight and cook the soup in the morning. The cookbook does note, however, that if you do that you're going to want to add some extra broth in the morning because a lot of it will have been absorbed by the barley.

Anyway, you add the vegetable-barley mixture to the crock pot. I adapted this recipe at this point a little, adding a cut up potato (see image below).  My husband had said that if we were going to have a vegetarian soup for dinner, he needed it to have some more substance to it, hence the potato.

You add the rest of the broth to the crock pot and then cook it on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. After it's done cooking, you stir in the green beans and miso and cook for fifteen more minutes, stirring in parsley at the end. The book also suggests you garnish it with freshly grated Parmesan, but I skipped both the parsley and the Parmesan.

This is what it looks like with the broth when you turn it on.

This is what it looks like when it's done cooking (with the green beans and miso).

Now, I've always had trouble cooking with barley in the crock pot because it basically absorbs all of the broth and you end up with mush. I wrote in the cookbook that it "turns out mushy and quickly loses its soup-like consistency." I did note that it "tastes okay," but isn't "very yummy looking." This was one of the recipes that we didn't bother finishing and just threw it out eventually. But, I think it could have been better if you made it differently (see below).

As you can see in the picture to the left, I'm convinced that whoever made the soup in this picture did not follow this recipe and/or did not even make the soup in a crock pot. There was a whole discussion in this crock pot online community about using grains in the crock pot and many people recommended adding them toward the end of cooking so they don't absorb so much of the liquid. Someone specifically said that whole (hulled) barley is best for staying firmer. I used pearled barley because that is what I already had on hand. So if I were to try this recipe again, I'd probably (a) use hulled barley or rice and (b) cook it separately and then stir it in with the green beans and miso.

Before I give you all the calculations, I left out the parsley and the Parmesan cheese because I didn't use them. Without the cheese especially, this soup is super light, even with the potato added, 190 calories for the six servings the book says you should get and 142 servings for the eight servings I think you'd actually get (without the potato, it'd be 147 and 110 calories). So this is a soup that you'd definitely want to pair with something more substantial, or make it a side dish to whatever your main meal is. If you had to purchase everything, including the potato, it'd be $5.76 per serving for the six servings and $4.32 for eight ($5.27 and $3.95 without the potato). Although that's not too bad in terms of cost, it's definitely on the higher end of the things that I've cooked in the crock pot. Of course, part of the reason I chose this recipe (as usual) is because I had most of the things I needed.  I got green beans in my produce delivery and already had the olive oil, carrots, spices, barley, and potato. So for the other ingredients that I needed, it ended up being $2.73 per serving for six servings and $2.04 for eight -- a little more friendly to my budget!