Easy Three-Ingredient Chili

I promise this is the fastest and easiest chili you'll ever make. Let me clarify - it's a green (or white) chili, made with tomatillos, green chile peppers, and pork. I've made it from scratch many times and have posted recipes for both pork and chicken versions here on the blog. But why go to all the trouble to make it from scratch when you really only need 3 pantry items: a jar of salsa; a can of meat; and a can of beans. Heck, you don't even need to add the beans if you don't want to!

 

My salsa of choice is Desert Pepper Salsa del Rio. It's spicy, delicious, and contains only ingredients I'd put in my chili--green chile peppers, onions, tomatillos, jalapeno peppers, salt, lime juice, water, vinegar, cilantro, cumin, oregano, and garlic. No preservatives or other weird additives. And did I mention that it's delicious? And it can be hard to find, so when I spot it at the supermarket, I buy three or four jars at a time.

The second ingredient is a can of pork. Wait! Before you get upset at the idea of meat from a can, I can assure you that this stuff is good! I mean, you eat canned tuna and salmon, right? So why is the idea of canned pork or beef so abhorrent? 

Keystone products contain only 2 ingredients: meat and a little salt. Opening a can reveals a mass of meat chunks in a bit of broth and a few globs of fat. It's not pretty, but neither is homemade refrigerated pork shoulder, which will probably have even more congealed fat on top. Don't skim it! Add the entire can--juice, fat, and all--for optimum goodness. If you can't find Desert Pepper green salsa, you could use another brand, but I cannot vouch for the deliciousness of your final product. 

Fast & Easy Green Chili

1-16oz jar Desert Pepper Salsa del Rio

1-15oz can Keystone All Natural Pork (or chicken)

1-15oz can cannellini beans (optional)

Optional garnishes - cilantro, sour cream, sliced avocado, sliced radishes, shredded cheese, cilantro, green onions

Dump the three cans of stuff into a pot. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then turn heat down to a simmer. Cook 15 minutes, until heated through. Taste for seasonings, but you shouldn't need to add anything, unless you want it saltier or spicier. 

Serves 3-4 

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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What's Your Beef?

What’s Your Beef in the kitchen?! Throughout May, in celebration of National Beef Month, join our friends at Keystone Meats as they invite fans from all over the U.S. to vote daily on their biggest kitchen problem. Keystone is ready and willing to solve it with recipe-ready, all-natural beef. When you vote, you will be entered to win a year’s supply of Keystone Meats!

If you’ve got a beef in the kitchen, tell us about it! After years of headaches, vote on your biggest kitchen beef and you could win! https://keystonemeats.com/whats-your-beef-in-the-kitchen/

My personal beef: cooking in the summertime. I want to eat flavorful meals that come from my own kitchen, but don't require a lot of cooking. This means we default to cold things, like salads, sandwiches, and gazpacho. But with Keystone products, all of the heavy lifting has been done for us--we just need to embellish the meat. (No, that's not a euphemism.) Take this relatively lazy bibimbap. It involved making a sauce, warming the meat in said sauce, and serving it over rice with some veg. We have a rice cooker, so that part was a no-brainer, but if you don't, I won't tell if you buy pre-cooked microwave rice, or use leftovers from Chinese carry-out. In any case, none of it heated up the kitchen, and we had a super tasty dish that was both hearty and light in not a lot of time.

Easy Bibimbap
The sauce can be made a couple of days in advance. If you are only feeding 2 people, you can make half the sauce, or make the whole recipe and use it on something else, like roasted cauliflower or broccoli.

For the sauce:
1/2 cup gochujang (Korean hot pepper bean paste)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 green onions, both white and green parts chopped

To serve:
2 14.5-ounce cans Keystone All Natural Beef
Cooked rice
Sliced cucumber
Shredded carrot
Baby spinach
More chopped scallions for garnish
Sesame seeds for garnish

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir. If you're making it in advance, keep it in a lidded container in the fridge until ready to use.

Put the beef (with juices) in a saucepan with the sauce. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat until about half the liquid has evaporated and is looking somewhat glossy. Remove from the heat.

Place a mound of rice in the bottom of a bowl (drizzle on some sesame oil, if you like). Top with a portion of the warm beef, and add piles of the cucumber, carrot, and spinach. Sprinkle on some scallions and sesame seeds and serve immediately.

To eat, mix everything up with your chopstick (or fork) and enjoy.

Makes 4-5 servings.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Thanksgiving in October

When Keystone Meats sent me several cans of their products to play with, the temps were still in the upper 70s and low 80s, yet it was already October. I really wanted to do something with pumpkin, like a nice curried soup, but I was also in the mood for an easy chicken salad. The best solution seemed to do both. And to make the chicken salad a more seasonable companion to the soup, I thought it might be nice to add some Thanksgiving-ish flavors to it. Sage and cranberries made the most sense to me, as stuffing and cranberry sauce are two of my favorite sides and are both essential elements in the traditional post-dinner turkey sandwich.

If you'd rather crack open a can of cranberry sauce and add that to the dressing instead of dried cranberries, be my guest! Some chopped walnuts would be nice in the salad, too.

Thanksgiving Chicken (or Turkey) Salad

1 teaspoon dried sage or 4 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
2 heaped tablespoons dried cranberries
1 tablespoon chopped scallion
1 tablespoon finely diced celery + 1 tablespoon chopped celery leaves
1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
1 14.5-ounce can Keystone All-Natural Chicken or Turkey, drained
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 slices of your favorite hearty bread, lightly toasted, per sandwich

Combine first seven ingredients in a bowl. Add the chicken and stir to coat. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Pile onto bread and serve.

Makes 2-3 sandwiches.

Easy Curried Pumpkin Soup

2 cups chicken stock
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling!)
1/2 cup coconut milk + 2 tablespoons
2 teaspoons curry powder (I like The Spice House or Penzey's)
Salt and ground white pepper
Maple syrup

Combine stock, pumpkin, 1/2 cup coconut milk, and curry powder in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Cook 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper. Add a teaspoon or so of maple syrup to balance the curry flavoring, but not enough to make the soup sweet (unless you want sweet soup!)

Pour into bowls and garnish with a bit of the extra coconut milk. I put a pinch of fresh thyme on top, too, because our thyme plant is out of control.

Serves 2-3

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Quick Chicken and Dumplings - and a Giveaway!

One of my favorite meals as a kid was my mom's chicken and dumplings. She'd put some chicken leg quarters in a pot and stew it down, remove the bones, add veg, and thicken the gravy. Then she dolloped some biscuits on top and cover the pot to steam them. Mmmm!

Though it doesn't really take all that much time to cook chicken, sometimes I don't even have an hour to spare. So when Keystone Meats sent me samples of their canned chicken, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. But... let me be totally honest with you--I was skeptical at first. I tried Keystone's beef last year and I think it's great. So damn convenient, it's crazy. It's as if I did all the work of slow-cooking the meat, but I did nothing but open a can! It's absolutely perfect for making something like Texas-style chili (which is made with chunks of beef, not ground, and has no beans). But chicken, well, that's something else entirely. I've had other brands of canned chicken before and it was dry and mostly flavorless, reminding me of canned albacore tuna. I gave Keystone the benefit of the doubt, and to my surprise and pleasure, their chicken is really good, too. Like the beef and pork (also great), the meat comes in large chunks, all huddled together in the can with a nice broth as a cushion. And like all the other meats Keystone produces, the meat is tender and flavorful and contains only two ingredients: meat and sea salt. The chicken is perfect for things like a quick chicken salad or soup, and in this case, chicken and dumplings.

If you'd like to try Keystone All Natural Chicken for yourself, you're in luck. Minxeats and Keystone are giving away a pack of six cans, for your dining pleasure. All you need to do to be entered is to follow these rules:

1) Go to Minxeats on Instagram and follow the account.
2) Follow Keystone Meats on Instagram as well.
3) Comment on this post with a tag for someone with whom you'd share your prize.

The winner will be notified via Instagram message on October 26.

If you don't have an Instagram account, then leave a message here on this blog post telling me what you'd do with six cans of Keystone All Natural Chicken. Be creative!

Here's what I did with one can of it....

(Relatively) Quick Chicken and Dumplings

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
Salt
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1 cup frozen green beans
1 tablespoon Cajun or Blackening seasoning, or to taste
1 14.5-ounce can Keystone Meats Chicken
1 cup + 1/3 cup whole milk (divided use)
1 cup Bisquick baking mix
Freshly ground pepper

Melt the butter in a 4-5 quart pan over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the veg have softened, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and cook another 3-4 minutes. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth. Turn up the heat to bring to a boil, [make dumplings, below] then add the frozen vegetables and the chicken, including the liquid from the can, and 1 cup of milk. Bring back to the boil, then turn heat down to a simmer.

During the time that you're waiting for the soup to come to a boil, combine 1/3 cup of milk with the Bisquick. Do not overmix.

Once you've reached the simmering portion of the program, taste the broth for seasoning and add more salt and some pepper. Gently dollop the Bisquick dumplings evenly over the simmering broth. Cook for 10 minutes uncovered, then cover the pot and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Cambodian...Tacos

I usually cook only two nights per week, Saturday and Sunday, with Mr Minx handling the grub the rest of the time. During the summer, I can be as creative as I want, doing homemade pasta or other more time-consuming things, but during football season, my Sunday dinner options must either be: 1) long-simmering; or 2) super-fast. We both grew up eating supper early, a habit that we've continued into adult-hood, so a game that starts at 1pm and ends around 4pm doesn't leave much time to put something interesting together. Even if I have a short amount of time I don't want to resort to a cop-out like grilled cheese sandwiches or frozen dinners. (For the record, we don't eat frozen dinners.)

Last year I was introduced to Keystone All-Natural canned meats. Originally I was like, "what?" But then when I considered that the idea of canned fish doesn't give me a problem, why should other canned proteins? And I have to admit, the stuff is actually quite good. We made two delicious dishes with their canned beef, a Thai salad and the obvious chili, so when I had the opportunity to work with Keystone again, I jumped at the chance. This time, we received canned pork and chicken, both of which will be featured here in upcoming posts.

This weekend the Ravens game started at 4:25pm. That put an even bigger time crunch on making dinner, considering we'd be eating while the game is on. I wanted something I could put together at halftime, for second-half consumption. Pork tacos were a natural. But I didn't want to merely heat up meat and slop it on a tortilla, because I'm a creative person. I decided to revisit the recipe for a Cambodian pork dish called nataing that I made a few years back. The original recipe, from the Elephant Walk restaurant in Boston, uses ground pork, but I thought the Keystone All-Natural Pork, which comes in large chunks that could be easily shredded, would be even better in a taco.

The pork and coconut milk mixture is pretty rich, so I wanted to add a tangy element to cut the unctuousness. Pickled red onion, a popular taco addition and something I already had in my fridge, seemed perfect. A healthy dose of cilantro was essential as well, for freshness. And a squeeze of lime. Chips and guac were a perfect side dish.

Already a pretty quick dish to make, the nataing was lightning fast with the canned pork. And it was quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

Nataing (Cambodian Pork) Tacos

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 14.5-ounce can Keystone All-Natural Pork, drained
1 dried New Mexico chile, seeded and deveined, ground to a powder or
2 teaspoons New Mexico chile powder (not chili powder!)
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
Salt
1/4 cup unsalted dry roasted peanuts, coarsely ground
Taco-sized flour tortillas
Pickled red onion (recipe follows)
Fresh cilantro

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the pork and the chile powder, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic and shallot and cook a minute or two, stirring regularly, so the garlic does not burn. Stir in the coconut milk, sugar, fish sauce, and peanuts. Turn heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, until the shallots have softened. Taste for seasoning and add salt or more fish sauce or both.

Warm the tortillas in the microwave for a few seconds to make them more pliable. Add a few spoonsful of the pork mixture, top with pickled onion and cilantro and eat.

Pickled Red Onion

1 red onion
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
A few peppercorns and a bayleaf (optional)

Slice the onion very thinly and place in a quart jar with a lid. Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan and bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally so the sugar dissolves. Pour the hot liquid over the onions, making sure the onions are submerged. Add the peppercorns and bayleaf if you want (chiles wouldn't be a bad idea, either.) Allow to come to room temperature before sealing the jar and storing it in the fridge.

Tip: keep the liquid after the onions are eaten to make more pickled onions. I just add fresh ones to the jar and seal up again.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Thai Beef Salad

It's not even Summer yet and we've already had some sizzling weather on the East Coast. When the weather is warm and I don't want to spend a lot of time fussing with dinner, I resort to gazpacho and salads so I can stay out of a hot kitchen. When I got word of the Keystone Beef recipe contest in honor of National Beef Month, I knew a quick salad was the way to go. It helped that the rules require the dish be made in 30 minutes or less, but that was going to happen anyway because the main ingredient was pre-cooked meat. Yeah yeah, I see you wrinkling your nose at the thought of canned, pre-cooked, beef. I felt the same way, but then I tasted Mr Minx's Emergency Chili made with the same product, and realized that canned beef isn't all that different from canned tuna. It's convenient and tasty and cuts down on cooking time in a big way.

This dish cooks for about 12 minutes, and chopping takes maybe another 10, but the flavor payoff makes it seem like it took much longer. I served the salad over a pile of baby spinach and arugula, but you can scoop it into cups of lettuce, if you'd like, or even eat it over rice or pasta.

Thai Beef Salad

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sambal oelek
1 can Keystone beef, drained
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved, quartered if large
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 scallions, chopped
Salt to taste
Handful of torn mint leaves
Handful of cilantro
French fried onions
Fresh greens of your choice

Combine the lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and sambal in a bowl. Place the beef in a sauce pan and warm over medium heat. Stir in the sauce. Cook for ten minutes. Add the tomatoes, carrot, and scallions and stir. Cook an additional minute or two. Taste for seasoning and add salt, if necessary. Stir in most of the mint and cilantro, leaving a few pieces for garnish.

Serve the beef warm or at room temperature over a pile of greens. Garnish with leftover mint and cilantro and some of the french fried onions.

Serves 3-4 as an appetizer or two as a main dish.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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Keystone Meats Celebrates National Beef Month with a Contest

The weather is warming up and most folks would probably rather spend time doing fun things with the family than cooking. So during the month of May, Keystone Meats will celebrate National Beef Month with the "Beef Up Family Time" recipe contest. Throughout the month, Keystone fans are invited to enter by submitting their favorite beef recipe on Facebook or online. All dishes must use Keystone Beef and take 30 minutes or less to make.

We've tried Keystone Beef before and were impressed with the quality and flavor. I never thought I would embrace canned meat, but hey, I like tuna salad and that's technically made with canned meat. We plan to enter and already have a couple of recipes in mind.

There are three contest categories (5 ingredients or less, family tradition, lighter meals) but only one winner. The prize? A year's worth of Keystone Meats.

Enter at https://keystonemeats.com/beef-up-family-time-recipe-contest/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/keystonemeats/app/247578258730350/.

The deadline is May 31st, 2017.

To learn more about Keystone Meats, visit https://keystonemeats.com/ or follow and vote on Facebook @KeystoneMeats.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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Emergency Chili!

While The Minx spends the better part of most weekends developing complex and imaginative recipes to share with our readers on this blog, I'm charged with the responsibility of concocting regular weekday dinner sustenance from whatever foodstuffs we have available in our refrigerator and pantry. Often my task is not unlike an episode of Food Network's Chopped in that I have to assess what random proteins, leftovers, and vegetables we have on hand and whip up an entree in under one hour. The job is always made easier if I have a go-to protein in the fridge like those handy pre-cooked chicken sausages that every grocery store seems to have nowadays, or a leftover chunk of steak from a restaurant meal. That's why, when we were contacted by Keystone Meats to try some of their canned meat products, we were intrigued. 

This can  makes you think of chili, too, right?

Keystone Meats is a fourth-generation, family-owned business in Lima, Ohio that produces canned meat products and soup bases. In addition to the shredded beef, Keystone also makes ground beef, plus shredded pork, chicken, and turkey. The beef is sourced from local farms and the finished product is simply beef and some sea salt in a can. It's tender and flaky as if you had slow-cooked a chunk of beef yourself and shredded it with a fork. The first thing The Minx and I thought of when we saw the can was chili.

We've all had those day when it's cold and damp and a bowl of hot, spicy chili would really warm your soul. The trouble is, a proper chili takes hours to prepare and you've just come home from work and want the chili now! The biggest obstacle to making a good pot of chili is the time it takes to cook the meat until it's tender and shreds easily. I've often used ground meat to make a quick chili, but it's not the same. With Keystone doing the hard part for you, an emergency bowl of chili is attainable. Using basic ingredients, I was able to put together a flavorful and hearty meal in about 45 minutes.

The Minx really loved it. She was astounded that the meat came from a can. It was tender and moist, like long-cooked pot roast or even short ribs. And it certainly did not taste like it came from a can.

Emergency Chili

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion chopped
1 can (4 oz.) diced green chiles
1 can (14.5 oz.) Keystone Beef
2 cloves garlic
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Kosher salt to taste
Chopped scallions
Cilantro
Shredded cheddar cheese
Sour cream

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion and saute until translucent. Add diced green chiles, beef, and garlic and stir until all ingredients are integrated. Add diced tomatoes and stir. Sprinkle in seasonings and turn heat down to simmer. Allow the chili to simmer for as long as possible. Ten minutes would be good; 20 minutes would be better. Adjust seasoning to your liking.

Garnish to your liking with scallions, cilantro, cheese, and sour cream. Serve with cornbread.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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