We got another little dusting overnight, just enough to help the body shops keep up to date with their boat payments. It’s a fine day for making a giant cauldron of soup or stew, and I plan to test drive a new recipe this afternoon, one taken from an old issue of Cooking Light magazine.
My sis bought me a subscription some years back, but I let it lapse; most of the recipes proved too bland for my taste, and the stories were heavily targeted at women, though men do all the cooking around these parts. But I held onto this recipe for some reason, and stumbled across it the other day while hunting for something I haven’t already cooked a jillion times. It’s for a black bean and vegetable soup, with plenty of cumin, garlic, oregano and chile, and I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Speaking of chile, if it’s cold outside and you’re already sick of turkey this and that, take a whang at this simple green chile stew from the Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook:
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1.5 pounds pork butt, cut in 1-inch cubes
- 1.5 cups diced onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 pound red or white potatoes, cut in 1-inch cubes
- 2-3 teaspoons salt, to taste
- 3 cups roasted, peeled, chopped green chiles
- 3 tablespoons diced red bell pepper
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, or to taste
1. Heat the oil in a 6-quart pot over high heat and brown the meat in batches. Set aside.
2. In the same oil, sauté the onions until golden. Add the garlic and sauté 1 minute. Return the meat to the pan along with any juices that have accumulated.
3. Add the broth, potatoes and salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour, until the potatoes are tender.
4. Add the green chiles and bell pepper, and cook 15-20 minutes more. Add the cilantro, stir and serve.
You can substitute beef sirloin and beef broth for the pork and chicken broth. But that would be wrong. Ditto using canned green chile. If you didn’t score some freshly roasted New Mexican chile this fall, buy some poblanos and Anaheims from the local grocery, blacken them on the grill or under the broiler, put them in a Ziploc bag and chuck them into the freezer for 15 minutes. Remove, peel, seed and chop. A 50-50 mix of poblanos and Anaheims should work nicely.
Mad Blog Media 
Finally, I understand why Herself keeps you around – you cook! Me? I bake, breads mostly. I’ve have a sourdough starter that dates back to about 1975.
Snow. Here in the more northern climes, about an inch on the ground this morning. I drove home in it last evening, snowing like there was no tomorrow. At last, some moisture on the ground.
Patrick,
No snow here (i.e. snowball in Hell). But it is cooling off. Overcast and dropping into the 50’s.
I’ll be in Albuquerque for Christmas with the in-laws. I have a simple goal for this Christmas in NM–eat my body weight in green chile stew.
Whole Foods started carrying green chiles here during August/September a few years ago, so we don’t require a shipment from the family anymore. But it’s made us lazy about the whole process. We used to get the box of green chiles, call up all other NM ex-pats on Labor Day weekend, put the grills together, make rellenos and fresh salsa, and drink beer until we fell down. This year, we didn’t even make it over to Whole Foods.
Pathetic.
Hopefully I can pick up some frozen chiles in ABQ. I know it’s not the same, but for now it’s the best I can do here on the Gulf Coast.
Gracias for the recipe!
Happy Holidays!
Jeff in PetroMetro
Me? Only Latkes once or so a year. I can make a pretty sweet PB&J as survival rations.
A cloudy 44, typically boring late fall early winter’s day on Lake Michigan’s western shore.
Hey, Jeff,
Nearly found myself in the same boat this year. I completely spaced my chile buy until late in the season and wound up well short of what I’ll need to carry me through the year. Plus the Hatch chile this year seems a little milder than usual — last year’s hot batch was nuclear — so I’m using more chile faster. Come February I will be standing in the snow on the back deck, roasting poblanos from King Soopers and cursing my ineptitude.
Patrick
My eyes must be screwed from turkey day. I can’t find the amount of broth to go in the chili recipe!
I never put potatoes in my green chili. How do they affect flavor?
Charley
Patrick, Funny… made the same thing, basically, only I added our leftover turkey. Can only have so many turkey salad sandwiches, dontcha know.
The dogs were pissed to see me put the left-overs into the big pot. Little did they know I had saved them some choice cuts. They get a couple of tablespoons diced up on top of their kibble. Between the extra unmolested protein and some snow to play in, they’re happier than pigs in shit.
Here are a couple, now that it’s officially unofficially winter.
4 Week Muffins: make the batter, stick it in the fridge, then make a couple or three muffins whenever you want ’em.
http://tinyurl.com/5arz29
World’s Greatest Granola: courtesy the Denver Junior League cookbook (can’t remember which one… Colorado Collage?)
http://tinyurl.com/6lkz6x
Bon Hiver and Cheers.