I Wonder Why They Call it Cowboy Chili?

Well, we survived Snowmageddon.  Got home from work Friday evening and neither one of us left the house again until Sunday.  Over 24 hours of torture marital bliss.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad.  I’ve been sick with my annual Cough That Won’t Go Away.  It was a good excuse to do absolutely nothing.

It was a little unfortunate that I hadn’t made it to the grocery store before the blizzard… we were forced to eat frozen pizza Friday night.  I had a rare hankering for fried chicken and mashed potatoes Saturday.  Tarzan offered to go to the gas station up the road and get me some, but they didn’t have mashed potatoes and I knew that just wouldn’t do.  So instead I had Raisin Bran (Tarzan had a bologna sandwich) and Sunday morning we went to brunch at Ponderosa (which was about as awful as it sounds, but I got the fried chicken thing out of my system anyway).

With all the spare time available, I perused emeals and planned my meals for the week (lunch at work and dinner at home, 6 servings a piece, and given that Tarzan rarely eats My Food… “meal planning” for the week equates to two emeals recipes).  Sunday evening, I mixed up “No-Cook Black Bean Taco Salad” for my lunches, and this morning I put “Cowboy Beef Chili” in the instant pot (using the slow cooker feature, setting the timer to start later in the day).  Both recipes turned out to decent, although I think the Cowboy Beef Chili was more brothy than I would usually want chili… but I do think it would make an exceptional base for vegetable beef soup.

I altered the original recipes a bit:

No-Cook Black Bean Taco Salad

• 2 (15-oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1/2 cup no fat Ranch dressing
• 1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco
• romaine lettuce

Mix the first 4 ingredients, spoon over lettuce.  (The recipe also called for tortilla chips and avocado, but I skipped the chips in the interest of saving calories.  The avocado would have been a nice touch, but I wouldn’t use a whole avocado in one serving, and it would have just turned brown.)

 

Cowboy Beef Chili

• 2 lbs stew meat
• 32 ounce carton of beef broth
• 2 cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes (with seasonings added)
• 1/4 cup frozen chopped onion*
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic*
• 1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder*
• 1 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin*
• 1 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

I chopped the semisweet chocolate in my Ninja, it worked great.  I wasn’t sure about chocolate in chili, but while I couldn’t taste the chocolate, the chili had an exceptionally good flavor.  As I mentioned.. it was more soup than chili, I think.  I’ll defintely use this base recipe again someday, but add potatoes and vegetables for a vegetable beef soup.  I think it would be delicious.

*The recipe actually called for 2 cups of chopped onion, and twice the amount of minced garlic, chili powder, and ground cumin.  I tend to be sensitive to all those ingredients, and typically always half those.

So… now you know what I did on my winter break.  😉