Today's Forecast: Chili with a chance of deliciousness!

With the impending inauguration tomorrow, we're hunkering down at home, avoiding the crowd and all the out of town escalefters (for those not familiar, an escalefter is someone that stands on the left side of the escalator, preventing you from walking up/down the escalator).

So with a Sunday night of football, what better meal to make than chili?  Plus, it means I get to try out my new crock pot that Justin gave me for Christmas.  Oddly enough, this is my first go-round with a crock pot.

We started with half a package of ground turkey (the other half from when we made burgers), and some ground beef.  We also threw in a chopped white onion and let it all cook up.  For spices, we tossed in cumin, cayenne, and chili powder.

While that was browning, we threw some tomatillos, a huge clove of elephant garlic, an Anaheim chili, a poblano chili, and a habanero into the oven to roast.  The oven was set at 350, and it only took about 20min for everything to get roasty, toasty and charred.

Once they were cool enough to handle, I chopped them up so they could be added to the pot.  We also drained and rinsed a can of kidney beans, cannellini beans, and corn.

After the meat browned, we added the roasted peppers, tomatillos and garlic, and the beans and corn.  There wasn't as much liquid to our liking, so we threw in a can of whole tomatoes.  With a good toss, so everything got coated in the spices and juices, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, we put the lid back on and let it simmer so all the flavors could meld together.

 

While the chili was simmering, we threw together some honey hush cornbread, ala Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  I know I've said it once before, but I'm going to say it again...if you find yourself in Harlem, Syracuse, or Rochester, NY, you MUST find your way to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  They have the best, melt-in-your-mouth brisket you could ever imagine!

Anyway...the cornbread.  We just followed the recipe I linked to above...mixed up all the ingredients, popped her in the oven and let her bake up.

The chili was topped with some shredded cheddar, a dollop of cilantro lime crema, and some freshly chopped cilantro.

Taco Night

It hard for us to resist the Korean tacos from Takorean.  The bulgogi steak, topped with crunchy, spicy kimchi, and wrapped in soft corn tortillas is a combination that's hard to pass up.  Since we've had a tub of homemade kimchi in the fridge, we thought we'd try our hand at making our own version on them.

We started with some top sirloin.  Justin cut it into strips, while I made the marinade.  I found this basic recipe online, and luckily I already had the ingredients on hand.

The marinade consisted of soy sauce, sesame oil, a little sugar, garlic, ginger, and toasted sesame seeds.  Once everything was whisked together, you simply add the meat, some green onions and some yellow onions to the bowl and massage it altogether.

We let the meat marinate in the fridge for a little while we made the cilantro lime crema.  I had about half a container of sour cream leftover from when we made chipotle sour cream, so we thought we'd make a nice little topper for our tacos.

We chopped up a bunch of cilantro that we had left over from a previous CSA, added the zest of 1 lime, and the juice of half.  Mix it all together, and you have a delicious crema!  I also chopped up a bunch of the kimchi so it'd be more the size of cole slaw, and easy to put into our tacos.

It was finally time to cook the meat and assemble our tacos!  The meat cooked up pretty quickly, and then it was time to fill our warm, soft tortillas!

Then came the kimchi, and cilantro lime crema.  We'd reserved some of the toasted sesame seeds and chopped cilantro to sprinkle on top of each taco.  And to really finish them off, they each got a drizzle of sriracha.

 

They turned out to be quite tasty, and a great way to use some of our kimchi.  To quote Justin, "They're my 2nd favorite half Asian thing."