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Guajillo Venison Chili

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Guajillo Venison Chili

This is a mildly spicy chili with tangy Guajillo chile sauce and earthy venison. Of course you can substitute beef if you like, but the next closest thing to venison would be bison, which is available at most grocery stores these days. This is a thick, rich chili.
Course Main Course, Soup
Cuisine American, Mexican
Keyword beef chili, bison chili, guajillo, venison, venison chili
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Servings 8 servings
Author misangela

Ingredients

  • 1 Pound Ground Venison Bison is a great substitute!
  • 1 Tbl olive oil
  • 2 Tbl bacon fat Or more EVOO if you don't have bacon fat. You need extra fat for the lean meat.
  • 1 Medium Onion, diced about 2/3 - 3/4 cup
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced about 1.5 Tbl
  • 1 tsp dry mustard optional
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbl chili powder
  • 2 Tbl flour any type is fine
  • 1 Tbl tomato paste
  • 2 Tbl ketchup optional, adds sweetness, use more tomato paste if you skip this
  • 1 tsp each S/P
  • 1 jar Herdez Red Guajillo cooking sauce, 3/4 jar (8oz) Use whole jar if you like a looser chili. Substitute red enchilada sauce, but it will not be the same dish w/out the guajillos.
  • 1 can black beans, drained
  • 1 can diced tomatoes with juice I prefer fire roasted!
  • 2 Tbl Frank's Hot Sauce Or whatever hot sauce you prefer.
  • serve with scallions, sour cream and cheese

Instructions

  • Prep the onions and garlic.
  • Put a large pot on medium heat and add EVOO. Sweat onions and garlic until onions are translucent.
  • Add bacon fat and ground venison to veg and turn up heat to med hi. Sauté until venison starts to brown.
  • Add flour, cumin, mustard and chili powder. Stir until flour is absorbed by meat, 3-4 minutes.
  • Add tomato paste and ketchup, stir.
  • Add Guajillo cooking sauce, stir.
  • Add Frank's, tomatoes and beans, stir.
  • Reduce heat to a very light simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes. Check S/P and sweet/savoury balance. Add more ketchup if you want it a little sweeter. Add a bit of worcestershire sauce if you want more savoury.
  • Let chili stand off heat for a few minutes before serving. This gets better the next day!

Notes

Most groceries have Herdez sauces in the Latin/Mexican section. The Herdez Red Guajillo cooking sauce is tangy and just a little spicy - just the right balance for the venison. 
If you substitute bison for venison, you'll probably need to add more S/P, more tomato paste and perhaps some worcestershire sauce. Bison is a very clean, rather bland meat. 
You can add cayenne or other hot spices/sauces to this chili, but I think it will overpower the venison. I use Frank's for its vinegar note, not the heat. The point is to taste the venison, otherwise it's just plain ole chili! 
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Angela’s Chicken Tinga w/ Green Chile Grits

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Angela's Chicken Tinga w/ Green Chile Grits

This is an easy tinga recipe that takes about 45 minutes to cook. I like it with my green chile grits, but it would be fine with rice or in a tortilla. Yes, that is fish sauce you see in the recipe. Trust me, it works!
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings 8 servings
Author misangela

Equipment

  • Heavy bottom pot, such as a dutch oven.

Ingredients

  • 4 Bone in, Skin on Chicken Thighs Sub boneless/skinless, but use dark meat.
  • EVOO as needed
  • S/P as needed
  • 1/2 pint Grape tomatoes, halved Sub 2 romas, diced
  • 4 cloves Garlic, minced about a Tbl
  • 1 small White Onion, diced about 2/3 cup
  • 2 tsp Dried Oregano
  • 1 tsp Ground Cumin
  • 2 Bay leaves, whole optional but recommended
  • 2 Tbl Apple Cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup Salsa Verde I use Herdez
  • 3 chipotles, minced, with 1 Tbl adobo sauce about half a small can; cut back if you don't like much spice
  • Zest of one lime
  • Juice of one lime about 1 Tbl, could take 2 limes
  • 1 - 1 1/2 cups chicken stock as needed
  • 1 Tbl Fish sauce Yes, fish sauce. Trust me.

Green Chile Grits

  • 2 cups prepared grits stone ground, cooked with lots of butter and seasoned with salt
  • 1 small can Green Chiles, diced
  • 1 tsp ground cumin

Instructions

  • Season chicken thighs generously on both sides with S/P. Heat a heavy pot over med hi heat and add a couple tablespoons of EVOO. Add in thighs, skin side down and leave them alone until skin is brown and crispy; about 6 mins. Turn down heat if chicken starts to burn. Flip thighs and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside. 
  • Turn heat down to medium and add tomatoes, onions and garlic. Sauté for 3-4 minutes on med heat until the tomatoes are broken down and the onion is translucent. Add oregano, cumin and bay leaves and stir. Add vinegar, salsa verde, chipotles and the lime zest and stir for a minute. Add half the stock and stir everything together for a couple more minutes.
  • Add the chicken thighs back in, with the skin up. You can leave the skin on, or you can pull off the crispy bits and have it for a snack. The stock should be up to about 2/3 on the chicken. The chicken will cook 20 minutes or so at a good simmer on medium heat. Cover the pot but leave ajar so the sauce will reduce by 1/3.
  • While the chicken is cooking, prepare the grits. Set aside.
  • When the sauce is reduced by about 1/3, remove the chicken to a large bowl to cool and turn off heat to sauce. Once chicken is cool, shred it up with your fingers and a fork.
  • Remove the bay leaves, and blend the sauce with an immersion blender or move to a countertop blender. Blend until mostly smooth, but still has some body. Add back in the shredded chicken, juice of the lime and the fish sauce. Stir and bring to a simmer. Simmer until you have a fairly tight sauce – it should be more of a coating than a saucy sauce. You may skip this step if the sauce is the consistency you prefer.
  • Serve on green chile grits, in a taco or enchilada or with rice and beans.

Notes

Tinga can be frozen. 
Chicken tinga makes a great taco! 
You can make this in a slow cooker if you prefer. Remove skin first, then just put all ingredients except lime juice into the cooker, layering veg then chicken then herbs. Cut the chicken stock by about half, you want the liquid to just come to the bottom of the chicken in a crock pot. The final product will have a thinner sauce than stovetop, but will still taste great.  Cook on high for 4-5 hrs. 
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2018 Reading List

I managed to read 40 books this year!! I’m so proud of myself! Gods know this will NOT happen in 2019, but I am pleased to have read the bulk of what I laid out for myself and even to reread a couple. :)

There won’t be a list for 2019 for obvious reasons, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my short reviews. Thanks for following along!
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I’m moving over the few books I didn’t get to or finish from 2017. And it looks like I need to go to the used bookstore!! I read almost everything I bought last year! 27 books!

As it was last year, the books I have started are in bold. I’ll give my opinion and a short description of the books I read. Anything not bold is in queue. So far, I’ve got about 43 books lined up!

Close Range, Annie Proulx – Started this book Dec 2017. It’s a collection of short stories all having to do with cowboys on the range. Many are set in the early 1900s. Not what I usually read, but so far, they are so well written that I’m really enjoying the book! ** OMG! I just finished this book [Jan 24 18] and guess what the last story is?? BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN! Yep, this is the short story that the movie was based on. I love finding gems like this from a random book! I highly recommend this book. Really great characters and stories.

Ready Player One – Didn’t re-read before the movie, but the movie was great, will re-read Ready Player One this year. BTW, this audiobook is read by Wil Wheaton, who KILLS. If you like audiobooks, DO THIS ONE.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by ND Tyson

I picked up Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson at Costco and LOVED IT! It’s a slim book (cuz you’re in a HURRY, get it?) and you will read it in his voice. It’s great, you should read it for SCIENCE.

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake. It’s the out of print version, the new version is called Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. It’s just OK so far. Very English and very dry. This is my treadmill book. Abandoned. Too dry. Who cares where these people went to primary school? Not me. HARD PASS.

We hit Goodwill yesterday! I got 21 books for the queue!! I’ve included the books I’ve already read for this year in the stacks. As always, I count cookbooks and restaurant books, since they are relevant reading for me.

My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor – It’s the book that the TED talk is about. The TED talk is here. MEH. Just do the TED talk. The book devolves into some sort of lecture on how everyone should try to control their brain parts and feel the love. I stopped reading it.

The Nasty Bits, Anthony Bourdain – Started this one! I love Tony’s sarcastic wit! Finished 4/23/18. Pretty good, but not as good as Kitchen Confidential, IMO. [RIP Chef Bourdain 6/8/2018]

Continue reading “2018 Reading List”

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Hello 2018!

Our NYE celebration was curtailed last night due to my stupid stomach deciding that everything was going to burn like lava: wine, water, prosecco, any and all foods. BAH. So I was already cranky as shit, THEN, THEN fucking Apple ID pitched a fit and demanded a reset…Which it did not like and it got its panties in a wad. Typical.

Fucking hell.

So, this morning I got Apple beaten into submission and did the billing and my idiot stomach seems fine. ?? Whatever, dude, I plan to get my drink on later, to make up for last night. ;)

2017 was a bastard for pretty much everyone I know. It sucked, it was expensive and it was stressful. I lost my Honda Civic, Rhonda, and we had to buy Romeo. I’m VERY happy with the car, but the doubled insurance and car payment suck. Can’t wait to get it paid off. The loan rate was 2.8%, so it’s almost free and I’m in no hurry to pay that off, but the insurance is HELL. Well, honestly, it’s not that bad since I’m old. It’s about $100/month for BOTH vehicles, but Romeo is the bulk of that cuz he’s fancy. While the loan is fine to carry, the full insurance is what’s costing us.

Let’s see, what other big things happened in 2017… I think Romeo is the biggest trauma besides NuVision Graphics closing. Of course both Nick and I have posted extensively about this process, so I don’t feel the need to go into deep detail, but I will say that it’s finally done for the most part and we are glad. Nick has worked his fucking ass off to get that place liquidated. His coworkers did little until the last few weeks – they were in serious denial. But now it’s 99% done and we are ready to move on. We got a nice little nest egg from the owners (which we appreciate GREATLY) and they also topped off our 401k with the maximum they could, which is also VERY NICE.

As for immediate goals, I really want to lose my last 10#. I think the new Kroger job will help with that simply by upping my activity. Oh, did I mention the Kroger job? I was hired around Thanksgiving, but Kroger moves at glacial speed, so I’m not actually getting started until this Friday. Which is fine. I wanted to wrap up 2017 and kick it out the door before starting anything new anyway. I was told I’d probably make $9.75/hr, but they offered me $11/hr – and I’m more than happy to take it. It’s just a p/t job at the new wine and beer bar at the N Decatur Rd Kroger. It’s very p/t and I don’t plan to put much effort into it. But I’ll happily putter around for $11/hr. Every little bit helps! I’m also doing this because Kroger is union and even p/t employees can get insurance after 8-9 months. IN CASE our pub doesn’t get going, I’d like to have this job in my back pocket. If needed, I can pursue it and go f/t. I like having that option. It’s especially great since I’ve not had a “real” on the books job in 15 years.

As for Nick’s immediate plans, well, he’s going to get unemployment – which should be FAT since he’s paid into it for 20+ years. We figure it’ll be the only money we ever get out of all he’s paid in, so we’re taking it. With that little cushion in place, he’s going to begin sorting out all the fucking TRUCKLOADS of crap we got from NuVision. OMG. SO. MUCH. STUFF. We have TWO storage units, folks, TWO. ARGH! However, the madness has a reason and the reason is our pub concept. We are going to try the SBA for funding. Why the fuck not? If I had a dollar for every asshole who’s opened a business with SBA funding and NO background and NO clue, I’d not need the goddam loan. So that’s the working plan: Nick is organising all the piles of crap from NVG and then getting to work building games. Just getting all the stuff organised will be a large job. We have piles of computers, printers, desks, shelves, office supplies for a lifetime, chairs, TVs, OMG EVERYTHING! Hell, we even have floor signs and a mop bucket! LOL We scarfed all this stuff because everything we can get for free is one less expense for our startup. If we can’t get traction, then we’ll sell or donate it all.

BUT. We WILL get traction. We’ve had Player One Arcade Services up and running for over two years. We’ve got more than $25k in inventory with POAS. We’ve got brand recognition, too. I think we have a real shot at getting our SBA startup money. We are excited about going forward with Player One Arcade Pub. It’s our goal and we’re putting everything we have into it. Feel free to send us any and all good energy (or even tots and pears – we like those, too!).

So I guess that’s my main desire for 2018: get the pub going. Succeed or fail, we’ll never know if we don’t try. And try we shall! Life is about TRYING. If you never try, you’ll never move forward. We hope all our friends have much success and happiness in 2018. No matter what you do, BE HAPPY!