Bowl of Red or Red Chili

So I am doing a countdown to the Super Bowl as you know and a lot of my recipes are already up that I will be serving! Plus a couple more will follow this week. Such as Frito Pie on Wednesday and Seven Layer bean Dip on Friday. So stay Tuned, however, today I am going to post my recipe for a Bowl of Red that’s what they call Chili in Texas. At least that what my Dad tells me who is a board member of The International Chili Society.  This recipe is similar to my Dad’s recipe but not exactly the same. I hope you enjoy.

Bowl of Red Ingredients :

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

8 cloves of garlic grated on micro planer

1 large onion finely chopped

2 ½ Tablespoons Chili Powder

1 Tablespoon cumin seed

1 Tablespoon Taco Seasoning Gluten Free

1 ½ teaspoons dried Oregano

1 Tablespoon Paprika

1 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Pepper

1 ½ pounds of ground Turkey

1 ½ pounds of ground Pork

1 Large 28 oz can of Rotel diced tomatoes with peppers

1 Large28 oz  can of Diced Tomatoes

1 Gluten Free Beer

1 can of Tomato paste

1 to 1 ½ cups semi sweet Nestle Chocolate Chips

In a large Dutch oven heat Olive Oil

 

Then and finely chopped Onions and grated Garlic.

Once the Onion has browned add the following spices: Chili Powder, Cumin Seed, Taco Seasoning, Oregano,

Paprika, Salt and Pepper. The Mixture will be very dark in color like this.

Next add Ground Turkey and cook through .

Then add Ground Pork if you can’t find in the store grind up 3 or 4 pork chops that are boneless with cheese grater on food processor.  That’s what I had to do.

When pork and turkey are cooked through add 1 Gluten Free Beer like this.

Bring to a boil then add diced tomatoes and Rotel Tomatoes with chili’s. and Tomato Paste.

Turn heat down and simmer for about hour and a half.

Then add about a cup of chocolate chips. Simmering and stirring every 5 to 10 minutes.

If to spicy add more chocolate if fine leave alone.


Enjoy and Bon Appetite


Sheila Fretz

Baby Dogs Wrapped in Bacon! That's short for little Hot Dog's wrapped in bacon!

So this past Wednesday, ( 2 days ago), I was on my way out the door to a meeting and I noticed the hum of the refrigerator freezer in my garage was silent! Oh ! No! I thought what about all my meat and vegetables that I have stored up in the freezer what to do now. So thankfully we have a huge double stainless steal refrigerator freezer in the house. So I quickly arranged all the food inside and brought in all the meats and vegetables from the outside into the stainless refrigerators. Only leaving a couple items in freezer outside; to see if it was just me. So now I have saved all of my fruit, vegetables and meat I can go to my meeting. But while I was going through I found some great finds for dinner this week.  Well after a frantic dash I came home and it was just me after all! Thank Goodness...

So here is one of my fabulous finds, (lil Smokies and 5 pounds of 1 pound bacon packages).  Baby Dogs wrapped in Bacon a perfect addition to your super bowl feast.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Baby Dogs wrapped in Bacon Ingredients:

1 package of gluyen free Lil smokies

1 package of 1 pound thinly sliced bacon.

Take baby dogs and bacon out of package. Cut bacon in half.

Wrap baby dog in bacon

Place on rack roll side down make sure you place rack on cookie sheet to catch grease.

Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown .

Serve with gourmet mustard's.

Enjoy and Bon Appetite!

Traditional Margaritas

Some of you might know that I live in Los Angeles and one of my favorite restaurants to go to is Casa Vega. It’s fun it’s fabulous and I love to go there to run into friends. Plus the owners of Casa Vega have a son that  happen to go to our daughters school. So we try to support the local businesses in our neighborhood and community. I just love a good Margarita and when I have a bad day I always try to make lemons into lemonade or go have a Margarita.

Serves 16 (8 oz drinks)

Traditional Margarita Ingredients:

4 cups lemon lime juice

3 1/2 cups sugar

8 cups water

4 cups ice

1/2 shot triple sec

1 shot tequila

Juice about 25 to 30 lemon/limes and set aside.

Take sugar and water and bring to a boil

Take lemon juice and ice place in large picture  

Next add boiling water mixture and stir.

Last add 1/2 shot triple second and  1 shot tequila to 8oz of Margarita mix made above.

Blend in blender or serve on the rocks.

This serves about 16-20 (8 oz Margaritas) You could make it stretch if you stretch if you blend and add ice. Or poor over a full glass of ice. But don't forget you mix one at a time so if you were making premixed you would add the 16 shots of tequila and 8 shots of triple sec. Also if you want a strawberry or raspberry margarita add a handful of berries to the blender while blending.

Enjoy and Bon Appetite

Sheila Fretz

Grapefruit Margaritas

So with Super Bowl; XLV coming quickly I thought I better start posting some drink options for my viewers. I am going to give you a recipe for Grapefruit Margarita and in a separate post tomorrow for Traditional Lemon Lime Margarita today. This is simple and easy and you can even serve without the alcohol over ice and they are fabulous.

 Grapefruit Margaritas Ingredients:

4 cups Grapefruit juice

4 cups sugar

8 cups water

4 cups ice

1/2 shot triple sec

1 shot tequila

Juice about 8 to 10 Grapefruits and set aside.

Take sugar and water and bring to a boil

Next you will see the edges start to bubble stir constantly.

Until you have a rapid boil like this.

Take Grapefruit juice place in large picture.

and ice to Grapefruit juice.

Next add boiling water mixture and stir.

Last add 1/2 shot triple sec and 1 shot tequila per 8 oz glass of Margarita mix, either serve on the rocks or blended in blender. Garnish with a lemon or lime.

This serves about 16-20 (8 oz Margaritas) You could make it stretch if you stretch if you blend and add ice. Or poor over a full glass of ice. But don't forget you mix one at a time so if you were making premixed you would add the 16 shots of tequilla and 8 shots of tripple sec.

Salud and Bon Appetite

Sheila Fretz

Pork Chops on A Bed of Mushroom Rice Served with a Creamy Mushroom Sauce.

Today I am very late in posting my recipe. However, it is very much worth the wait. Yesterday, we had a Harry Potter Birthday party to go to for one of Miss J’s classmates and long time friends. So before we left, I quickly assembled and developed this fabulous recipe. I love using my slow cooker especially when I am going out for the afternoon. So here’s my quick and easy recipe for Pork Chops on A Bed of Mushroom Rice Served with a Creamy Mushroom Sauce.

This recipe can be also made with boneless skinless chicken breast too, however, Hubs likes it this way.

Serves 4 to 6 people

Pork Chops on A Bed of Mushroom Rice Served with a Creamy Mushroom Sauce Ingredients:

Cooking Spray

1 ½ cups Long Grain Rice

3 cups Mushroom Broth

2 Can Cream of Mushroom soup Gluten free a lot of brands have modified food starch so please read label always.

½ cup milk

6 thin sliced pork chops or 3 thick cut sliced in half

2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Salt and Pepper to taste.

When I went to buy my Pork Chops they only Had thick cut boneless pork chops so I cut in half

Take 6 thinly sliced pork chops and Salt and pepper.

Next put 2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil in frying pan and heat.

Tip of The Day: to make sure oil is ready place bottom of wooden spoon in oil if you see bubbles oil is ready.

Next place meat in pan and brown on both sides.

Spray Slow Cooker insert with cooking spray next add rice

After that poor Mushroom broth over rice.

Next place browned Pork Chops on rice broth combination.

Take ½ cup of Milk and two cans of Cream of mushroom soup and whisk together in a separate bowl or measuring cup. Pour over Pork chop mixture. Place on High and cook for 4 hours.

Dig deep when serving and make sure you get all 3 layers.

Enjoy and Bon Appetite!

Sheila Fretz

Pear Blackberry Crumble

The other day I was taking inventory and seeing what was readily available in my refrigerator and I found 6 pears with some bruises. I don’t know about you but little Miss J will not eat any bruised fruit unless I disguise it by chopping it up and baking or cooking with it. So I started looking in the freezer too and I found a bag of frozen Blackberries that I had froze this past summer. What a find! So today I am going to make for you a Pear with Blackberry Crumble and wow is it delicious.

Pear with Blackberry Filling Ingredients:

6 pears peeled and sliced

2 cups blackberries

½ cup sugar

1/4 cup corn starch

Pam Cooking Spray

Mrs Mix It’s Famous Crumble Topping Ingredients:

1/4 pound butter (1 Stick)

1 ½ cups gluten free Oats

½ cup Brown sugar

3/4 cup gluten free flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl combined sugar and corn starch and set aside.

Next peel and thinly slice pears.

Add Frozen Blackberries

Next Combine fruit and corn starch mixture toss until evenly coated

Spray a 9 x 13 pan with spray

Poor Pear blueberry filling in greased pan.

Next make Crumble, Take butter and cut into cubes add flour, oats, and sugar and take off your rings because this involves your hands to mix. Mix and knead until well mixed together it should form clumps of the crumble.

I hold my hand around pan when pouring crumble on top of fruit mixture, so you do not have a lot of spillage on your baking sheet. Place in the preheated oven at 350 degrees for 50 min.

Let cool for about 20 min. serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Sheila Fretz

Roasted Duck with Roasted Vegetables

So the other day I was approached by Ott A’s to participate in her Duck "Iron Chef Challenge brought to us by Maple Leaf farms.  I thought what a great way to start cooking with Duck! To be honest with you I have cooked a lot of different meats such as venison, ostrich, buffalo and many other unusual meats.  So I thought this would be a great challenge for me. So I received the fabulous coupon in the mail and off to the local Ralph’s market,( A Kroger market in disguise), I go to and to my surprise the whole duck is in the freezer section. I then take it home and now I get to let it defrost in the refrigerator for about 2 days. Which works out okay because it is a three day weekend for me. I served this with Cranberry Tangerine Stuffing,  Beet Berry Relish it is so yummy and you will just love it and your kids will not realize that beets are inside.

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

Roasted Duck

1) 5 to 6 pound Duck

5 to 6 tablespoons for cleaning

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Roasted Vegetables

6 Yukon gold potatoes

6 yams

12 carrots julienned

½ cup olive oil

So after it has defrosted I quickly clean out the cavity and remove the orange sauce package and the heart, neck and liver and I set aside so I could clean the duck. I quickly rinse in hot water and I salt the cavity making sure it is clean and pat dry and set aside.  I do not use the the extra in the cavity so i put in the refrigerator after I have bagged the inters in a plastic bag.

Now its time to stuff the bird

And don’t forget to stuff the neck too.

Now place on rack and salt and pepper duck plus don’t forget to add some olive oil so you get that crispy skin.

Place in oven at 350 degrees and tent for first two hours.

Next peel and cut all vegetables carrots to be julienne and potatoes and yams to be quartered. Next place in zip lock bag with olive oil and salt and pepper and make sure you don’t have any air in that bag so they do not brown or start to go bad. 

 About an hour and a half  into the cooking of the tented bird add to roasting pan.  This way they will not burn. Cook an addition 45 minutes remove tent and flip vegetables they should have started to caramelize by now.

Next cook until stuffing reaches 165 degrees. Make sure you have a good Meat Thermometer. I like All Clad's Instant Read Meat thermometer.

It took my duck about 3 hours to cook and it was 5.75 pounds, however it is best to use a meat thermometer.

Enjoy and Bon Appetit

Sheila Fretz