Wow! It’s been a while since I posted a recipe in The Sunday Stew. With the holidays came so much eating. But cooking? Not so much.
Slowly but surely, we’re re-stocking the refrigerator, settling into a better routine, and getting back to the business of gathering around the table for family meals. It doesn’t happen every night, that’s for sure, but when we do manage to break bread together, it’s a beautiful thing.
Most of the time.
And the other times?
Well, we just fumble through it and try again.
During the week, I like to cook simple meals, using as few pots and pans as possible. I also like recipes I can prepare ahead of time, so I often start cooking dinner as soon as the kids walk out the back door to school with their dad. Because why would I ever clean the kitchen twice in one day if I can live into the breakfast mess, have dinner prepared by 9:30 a.m., and have a clean kitchen for the rest of the day?
In light of these midweek dinner requirements, soup and chili are at the top of the list. I’ve posted several in this series so far because my family loves them. Even better, I can sneak tons of healthy ingredients into them, and the kids will often take the leftovers in a Sistema soup mug for re-heating at school. That beats sandwiches and other highly-processed lunch foods any day of the week!
Up today is one of my very favorite Whole30 compliant meals, Beanless Beef Chili with Roasted Sweet Potatoes. It sounds strange, I know, to mix chili and sweet potatoes.
But trust me.
The combination of sweet and spicy is amazing, and this is clean comfort food you can eat any night of the week without feeling guilty at all. It makes enough for us to eat 1-2 meals and freeze the rest for later too. What’s not to love about that?
This recipe was inspired by the chili in the Whole30 Cookbook, which I highly recommend if you’re interested in learning more about clean eating. However, the authors of this book clearly aren’t from Texas, and I found their chili to be a bit bland and in need of some tweaking. So I went to work, spiced it up, and this is what I came up with.
Here’s what you need:
First, dice your onions and bell peppers.
Then, heat a large dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown meat about 7-10 minutes until it’s fully cooked.
Next, remove the meat from the pot to a bowl using a slotted spoon. Reserve the fat in the pan. Add the onions, garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, mustard powder, and salt to the pot. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook until the onions are translucent, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the bell peppers, tomatoes, and broth.
Stir in the tomato paste to the desired consistency.
Turn the heat up to high. When the chili reaches a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour.
And if you’re lucky, get a cute little guy like this to help you stir!
Then, if you want to try the sweet potatoes, simply roast them on a sheet pan. In fact, I like using one sheet pan to roast two different vegetables at the same time. Simply preheat the oven to 400 degrees, peel and chop two sweet potatoes into cubes, and place them alongside some asparagus spears, broccoli, or brussels sprouts. Drizzle the veggies with EVOO and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Roast them for about 25 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender.
Two veggies.
One tray.
Need I say more?
Then, nestle some sweet potatoes into a bowl and douse them with chili!
De-lic-ious!
Ingredients
- 3 pounds ground beef, bison, or turkey (or any combination)
- 2 medium onions, diced
- 9 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 teaspoons cumin (or to preferred taste)
- 5 teaspoons of chili powder (or to preferred taste, if you're averse to spicy, take it easy)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 red, yellow, or orange bell peppers (or any combination)
- 1 can mild tomatoes with green chilies (I use Rotel)
- 1 can regular tomatoes with green chilies (If you are worried about spice, use 2 mild cans or even just one)
- 4 cups beef or chicken broth (I use what I have but when on Whole30, chicken broth because Whole30 compliant beef broth is hard to find and I'm learning that they are generally interchangeable)
- 1 small can tomato paste
Instructions
Heat a large dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown meat about 7-10 minutes until it’s fully cooked. Remove the meat from the pot to a bowl using a slotted spoon. Reserve fat in pan. Add the onions, garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, mustard powder, and salt to the pot. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook until the onions are translucent, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the bell peppers, tomatoes, and broth. Stir in tomato paste to desired thickness. Turn the heat up to high. When the chili reaches a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour.
Serve over a bed of roasted sweet potatoes.
The post Beanless Beef Chili And Roasted Sweet Potatoes (Whole30 Compliant) appeared first on Confessions of a Pastor's Family.