Variations on Alton Brown's Pressure cooker chili · Sunday March 30, 2008 by colin newell
Here is a subtle variation on Alton Brown’s classic which we cook up once every couple of months – it freezes well and makes a super hot hot lunch entree! Recipe easily doubles for a larger group!
Primary variation – Use a stock or stewing pot – Pressure cooker not needed.
1 pounds Sirloin tip or lesser grade of beef (or pork… or Tofu)
2 tablespoons Canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 bottle of beer, medium pale ale
1 (16-ounce) container hot salsa
30 tortilla chips (really! 30… not 29 or 31!)
1/2 cup chipotle peppers canned in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from the chipotle peppers in adobo)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 medium onions – chopped
1 Yellow pepper chopped
1 Red pepper chopped
1 small Zucchini
1 large Pablano pepper chopped
2 Anaheim peppers chopped
1 chopped Habanero or Scotch bonnet peppers (be VERY, VERY careful with these peppers! There is a real risk of burning or blistering if your skin comes in direct contact with the seeds or chopped pepper flesh.)
OPTION A: 2 medium carrots shredded (adds sweetness!)
OPTION B: Add 1 or 2 tinned drained high quality chick peas and reduce or eliminate the red meat.
Place the meat in a large mixing bowl and toss with the Canola oil and salt. Set aside.
Heat a 4-quart steel pot over high heat until hot. Add the meat in 3 or 4 batches and brown on all sides, approximately 2 minutes per batch. Once each batch is browned, place the meat in a clean large bowl.
Once all of the meat is browned, add the beer to the pot to deglaze the pot.
Scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
Put in onions, yellow and red peppers, zucchini and carrots (or option of chick peas) to brown for around 5 to 7 minutes.
Add Pablano and Anaheim chopped peppers – cooking an additional 5 minutes
Add the meat back to the pot along with the salsa, tortilla chips, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, tomato paste, chili powder, and ground cumin and stir to combine. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 1 hour. Serve immediately with cold beer and more corn chips on the side.
Depending upon how hot your salsa and chilis are will dictate how much of a sweat you will work up – add sour cream to serving for the more delicate among you!
Link to original Alton Brown recipe.
updated August 2014
Colin Newell is a Victoria resident and roaming food and drink freelance journalist – has been writing online since 1994
Comment [4]
The cost of War - Iraq during election time · Tuesday March 18, 2008 by colin newell
With America’s mind on election time, I think, for the most of us (Canadians included) that we are spending more time looking South (and inwards) than to the Middle-East.
But at what cost?
The American media (and government) insists that we are at War.
The reality is – we are not at War at all (since no formal declaration of War has been made in Canada or the U.S.A.)
Yet the American media and government has consistently reminded us that there is a War on – and if we speak against it, we are:
Un-American, Unpatriotic, Un-Canadian, Liberal, supporting the terrorists.
Liberal. As if that is a dirty word now.
But what are the actual costs? Actual costs that touch us as individuals. As Families. As Communities.
Sure, the U.S. has spent 1.2 Trillion dollars on this War effort…
1.2 Trillion would pay for a national health care program. 1.2 Trillion would end child poverty in America. 1.2 Trillion in Cancer research would take us light-years closer to a cure. The same goes for AIDS research. Hey. 1/100th that amount could have rebuilt New Orleans a year ago.
And yet we dump 10 billion dollars a month into this all important war on Terror.
But what are the individual costs?
Ask a parent whose child, son or daughter has gone to War… and not returned. Or returned with pieces missing. With no hope of Peace. No closer to Peace.
Ask a spouse who sleeps fitfully every night wondering… if their loved one will come back – and what they are really fighting for. Ask them.
Now ask those that beat the drumbeat of War; in the media, in the Government, and within the mechanism of the Military-Industrial complex – Ask them:
Have your children gone to War? Chances are, they have not.
Of the most strident voices in American Conservative media today, the broad majority of those personalities have never been enlisted in the Service and have never seen a moments action In Country. Ironic huh?
Ask yourself and your friends and your co-workers; what is the cost?
Do not be afraid of being called a Liberal… or worse.
Our future and the future of our children is at stake. Today. And Tomorrow.
Dance to the Music · Friday November 23, 2007 by colin newell
It is always fun having someone walk up to you and compliment you on your life’s work.
Like if you are a butcher or something.
“Hey Colin… nice work on that brisket! It was a thing of beauty…”
Or if you are a writer and erstwhile singer.
Somehow we managed to get on the CBC Radio Playlist yesterday – note the “Two Old Goats” – Island Standard Time in fuzzy jpeg pixel-text. Click on picture for gallery view.
Yesterday, no less than a dozen people sailed by uttering the words: “Heard you on the CBC today…”
I think I said “Thank-you, very kind, thank-you very much…” about 25 times yesterday.
This spot-light thing could be very addictive.
Even though this is a single Christmas light sized spotlight at the moment…
probably a good thing that it will probably not get any bigger…
Comment [5]
The fraud of HD (High-definition) radio · Monday September 17, 2007 by colin newell
I have been a radio kind of guy for years. Versus a television kind of guy that is.
My first transistor radio was pressed into my young hands in the mid-sixties. Yes, folks – I am that old. And that is OK.
Within a few years it was not enough that I owned a variety of radios – I was building them too. At 13 years of age, I built a multi-band shortwave radio from a kit.
I do have a fondness for AM Radio however. For those who have forgotten it, AM radio is that muffled old style of radio from 540 to 1600 (now 1700khz) that carried your early rock & roll music (for those of you over 30 [or 40!] that can remember such a thing.)
There was always something comforting about tuning across an old radio dial at night never quite sure what you were going to hear; the swish of static, the heterodyne of mixing stations, the clear channel trans-continental stations that used to be king.
Times have obviously changed. Media has been concentrated and centralized. Regional and local voices have faded… but not entirely. It is as if there are corporate forces at work to take away individuality and freedom… of choice. Just the other morning I was turning across a portion of the dial and I was hearing the same program every 10khz (in radio world, an individual channel)
Coast to coast AM as it is called is a program on a chain of broadcasters (I think owned by Clear Channel). It sounds to me like a faceless and homogeneous drone of, well, nothing of merit.
Fast forward to 2007. For the last couple of years (in the U.S.A.) a corporation called Ibiquity has been pushing High Definition radio – or HD for short. HD AM and HD FM.
High definition AM. Isn’t that a natural oxymoron?
Anyway. Long story short. AM HD is a hybrid of technologies. Standard old analog AM transmitting techniques exist alongside digital sub-carriers. Problem is, the standard channel separation of 10khz on the AM band becomes unworkable with this format. A station running AM-HD on, say, 810 khz generates interference from 790khz to 830khz! In days of old, interference was limited to about 5 to 7 khz from the center channel, not 25khz!
What this means for smaller stations (in the U.S.) is that their reach or range is diminished by co-channel interference.
If you are a Canadian or Mexican border station trying to serve a rural market, your signal could be crushed or diminished by the U.S. based noise makers. Acceptable? I think not.
What to do?
If you are an American who enjoys long distance or rural AM reception and are getting buzzed make sure you write the station and any stations that are getting slammed.
If you are in Canada, send an e-mail to Industry Canada or the CRTC. Trust me, they do listen.
You will hear more from me on this issue.
It is about radio sovereignty. It is about freedom of choice. It is about a free and accessible media. Radio is one of the last free domains of expression that is open to anyone. Do not let a single corporation take that away.
Comment [7]
