Recipe Review from 12/19/2016

A bit of a mish-mash for meals and recipes this week.  We had some nice leftovers from the ham dinner from the week previous, one night both of us were out for our meetings, double office potlucks, which brought us up to the end of the week. 

The Meal Plan:
Sun  (L) leftovers  (S) Leftover ham dinner from Saturday.
Mon (yoga/bkgrp/Legion)
Tues - leftover ham dinner
Wed (work potlucks)  slow cooked chili
Thurs (yoga)  leftover chili
Fri - leftover chili

Lunches - a bit of everything...

Slow Cooker [Beef] and Sweet Potato Chili (Ckng Lght Nov, 2016)  gluten free

Only two significant substitution and that was a very mild breakfast sausage for the beef and pinto beans for the black.   This is super easy to assemble - you can chop veggies while the sausage cooks, then everything goes into the slow cooker and you walk away.  

This was an awesome chili!  Slightly sweet, little bit of heat, perfect chili flavor - I had to keep reminding myself it was sweet potatoes and not squash, so, you could substitute butnut squash for the sweet potatoes.  In hindsight, a can of hominy would have been a really good addition.   I'm thinking I need to bookmark this one and bring it to our office chili cook-off next year.  Recommended!   

1 pound 90% lean ground sirloin   (I used sausage)

photo from cookinglight.com

4 cups (3/4-in.) cubed unpeeled sweet potato (about 1 1/4 lb.)

2 1/2 cups unsalted beef stock

2 cups chopped yellow onion

1 cup chopped red bell pepper

1/4 cup unsalted tomato paste

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

8 garlic cloves, minced

2 (14.5-oz.) cans unsalted diced tomatoes, undrained

1 (15-oz.) can unsalted black beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided

4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high. Add beef to pan; cook, stirring often, just until crumbled and mostly browned, about 3 minutes. (Beef will not be fully cooked.) Remove from heat.
2. Combine sweet potatoes and next 11 ingredients (through black beans) in a 6-quart slow cooker. Stir in beef. Cover and cook on LOW 7 hours. Stir in 1/2 cup cilantro. Ladle chili into 8 bowls; top with cheese and remaining cilantro.