Claudia’s Lone-Star Chili

This week Meg and I are tipping our hats to Claudia Pannell of the Pannell Advisory Group for her unrelenting support, gentle coaching and patience in crafting our business plan.

For anyone who has written a business plan for a small enterprise, it can be a long and drawn out process. It’s easy for it to get buried at the bottom of the pile of “to-do’s” when you’re taking care of the day to day running of a business. The biggest advantage to this process has been to assess, in writing, who we are and what we are trying to achieve. Refining our initial download has afforded us clarity and, although time consuming and in constant evolution, positions the zen of slow cooking clearly on a path.

During our time working together on the plan we never actually met in person because Claudia lives in Texas, the Lone Star State. Despite our remote working relationship Claudia has been a faithful satellite of the zen business. Following our theme to adapt friends’ favorite recipes this month, Claudia presented us with her Lone-Star Chili.

I wish I had this recipe years ago because it is so simple and tasty. Claudia makes a large batch and freezes it in portions, and where we added canned tomatoes during the cooking, Claudia adds chopped fresh ones from the market after defrosting and before re-heating.

I was intrigued by Masa Flour, which is corn derived and available in Mexican grocery stores. Don’t worry if you don’t have it, gluten free flour is great because it is often garbanzo or lima bean based therefore more authentic to Claudia’s recipe but regular wheat flour will work fine as a thickener too. Bison meat is not only delicious, but leaner than beef and lower in saturated fat. It’s easy to find in most large name grocery stores now.

Serve with sides of coarsely chopped white onion, Cheddar/Jack Cheese, sour cream, corn chips, smoked beef sausage links or macaroni to provide variety.

Prep Time 10 minutes     Cooking Time 3-4 hours HIGH or 7-8 hours LOW        Servings 4 * this recipe can be easily scaled up

Ingredients
1 lb of ground bison or lean ground beef
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 tbsp chili powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper or red pepper flakes
1/8 teaspoon black coarsely ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground oregano
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoons Masa Flour/Gluten Free Flour or Regular Flour
1 1/2 cups / 12 oz of water
1 x 14oz can diced tomatoes

Heat a skillet over medium heat and put the bison or beef directly into it, breaking it up into small chunks with a spoon. Brown the meat for 3 minutes until it loses its red color.  Drain any excess fat from the meat (optional) and put it into your slow cooker.

Add the onion, chili, salt, red pepper, oregano, garlic powder, paprika and flour and stir to coat the meat. Pour the water and tomatoes over the meat and stir. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3-4 hours or LOW for 6-8 hours.

Zen Moment

“Encourage, lift and strengthen one another. For the positive energy spread to one will be felt by us all.”
― Deborah Day