Sunday Batch Cookery

No pictures today, unfortunately.

Sunday is usually a day when I get a batch of cooking done to at least let me coast through the first couple of weekdays ahead.

Today was no different, although there wasn't as much cooking as usual.

I made a pound of bacon in the oven, which I purchased from Jensen's Smoked Meats in Seattle. While they do not use grass-fed animals, they do smoke only wild-caught salmon, and provide fabulous customer service (and tasty jerkies). If you go visit them soon, they just came out with a new batch of smoked savory King salmon that is very tasty, indeed.

I also hard-boiled six eggs for later use. I start my eggs in cold salted water on the stove, and once the water boils vigorously, I cook them for 10 minutes.

That was it. Apart from that, I assembled my breakfast and lunch for tomorrow, breakfast consisting of some of the cooked bacon, and a bowl of roasted pumpkin with some hazelnut oil, vanilla extract, maple syrup, and pumpkin pie spice. I really prefer butter, but was out, and hazelnut oil is healthier, anyway! Lunch is a bowl of leftover chicken soup. I also threw in some fresh carrots and an apple from the farmer's market, and a satsuma I bought a couple of days ago at Whole Foods. I need to pack some additional beef jerky or sausages for snacks.

Hopefully one day after work this week I will cook up that chicken curry soup!

Chili

My original plan today was to grill some meat this morning. As I was preparing to preheat my gas grill, I received a call from a person whose bike I was interested in buying off Craigslist, so instead of cooking, I hightailed it out of my house to meet them.

The bike was a bust, but I was wonderfully exposed to the fall weather. Glad I had brought a wool hat and fingerless gloves, in addition to dressing in a thermal shirt, t-shirt, and vest, I wandered about in the sunny, brisk morning.

After arriving back home this afternoon, I flipped on PBS, and watched someone cooking a pot of chili. He used two varieties of canned beans - red kidneys and refried beans.

I recalled that I had not only some ground beef that needed cooking, but I also possessed a can of black beans and a can of refried beans in my cupboard. Canned Gold!

I threw my ground beef (grass-finished, thankyouverymuch) into my cute yellow Dutch oven, to brown and sizzle away while I prepared other ingredients.


I opened the cans of beans, and retrieved several items out of my spice cabinet:



After the meat was almost completely cooked, I added the two cans of beans to the pot, as well as kosher salt, molasses, a good squirt of tomato paste, half of a leftover beer, and a couple of tablespoons' worth of Mole Ole! seasoning that I had freshly ground in my blade coffee grinder.

I also added several crushed cloves of garlic...


... and a whole small onion, chopped.

Then I set it to a low simmer:


I left it a little too long, ,because there was a layer of burned-on beans at the bottom when I went to retrieve the chili off the stove, but it smells amazing and I am looking forward to a few bowls of hearty warming chili!

NOTE: No, this is Not Paleo; according to the tenets of the Paleo diet, beans are not an encouraged food (not to mention the beer!) There's also not a ton of vegetables in this, so you definitely want to augment it to balance out your food choices. :)

Hot Links: Meal-in-a-Bag

This is a blog that I have in my Google Reader, "Paleo-Zone".

This guy, Steve, does Crossfit, and eats Paleo. Paleo Good. Crossfit Good. Moog like lift heavy sticks off ground. It make Moog hungry. Moog need food.

Check this out: http://stevepaleo.blogspot.com/2009/09/introducing-bison-paleopak.html

The reason I like Steve's idea here is that it is convenient. I would probably go so far as to keep one in my purse or work bag. And they would definitely work for a day hike / ski trip nibble to keep you going.

I might actually cut it up into smaller portions - 1 or 2 blocks to use as a snack.

And if you can't find bison, a good quality local beef jerky works, in my opinion.