Blogger Chili Party!

Do you remember the blogger taco party?  Well, it's football season and what better way to kick it off than with a blogger chili party?  My Turkey Pumpkin chili is still a bit of a work in progress (recipe perfection takes time my friends) but I still had to share what I made.  Also - please excuse the sub-par iphone photos.  I totally forgot I lent my camera to my sister this past weekend!

This recipe is inspired by the Pork-and-Pumpkin Chili from Food Network Magazine - though I've made plenty of modifications that its hardly the same.  I actually wasn't able to eat this the first few times I made it because the original recipe was so spicy!  The biggest change was switching to turkey from pork, and I do not add the chipolte peppers in the chili - instead I added about 1/2 tsp of just the sauce to the pumpkin sour cream.  I also choose kale instead of mustard greens because it's easier to find.

I always start with roasting the poblano peppers (and another random hot pepper) over my gas stove.  You can also do this under the broiler in the oven, just keep a really close eye on them.  It takes about 5 minutes to really char the whole pepper.

Then wrap them up tightly in aluminum foil.  You're going to want them to hang there for a good 20 minutes so this is a perfect do ahead while prepping everything else.  This foil packet will let them steam, after 20 minutes, or when cool enough to handle, rub off the skin with a paper towel.  No need to go nuts here, just rub of what you can - it should be about 75% of the skins and dice the peppers for the chili - throwing out the seeds.

Most soups, stocks, and slow cooking stews like a chili have some kind of holy trinity of starter veggies - these are mine.  One big white onion diced, 3 cloves of garlic minces, and the 2 hot roasted peppers diced.

These guys go in the pot with chili seasoned turkey tips, 2 tbsp of tomato paste and 2 tbsp of flour before adding in a can of chick peas, a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes, all but 1/4 cup of the pumpkin puree and a bottle of beer.  I recommend a brown ale or American Oktoberfest.  Once you're about a half hour into the chili doing it's simmering thing - I add in ribbon sliced kale.  Don't forget to de-rib the kale!

The kale needs about 5 minutes to cook down into the chili.  Then serve with a sour cream mixture of 1 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup of pumpkin, and 1/2 or 1 tsp (depending on your spice tollerance, mine is low) of the chipolte sauce.  A lime wedge is also a nice touch.  

 Now who's ready for some football!  Go Pats!
(Sorry for an imperfect recipe - an update will be available in the near future - in time for many more fall football games!)