A week ago, Sunday, I roasted a post-Thanksgiving turkey. New Seasons, the fabulous grocer nearest me, had deeply discounted their fresh turkeys hoping to sell them off before being forced to freeze them for less sumptuous turkey dinners of the future. In the past week I have had roast turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey lavash rollups, turkey mushroom casserole, turkey salad and turkey dumpling soup and I still had a pound of bits and pieces. So, since I had already made everything else, I decided to make a chili. Or more honestly, a “chili”, the scare quotes indicating how very unorthodox and inauthentic my chili will be.
I save my bacon fat in a little butter bowl, storing it for cooking when I want to add some easy flavor. I put two tablespoons in the bottom of my stock pot and began adding ingredients, stirring and sauteeing over medium heat.
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 TBSP of dried oregano
- 2 tsp of cumin
- 1 TBSP of chili powder
- 1/4 tsp of cayenne
- salt
- pepper
After the onions were cooked, I added
- Leftover turkey cut in small chunks, about 1 pound
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 can of tomato paste
- 1 cup of frozen corn
- 1 box of chicken broth (I had already used my turkey broth in the turkey dumpling soup.)
I let all this cook. Meanwhile I chopped up a bunch of kale. That turned out to be too much and I made yesterday’s salad with the unused kale. I added about 4 cups of chopped kate to the soup and put a lid on it and let it simmer. After it was done, I tasted and added a bit of salt and pepper to taste.
Well, you can’t go wrong mixing tomatoes, black beans, corn and onions together – but the turkey adds a mellow savoriness and the kale gives it an earthy flavor. The overall taste is bright and fresh with plenty of toothsome bites with the black beans, the corn and the kale. This last catch-all dish is by no means a single serving, however. It made 2 quarts of soup for 8 servings.
Single Servings 