Sunday we drove down to Niagara to chop down our Christmas tree. We started this tradition last year for something new to do; we found this family tree farm close to two restaurants we love and decided to make a day of it — tree chopping and lunch! We decided to go to Treadwells in Port Dalhousie, a lovely restaurant where the Dad is the Chef and the son is the Sommelier. We’ve been several times and we’re never disappointed; I had the French Onion Soup which I would highly recommend, JT had the lobster club — very decadent with the duck fat fried bread! My good fried Barb recommended the restaurant about 4-5 years ago — which is a perfect segway to the Crock Pot Chili we just made because it’s Barb’s recipe!
Our New Christmas Tree
Barb just started blogging and her latest blog post was of the Crock Pot Chili; what a perfect meal — the wonderful aroma wafting through the house, welcoming us upon our return with our tree! Please check out Barb’s blog Profiteroles and Ponytails. I’ve know barb for almost 20 years now, we met at my very first job, KPMG in their National Marketing department. Barb was a writer and I was the Senior Manager in the Design Department. We’ve not worked for KPMG for many years now, but we’ve been good friends ever since. Barb has always loved cooking and this blog is the perfect succession to her passion. Please do pay her a visit, she knows all about my blogging ‘friends’ and is excited to hopefully meet you!
The chili is pretty much to Barb’s recipe, with a few minor alterations as I didn’t have some of the ingredients on hand. I only had 300g of ground beef and turkey, so I added chopped Chorizo so that we could get 4-6 meals out of it (I’ll freeze it in batches of single servings so we can have a quick lunch on the weekends we’re too busy to cook). I also didn’t have canned beans, so I used 1 cup of dried Navy Beans; and because they had to reconstitute while cooking, I added 2 additional cups of stock to the pot. I also used home made tomato sauce, made with the tomatoes from our generous neighbours to the north. I added some mushrooms because I had them and they needed to be used up. The chili turned out quite delicious, richly flavoured with all spice, cocoa and chili powder. We served them in our little single serve Le Creuset casserole pans, topped with the delicious cornbread topping. I dolloped some non-fat Greek Yogurt with the chopped green onions on top. YUM! Thanks Barbie!
Barb's delicoius Crock Pot Chili
Kitcheninspirations 