Meg Goes Nom Nom

Poblano. We meet again.

Remember my first time cooking with poblano? (Hint: it involved running around like a headless chicken with burning sour cream-covered hands). Well this time, I first obtained the latex glove-covered MGNN Seal of Approval before veggie prep began. Thumbs up. Good to go.

MGNN and her latex-covered hands simply laughed in the face of poblano seeds. Bwahaha. Never stood a chance.

So, you ask, what’s with the poblano pepper and jalepenos? Well, the jalapenos are for a meal later this week (I mean, while I’m all gloved-up might as well dice ’em up, amirite?), BUT, the poblano was an element of today’s dish: Turkey Chili with Penne (I opted for rotini – my personal preference), from the Healthy Cooking magazine Oct/Nov ’10 issue. To begin this dish, I cooked a pound of extra-lean turkey in the biggest pot I own, until no longer pink, and then added in chopped onion, carrot, celery, and poblano pepper.

Once the veggies had softened, I added in all these cans! Diced tomatoes, no salt added tomato sauce, chopped green chilis, reduced sodium chicken broth, a squirt of honey, and chili powder.

Once all of the above ingredients were mixed into the turkey/veggie mixture, I let the chili simmer for an hour, uncovered. After the hour was up, I stirred in two cans of rinsed black beans.

Once heated through, the chili was ladled over whole wheat rotini pasta, which I had cooked in boiling water while the chili simmered. I also must add that I added cumin and cayenne pepper to the chili toward the end, after tasting, as it was in need of some additional spicy kick. It’s practically a sin to make chili without cumin, too, don’t you think? It was totally missing that smoky background flavor until I added around 1/2 tsp of cumin, while a few shakes of cayenne pepper amped-up the heat level.

Can you guess what this is?:

..Goat cheese – sprinkled atop the chili. Soooooo….I wasn’t thrilled by this dish. It was one of those healthy recipes that you could TELL it was a healthy recipe. And I really didn’t like the carrots in it. I love carrots! But carrots + chili = weird. And even the goat cheese. In theory, it sounds good right? Spicy chili, paired with creamy, rich goat cheese. The goat cheese was tasty on its own – I was stealing little crumbles away and eating them while prepping dinner, but I just didn’t like it on the chili. Yeah, so I’d probably only rate this a 5/10, I didn’t particularly care for it. A tad disappointing, but I did eat it.

♪♫ Currently listening: Living in a Dream – Finger  Eleven.