Guest Post: Jesse Cooks!

My recently engaged friends, Jen and Jesse, are frequent visitors to my blog. They both enjoy food and healthy living. Lately, Jesse has been sending me some great photos documenting his cooking adventures. Below is a stirfry dinner featuring: shrimp, broccoli, green beans, and red pepper. Yum! stirfry

This guy is unstoppable! Check out Jesse’s chili recipe:

Small cubes of beef
Onions
Garlic
Carrots
Celery
Red beans
Cumin
Groumd Chili pepper
Cayenne
Basil
Oregano
Salt/pepper
A can of crushed tomatoes
Half a little can of tomato paste
A little water if it’s too thick

Sauté everything (including spices) except beans and tomatoes, then summer for a couple hours until the meat is cooked and tender and the flavors have had the chance to meld. A fun variation is to replace water and a little of the tomato with beer! Excellent with cheddar cheese on top and cornbread!

Megan’s note: Recipe was adapted from a Moosewood Restaurant veggie chili recipe which used bulgar to replace meat. I love, love, love all the Moosewood Cookbooks which are based on recipes created for the restaurant located in Ithaca, NY. The eating establishment began as a natural foods collective back in the ’70′s. One of the founding members, Mollie Katzen wrote the original edition of The Moosewood Cookbook, published in 1978.  The New York Times listed Moosewood as one of the top ten bestselling cookbooks of all time. Many people claim that it is the most popular vegetarian cookbook in the world!jessechilli

And last, but not least – lettuce plants a.k.a. future salad! I love the idea of re-using Stonyfield Farms yogurt containers as mini planters.futuresalad