Turkey Con Chili

I have a new love in my life - Jamie Oliver. ;) Seriously, he is doing great things with food and nutrition, not to mention has great tips, ideas, money saving suggestions and recipes - all with the center theory of basing our meals around natural foods! Love it. Tried one of his recipe's last night. I had to make a few adjustments due to the ingredients we had on hand so i will give it to you as I made it, but also give you the link to his original.

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

2. Heat a few "lugs" of olive oil in a skillet on stove top at a medium heat.
Add:
2 peeled onions - roughly cut
1-2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 peppers (we had an orange and green), deseeded and roughly chopped
1 green chili pepper, deseeded and chopped - It made this chili B.I.L.M.S. for us (Brother in Law Marcus Style) which is spicy hot for Adam liking, hot enough for me as long as served with milk, but had to crack open an emergency can of chicken noodle soup for Emma! :) So use this ingredient to your family likin'!
Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add:
diced celery (around two stalks)
1 tsp. Cumin
1 heaping tsp of Paprika
Let it cook another 10 minutes until soft and delicious. Jamie also says, "Sometimes I like to add some honey and white wine vinegar at this point and let it cook for a couple of minutes. I find this adds a wonderful sheen and enhances the natural sweetness of the vegetables." So I did... add 1 heaping tsp of "runny" honey and 3 TBSP white wine vinegar (well, I used apple cider because that is all we had)

4. Take this awesome veggie mixture and put in deep casserole/cooking dish along with:
600 grams (according to google 400 grams is 14 oz.) of shredded turkey, roughly chopped
Good pinch of Sea Salt and fresh cracked peppercorns
3 cans (14 oz) chopped tomatoes
1 can (14 oz) butter beans or chickpeas, drained - we had neither so I used black beans

5. Stir it baby. Admire the colors. Smell the goodness.

6. Pop it in the hot oven to blip away for 2 hours. Check on it after an hour, and add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry. (Which I did....used the tomato can, so about 14 oz)

This was SOOO GOOD! Even Adam, the worlds biggest chili lover was totally satisfied.

Here are some more save money and time tips to make this dish -
- Make it ahead of time and crock pot it all day.
- Instead of canned tomatoes, use those chopped fresh tomatoes you gather last summer and have in the freezer (don't forget to plant your tomato plant this summer!)
- Use that left over Thanksgiving turkey you put in a ziplock in the freezer
- We actually used 1 lb. ground turkey I had got on sale a while back - worked perfect!
- Instead of canned beans, use the long soaking beans that you made up awhile back and froze
- Use this recipe as a just a base...to quote Jamie, "Try to think of this recipe as a principle, rather than something you have to follow really strictly. I want you to embrace your own leftovers so adjust the recipe accordingly. If you need to swap out some of the vegetables that’s fine, and different tinned or jarred beans will all work well too. I’ve given you a weight of turkey here, but you can use whatever you’ve got left over. It’s all about building up layers of flavour with the sweet vegetable base then turning whatever you add to it into a beautiful meal with great spice and attitude. It’s brilliant with steamed rice, or rolled up in warmed tortillas."
To see his actuall recipe go to: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/turkey-recipes/turkey-con-chilli