Cast iron dinner

Tonight was a late one for my love so I wanted to have something cooked for her when she got home from work.

Meat and Bean Chili in the cast iron is the route I took.
It turned out to be the right path because this dinner turned out amazingly.
She loved it. I loved it.
The meal was rather beautiful in its own way, darkened meat with bright vibrant colors of the vegetables.
Enjoy it my friends!

Start off by browning two pounds of meat. This could be turkey, chicken or beef.
I personally used ground turkey for this one and it was the right choice. I browned the turkey in the cast iron on the stove top. I added in some garlic powder, onion powder, ground pepper and salt. I added to taste. Add to your liking as well. You will be adding fresh onion and fresh garlic later so keep that in mind.

While the turkey was browning I chopped up some fresh ingredeants to go into the cast iron dutch oven.
First I chopped up and added a fresh onion. About medium in size. Then I added about 8 cloves of fresh garlic. The garlic was crushed slightly and cut into smaller pieces to bring out the flavor as much as possible. I then cleaned off some beans to add to the dutch oven. The beans are a nice addition to a chili even thought its not common in a traditional chili. I added three different types of beans to this mixture. Butter beans: fifteen ounces, pinto beans: fifteen ounces and kidney beans: fifteen ounces.

Now that the turkey has been cook through I added it as well as the drippings to the fresh garlic, onion and beans. I then mixed in two small cans of tomato sauce and one can of tomato paste. I added this to put some moister back into the chili and to give the mixture something to soak in while it cooks on low temperature.

While the chili cooked on low I chopped and added some fresh peppers to the chili. One red pepper, one green pepper and one orange pepper. I chopped these into smaller size cubes so they would cook down to a nice soft texture. The final ingredients I added to this are as follows. Chili powder: to your preference, Cumin: dash, garlic powder: to flavor and paprika: dash. Mix well and cook on low for one hour, mixing occasionally.

Serve in small bowl with fresh sliced buttered french bread
If desired add shredded cheddar cheese on top of chili after dishing out.

Hope you enjoy.