Crazy Sexy Chili

This has become my new favorite chili, made twice now and lasts a single guy like me almost a week. Original recipe is from here: http://kriscarr.com/recipe/crazy-sexy-bean-chili/

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cumin
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 white onion, diced 
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 2 jalapenos finely diced 
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 cups prepared TVP (soak 2 cups dried TVP in 2 cups boiling water, soak 5 mins)
• 2 zucchini, diced 
• 1/2 cup diced potato (any kind) 
• One 15-ounce cans of black beans, rinsed
• Two 15-ounce can of kidney beans, rinsed 
• One 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes 
• 1 Dark Beer (I used Deschutes Porter)
• 1+ cup water or more beer
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup 
• 1 teaspoon sea salt 
• 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro 
• 1 bunch kale, chopped: 2+cups
• Diced avocado  
• Fresh cilantro 

1. In Cast Iron Skillet heat oil, add onions, garlic, jalapenos, and cumin. Saute briefly
2. Add skillet and remaining ingredients (except kale, avocado and last cilantro) to crock pot
3. Cook on low all day or high for 4 hours or until potatoes are tender
4. At end of cook, stir in your chopped kale
5. Serve in a bowl and top with 1/2 avocado (save the other half for dinner tomorrow) and cilantro
6. I eat mine with tortilla chips and scoop my chili into each chip

Enjoy!

Breakfast

My Breakfast of Champions

This is pretty much a standard breakfast for me, and provides me healthy vitamins, minerals, and energy for my active lifestyle.  Types of fruits varies depending on the season, but otherwise the basics are there.  All veggies and fruit are organic or grown myself (in season)

All of this gets blended into a smoothie.

• Banana--hate that I can't find bananas as a local thing, but still keep them organic
• Couple cups of fruit, summer this comes locally from farmer's market, winter includes some organic frozen fruits
• Juice--I use Acai and currant juice currently, but any good fruit juice works (avoid any juices with sugar added)
• water enough to keep fluid
• Chia seed, couple tablespoons.  Chia is awesome, absorbs water and releases it back slowly, great for a distance runner
• handful of baby spinach leaves
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, good stuff, with the mother
• Local honey, a good squirt of it
• Udo's oil, 2 tablespoons Check out Udo's Here
• 2 Tbl Schulze's Superfood powder (assures I get my Bs) Superfood Powder link

Variations and additions:

• A peeled cucumber is great in a smoothie
• Fresh citrus juice.  In season I love to hand squeeze a few oranges or lemons into my smoothie
• A good greek yogurt, for high protein and probiotics
• Almond 'milk' in addition to the fruit juice
• My juice base varies considerably....sometimes I use all carrot juice
• A wheatgrass shot before a smoothie is a great start to the day

Use your imagination!!  Now put all that great energy and nutrition to good use and get outside and do something fun!  Walk, run, bike, yak, sup, yoga, hike....anything that gets the body moving!  

Another Porter

So as some of you may know, I love my beer, good craft beer.  I also brew my own beer.  Think I've posted some pics of a batch awhile ago.  Well my favorite beer is a Porter, love to make it, love to drink it.  I use extract due to limited space and not having tools for full-grain.

So my latest batch is a Deschutes Black Butte Porter clone.  It was bottled around the 1st of the year and should be ready to start opening any day now!  I naturally carbonate my beer in the bottle so have to wait awhile before opening.  I have never had a bad batch of beer I've made and this should be a good one as well.  Here's the recipe:

• 7 Lbs liquid malt extract
• 1 Lbs Base grains
• 1.13 Lbs Specialty Grains
• Yeast: White Labs London Ale WLP013

I was going to explain the process, but I noticed I already posted awhile ago with a Dark Cascadian so you can check out the pics of an almost complete process here: Give Me Head, Cascadian Dark


The porter is done, carbonated, and getting drunk a little too rapidly!  Its hard not to enjoy it bunches when homemade is sooooo good!  Already plans to make some more soon, to avoid buying it.  Don't quite have the overlap synced just right to always have my own beer on hand, but getting closer.

CIAO!