Strickly a Recipe

My cooking repertoire is tiny. I make a few recipes far too often. The following one used to appear in magazine ads, but darned if even googling will find it anymore. Glad I chopped it out and stuck it in my recipe book way back when.

This is really easy, filling, and oozing with enough veggies to make it a no-guilt dinner. (Especially if you skip the sour cream.) The first few times I made it I thought it was far too hot, but these days I toss in a few more jalapenos. Yum!


Veg-All Chili with Cornbread Crust

1 lb. ground beef
½ medium onion, chopped
2 cans (15 oz. each) Veg-All Original Mixed Vegetables, drained
1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (4 oz.) diced jalapeno peppers, drained
¾ c. water
1 package taco seasoning mix
salsa
sour cream

CRUST:
¾ c. all-purpose flour
½ c. yellow corn meal
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ c. milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp. oil
1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies

In 10-inch skillet, brown and cook ground beef; drain thoroughly. Return meat to pan. Add onion; return to heat and cook until tender. Add Veg-All, beans, jalapeno peppers, water, and taco seasoning. Cook over medium-high heat until most of the liquid is gone (while making crust should be long enough).

To make crust: In medium bowl, combine flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add milk, egg, oil and chiles; stir until flour is moistened. Spread evenly over top of meat mixture in skillet. Cook, covered, over low heat for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in crust comes out clean. Serve hot with salsa and sour cream.

4-6 servings.

NOTES: I've tried both ground turkey and faux ground beef (soy) with this, and both have worked great. However, I'm leery of just how much processing those faux soy products have, so I'll be experimenting with garbanzo beans or some such in the future in an effort to make this healthily vegetarian.

Though this is a Veg-All recipe, most stores have their own brands of canned mixed veggies, and they're fine. However, I have only been able to find low-sodium varieties in the Veg-All brand.

Being lazy, I usually use a full onion for this. I also use liquid egg product. There has never been a time when the cornbread came out as toasty-golden as the picture shows, and I think the photographer/stylist cheated. It will be kinda pasty yellow-white, but still very good!

If you're freezing portions, try to peel off the cornbread from the rest of the mixture or separate it in some way when you pack it in a container, as you might want to microwave the two sections separately so neither gets over-nuked.