Last Night's Chili Dinner.

Mr. Hawthorne and I watched Food Network's Ultimate Challenge Sunday and I decided to make one of the winning recipes for dinner last night -
Spanish Influenced Chili with Collard Wrapped Pork, Chorizo and Sweet and Smoky Paprikas.

And I guess I really don't need to write down the recipe since the title of the dish is pretty much it, but what else am I going to do with all those pretty pictures I took trying to get used to my
new camera while still mourning the loss of my old one?








First, Mr. Hawthorne cubed
2 1/2 pounds of pork butt.












First, Mr. Hawthorne coats the pork cubes
with olive oil.











Next, he added 2 TB. Hungarian Sweet Paprika and 1 TB of Smoked Paprika.












Then, he added a scant TB. of Liquid Smoke.
And salt and pepper.













Mound pork cubes on top of collard leaves.

Mr. Hawthorne wrapped up the collard leaves, then wrapped everything in a foil package.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 2 1/2 hours.

Here's my mise en place for the chili.

From bottom left, we have red pepper. Going clockwise, a large can of green chilies, chicken broth, a 28-oz. can of diced tomatoes, kidney beans, thyme, smoked paprika, sweet Hungarian paprika, oregano, parsley, garlic, a little jar of saffron, a large onion,
and finally, the chorizo sausage.

I had the jar of thyme and the tin of oregano just for labels. If you look closely, you'll see
I have fresh thyme and oregano from my garden on the board in front of the jars.

First, the beans start cooking.

Here, I've chopped up my onion, red pepper, thyme, oregano, parsley, and garlic.

Now, I started cooking this part about a half hour before my pork will be done.

Heat a bit of olive oil and add in the garlic for about a minute. Never brown your garlic.
It gets bitter.

Next, add in the chorizo and onions and cook for about 7-10 minutes.

Then add the red peppers, sweet paprika, smoked paprika, saffron, and oregano.

And cook for about one minute.
Isn't this pretty?

Add in the chicken stock.

Here are the tomato and the green chilies
waiting to go into the pot.

Add in the diced tomatoes and the green chilies, bring to a boil, and simmer about 5 minutes.

Halfway through cooking any type of beans, I always, drain them, rinse off, then add cold water back in the pan, put the beans back in, and continue cooking. I remember reading this in one of
Julia Child's books. She claims it helps control "intestinal motility."

Next, add the beans and thyme and cook for 5 more minutes.

Doesn't this look good?

Here's the collard-wrapped pork.

Carefully unwrap the collard greens.
This smells really good.

Some of the liquid in the pork package had spilled out in the pan, so Mr. Hawthorne added a bit of water and wine to deglaze.

Another picture of the pork bits.

Add the pork and its broth from the foil pack and
cook 5 more minutes.
Now, the recipe didn't say to do this, but I chopped up the collards
and added that to the mix, too.

Turn off heat and
add the fresh parsley.

I couldn't decide which picture I liked better,
so I used both.

I ladled the chili over top of a tostada, Semi-Ho'd it with pre-shredded cheese,
and added a bit of cilantro.

Now, I really liked this dish and would definitely make it again.
Mr. Hawthorne was not all that enthused about it, though.
Something is wrong with that man.