Chili

This should be a canning entry, but it’s not. Sadly, I’m waiting on my canning salt and ClearJel to get here. Without them both, I can’t start. Not that chili doesn’t stand on it’s own but still, I was really hoping to be using my pressure canner at this point. Just to explain a little before throwing some chili at you, Canning salt is not like other salts, it’s fine-grained that’s ok to use in pickling and canning. It’s free of anti-caking agents, which can cause the liquid to turn cloudy, as well free of iodine which can darken things.
 ClearJel is a food starch will not break down when heated to high temperatures and/or cooled and reheated, which is the entire canning process to begin with, so this is a must in alot of recipes. Not every recipe does take these two things, but what if one day you woke up thinking of making your own apple pie filling instead of tomato sauce? See, it’d be good to have in case you change your mind. It’s only avaible through online or mail order. So yeah, sadly I’m waiting so I have everything at my fingers tips.
 On with the chili, even though it’s summer, we still have chili alot. With four awesome kids that seem to plow through food faster than I can even get it on the table, chili is a good staple. (With my pressure canner I could can it, imagine that! Never without chili, ever again!!) Ok, enough of the canner…

   
Chili!

Ingredients
4 tablespoons canola oil, divided
4 pound boneless pork, cut into 3/4-inch cubes *first time I made this the kids weren’t into the pork, so I used ground beef, as lean as it can be, plus even ground turkey, shhh don’t tell the kids or my husband!*
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 can (4 ounces) chopped green chilies * I chopped up 1 of each pepper, yellow, red, green & orange as well  plus an onion*
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
1/2 to 1 cup salsa
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) chicken broth
*Now the original recipe doesn’t have beans in it, my husband will grimace and make faces at me if I ever made chili without beans, so I had about 3 cups of already cooked kidney beans tossed in here before I let it slow cook all day long. You can use canned, and really as much as you want depending on how many people your feeding. *