Turkey Chili

Our monthly "Healthy Cooking Day" at SAM (Stroke Recovery Association of Manitoba) was once again a lot of fun.

It is amazing how much fun it is to share in making healthy lunches for ourselves and it is exciting to see some growth in the number of people attending. We are at about 6 to 8 people attending now.

We try to find healthy food options that we can enjoy together and trying to figure out easy ways to prepare it. This is especially tricky without a stove so we are really working on using what is available to us.

We decided at the previous lunch that this month would be Turkey Chili. We thought we would do it as low fat as possible and we also tried to make it fast and easy. One of our members, Murray, brought a hands free can opener for us to use. You just set it on top of the can and push a button and the can gets opened. It is such a great option for people with limited use of one of their hands. It worked just great and we really would recommend it. I was going to take pictures but I forgot my camera this time so you will just have to use your imagination.

I brought my larger non-stick electric frying pan and we got to work chopping.

The menu this time was Turkey Chili on Whole Wheat rolls. Jim was kind enough to bring homemade muffins. "Mrs Jim" is a wonderful baker!

Turkey Chili

0.75 k of lean ground turkey
1/2 large green pepper chopped fine
1/2 large red pepper chopped fine
2 ribs of celery chopped fine
1/2 large white onion chopped fine

1 28 oz can of tomatoes
1 12 oz can of kidney beans drained
1 12 oz can of black beans drained

Add chili powder, salt & pepper to taste. (Easy on the salt, after all we are trying to be healthy here)

We chopped the vegetables and fried them up. We fried up the ground turkey meat. The non-stick surface made oil or fat unnecessary and it was fine, but a bit might have been a good idea. Next we added the tomato, beans and spices and we stirred it up carefully. We brought the mixture to a boil while stirring frequently, then we lowered it to a simmer, put the lid on and let it cook for about 30 minutes stirring occasionally. We sampled it part way through and decided to add some more chili powder to "heat" it up a little more.

It was delicious. Honest!

We discussed options for next time and the final choice is Pannini Variations. The plan started with Havarti cheese and turkey on rye but we are now planning on using different cheeses, different deli meats and a few different add ins for us to choose from. We will also have a raw veggie platter with dip. YUMMM