Oct, 17 Fri: 11:00 am Children’s Story Time
Oct 24 Fri: 11:00 am Children’s Story Time
Oct 31Fri: 11:00 am Children’s Story Time
cover photo – Kelly Sikkema
Warm up to toasty, tasty chili
(Family Features) Whether cooking for a crowd or serving up a regular weeknight meal for two, nothing warms the body and pleases the appetite like a bubbling pot of rich, flavorful chili.
A classic, satisfying meal, chili offers comfort in a bowl. Easy to double up into big batches, it’s the ultimate time saver for busy families. You can even freeze it to enjoy later or portion it out for delicious lunchtime leftovers the next day.
These three rich and meaty chili recipes make the perfect addition to your weekly family dinner routine or when company is stopping by. Each recipe features the robust, savory flavors of beef, a favored ingredient in many chili dishes.
Whether served with warm rice, tortilla chips, cornbread or by itself in a bowl, don’t forget to top off your chili feast with a tasty array of toppings. With chopped chives, green onions, sour cream, specialty cheeses and other goodies, you can add texture and taste to this popular cold weather cuisine.
For more recipes, visit The Beef Checkoff at www.BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com.
Smoky Chipotle Chili
Total time: 2 1/2 hours
Servings: 6–8
2 1/2 pounds beef shoulder, arm or blade roast boneless, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
1 teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans (14 1/2 ounces each) diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions, undrained
1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
2 tablespoons adobo sauce from chipotle peppers
1 tablespoon minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed, drained
3 tablespoons masa harina
Dairy sour cream
Cut beef roast into 1/2-inch pieces. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in stockpot over medium heat until hot; brown beef in batches and remove from stockpot. Season with salt.
Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in same stockpot over medium heat. Add garlic; cook and stir 1 minute. Add beef, tomatoes, beer, adobo sauce and chipotle peppers; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover tightly and simmer 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours or until beef is fork-tender.
Stir in beans and masa harina; return to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 1–2 minutes or until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Serve with sour cream, as desired.
Beef and Chorizo Chili
Total time: 45–50 minutes
Servings: 4–6
1 pound ground beef (95 percent lean)
7–8 ounces beef chorizo
1 1/2 cups chopped white onions
2–4 medium serrano peppers, chopped
2 tablespoons ground ancho chili powder or regular chili powder
2 tablespoons masa harina or cornmeal
1 tablespoon dried Mexican or regular oregano leaves, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
2 cans (15–16 ounces each) garbanzo beans or pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
Hot cooked rice (optional)
Optional toppings:
Sliced radishes
Crumbled queso fresco
Dairy sour cream
Sliced green onions
Dressing:
1 medium ripe avocado
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Add beef, chorizo, onions and peppers; cook 8–10 minutes, breaking into 3/4-inch crumbles and stirring occasionally. Remove from skillet with slotted spoon; pour off drippings. Return beef to skillet.
Add chili powder, masa harina, oregano and salt; cook and stir 1 minute. Stir in beans and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes before serving.
To make dressing, cut avocado into chunks. Place avocado, water, lime juice, garlic and salt in blender container. Cover; process until smooth. May be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.
Serve chili over rice with toppings and dressing, if desired.
Note: Cooking times are for fresh or thoroughly thawed ground beef. Ground beef should be cooked to internal temperature of 160°F. Color is not reliable indicator of doneness.
Chilly Day Beef Chili
Total time: 6 1/2 hours on HIGH, 9 1/2 hours on LOW
Servings: 6–8
2 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck or round, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cans (15 1/2 ounces each) black beans, rinsed, drained
1 can (15 1/2 ounces) chili-style tomato sauce with diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup prepared thick-and-chunky salsa
Optional toppings:
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Diced red onion
Diced green onion
Diced avocado
Dairy sour cream
Combine all ingredients except salsa and toppings in 4 1/2 to 5 1/2-quart slow cooker; mix well. Cover and cook on HIGH 5 1/2 to 6 hours, or on LOW 8–9 hours, or until beef is tender. (No stirring is necessary during cooking.)
Just before serving, stir in salsa; cook 2–3 minutes or until heated through. Serve with toppings, as desired.
Source: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System to host career fairs
Hutchinson, KS – Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System (HRHS) will be hosting two career fairs. The first fair will be Tuesday, October 14 from 5:30-7:30 p.m., and the second fair will be on Saturday, October 18 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. Both fairs will be located in the Pavilion, the building to the northeast of the main hospital entrance.
Kevin Chiles, Vice President of Human Resources, said this is a great chance for anyone who has a passion for caring for others to learn what our organization has to offer.
“We are pleased to have this chance to highlight the opportunities, as well as the extraordinary people, we have within our organization,” Chiles said.
Interested job candidates are encouraged to bring a copy of their current resume for review. Current job openings can be found on the Hutchinson Regional website: www.hutchregional.com/inspiredcareers.aspx
Questions regarding the career fairs can be directed to Human Resources, 620-665-2032. For those who are unable to attend either career fair, applications can be submitted via the website.
The Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System includes Hutchinson Regional Medical Center, Hospice & HomeCare of Reno County, Health-E-Quip, Ray E. Dillon Living Center, Horizons Mental Health Center and the Hutchinson Regional Medical Foundation.
Golf in the badlands
A few weeks ago we went on a trip to South Dakota into the Black Hills and the surrounding area. We stayed in Keystone, S. D. as our home base and branched out from there to see the sites. Keystone is a cute little tourist town that is in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore and near Crazy Horse Mountain.
Our first night out from Hutchinson we stayed in Wall S. D. and it was a long drive to get there. There were not any really good looking motels but we were so tired we just picked one and got a room.
The main reason we stayed there was so we could see Wall drug. It is quite a place to visit. The guy that started Wall drug store put himself on the map as the soda fountain that gave you free ice water.
As businesses would sell to him he added them to Wall drug and it is about 2 blocks square and it felt like it when we were in there. The old drug store is still in operation and is about in the middle of it all and the other stores all open up onto two main halls with one that connects the two main ones.
I was afraid I was going to get lost in there so I found the restaurant which is near the middle and waited there for everyone. We tried one of their famous home made donuts and of course the free ice water.
After seeing everything we could in Wall, S. D. we loaded up in the van and headed for Keystone. We found a new motel at the edge of town and decided to stop there and it was a wonderful place to stay. It became our home base while we were in the area around Keystone.
Out side the north door that we used all the time was a large hill and along the bottom of the hill was a rock wall. Every time we went out the door there were chipmunks on the wall scampering around.
So every morning when we had breakfast I would take a couple of the little mini muffins and wrap them in a napkin and go out and see the chipmunks. They were not tame enough to come to you and take the food but you knew you were being watched when you went out there.
I would break the little muffins into small pieces and spread them out amongst the rock ledges and then step back by the door to watch. I would barely be back at the door when the first one would scamper over to the rocks.
In a few seconds all 5 of them were there for their breakfast. One would always grab a piece and head for his burrow a few feet away from the rock wall and would disappear under ground with it. Then he would come back and eat some sitting on the rocks. It was a nice way to start the day to feed the cute little guys.
The area around Mt. Rushmore has changed because you can see it for miles now, in fact when you leave Keystone and round a bend you can see it above the trees for just a few seconds.
Also the area at the base where you view the mountain has changed. It is really regal around there now and makes viewing it a lot easier than it did back in the 60’s.
Then we went to Crazy Horse Mountain and spent the afternoon. I saw it in the early 60’s and they didn’t have much done but now the head and face of Crazy Horse and the flat part on top of the pointing arm is finished.
They have now decided to work on the horses head before finishing the arm and Crazy Horse. They have the outline of the horses head painted on the mountain so the tourists can see what they are going to do. It is really going to be awesome some day.
The drive through the Badlands took almost three hours or more and it was something that will make you believe in a higher being that made this earth and created the Badlands. I have never seen anything quite like them.
The Badlands are mostly rock formations that are hard to explain to some one that has not seen them. They are so immense and beautiful. We stopped at every over look and got out to see the sights from that new vantage point.
At one of the sites where the view opened up into a huge canyon one of our husbands said that it would be a great spot to hit a golf ball from and would be a really tough hole to play. So one of them grabbed a club out of the back of the car and a tee and a golf ball and teed it up by the sidewalk.
I grabbed the camera and told him to swing the club. While I was taking pictures of him getting ready to swing a woman walked up to me and said; “can I take a picture of that?” I told her to go ahead because no one would believe her when she told them about a guy playing golf in the Badlands without a photo.
He didn’t actually hit the ball because you would never find it and we would have probably been arrested if he had. But we joked all the way home about them playing golf in the Badlands and that the pictures would be great Christmas cards.
The Badlands was definitely one of the highlights on the trip for all of us and we hated to drive out of them and back to normal scenery. That is a must for anyone’s Bucket List; see the Badlands.
On the way home we stopped in North Platte, NE. and saw the Bailey Train Yard and went up in the Golden Spike Tower. This is another must on a trip to Nebraska. I could have stayed in the Tower all day watching them work with the train cars.
The Rail yard is 8 miles long and 145 tracks wide (at least). They put together the trains for Southern Pacific that go both east and west from there. They bring the cars that will be added to trains into the yard and back those up to humps where they are sorted one at a time as they slowly go over the hump and are directed by computer onto one of 65 tracks for the east bound trains. For those going west there is another hump they go over and are sorted onto at least 45 tracks to be pulled and added to another train.
They also do repair work on locomotives and rail cars in the rail yard also. One can not imagine how big the place is unless you get up 8 stories to see it all below you. There is a volunteer retired railroad man in the tower all the times that will tell you all about what you see going on. We really enjoyed the time we spent there.
It was a fun trip and one that had more exciting things to see and do than we expected when we took off. It is a trip that I highly recommend to anyone that wants to see some awesome sights to inspire and remember for a lifetime, but don’t try to play golf in the Badlands. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
Fishing regulations focus of next commission meeting
Public hearing portion of meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m.
PRATT – It may be prime hunting season in fall, but staff at the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) are already working hard to plan for the 2015 fishing season. Several regulatory changes pertaining to traditional rod-and-reel fishing, as well as non-traditional forms such as floatlining, will be heard and voted on at the Oct. 16 Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Commission meeting in Salina. The meeting will be held at Martenelli’s Restaurant, 158 S. Sante Fe, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and reconvene at 6:30 p.m. for the evening session.
The afternoon session will begin with time for public comments on non-agenda items, followed by a general discussion period. Topics covered in the general discussion include Secretary’s remarks regarding agency and state fiscal status; an update on the 2015 legislature; an update on Tourism Division activities; a series of regulations pertaining to antelope and elk; permanent big game regulations; and a series of deer regulations.
Workshop topics for the afternoon session, which will be discussed for potential regulatory action at a future meeting, include general fishing provisions, boating identification numbers and decals, and vehicle permits.
The commission will recess at 5 p.m., then reconvene at 6:30 p.m. at the same location to discuss any remaining workshop items and begin the public hearing. Public hearing items to be discussed and voted on during the evening session include eliminating the need for a permit to floatline fish; increasing the mesh size allowed in seines and cast nest used for taking baitfish; certain creel, size, and possession limits; other special fishing provisions; camping and utility fees at Sandhills State Park; threatened and endangered species; and general provisions related to nongame species.
Time will be available in both the afternoon and evening sessions for public comment on non-agenda items. If necessary, the commission will reconvene at the same location at 9 a.m., Oct. 17, to complete any unfinished business.
Commercial-free live video and audio streaming of the meeting will be broadcast through ksoutdoors.com.
If notified in advance, the department will have an interpreter available for the hearing impaired. To request an interpreter, call the Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at 1-800-432-0698. Any individual with a disability may request other accommodations by contacting the Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Commission secretary at (620) 672-5911.
The next commission meeting is scheduled for January 8, 2015 at Bonner Springs Parks and Recreation, Sunflower Room, 200 E. 3rd St., Bonner Springs.
Source: Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism
