Chili

Ok I always make chili and then love it and then wonder the next time what I did. Rather than have the “how many of this did I put in?” debate with myself I’m going to write up the recipe (or at least exactly what I just put into it this time) and post it so I always know where it is…

This is a pretty standard chili recipe though… no secret ingredients or anything interesting like that!

• Approx. 2 lbs ground beef (92% lean) (I think I used a little less than 2lbs)
• 4 small yellow onions
• A LOT of garlic (and I still didn’t use enough)
• 1 large green pepper - chopped
• 3 stalks of celery - chopped
• ½ large red pepper – chopped (first time I added this in and it was really, really good. Next time perhaps I’ll try some yellow pepper or perhaps even some jalapenos?)
• 1 can bush’s chili beans mild
• 1 can bush’s chili beans medium
• 1 can dark red kidney beans drained
• 1 can white cannonelli kidney beans drained - (I usually use light red kidney beans but they didn’t have any… the white ones tasted the same and added some color to the chili!)
• 2 cans diced tomatoes – onions and garlic flavor
• 1 can diced tomatoes – onions and green pepper flavor (I have used all varieties of canned tomatoes – I think I like using at least one can of the jalapeno ones best but this is what I happened to have on hand)
• Lots of Cumin
• Lots of Chili powder
• Lots of ground black pepper
• Little Chipolte seasoning
• Little Cayanne pepper seasoning
• Little salt

I browned the beef in one pan while sautéing the onions and garlic in olive oil in the big chili pot. Then when the beef was good and browned and the onions were nice and caramelized I added the beef to the big pot. Then I added everything else one can at a time and stirred… I kept seasoning it as it cooked b/c it takes awhile for all of the flavors to cook together. I let it simmer covered for around an hour or so… The recipe made enough for us for dinner (and Matt eats A LOT), A big tupperware to freeze (enough for dinner and leftovers for next time) and two big containers for lunches …. We’ll probably get at least 2 lunches each out of it. So yeah it serves a lot. We ate it with Kraft shredded “taco cheese mix” and crackers and tortilla chips. It's real good over rice too .

and yes I realize that chili isn't the prettiest of things to photograph but whatever...