I decided a few days ago I wanted to conquer the beast that had always frightened me: chili. Personally, I'm not a fan of anything too spicy and I don't cook with a lot of beans, plus I've never had a really great reason to whip up a chili when I could just as easily make a succulent beef stew (that'll be another post!). However, chili came up in conversation as a favorite of someone whom I owed some kindness, so I set myself up for the adventure. This definitely gets bonus points for being a one-and-done recipe, in that you throw everything in a crockpot and walk away, and it turns out that while it's spicy, the tomatoes balance it out so nicely that even I can eat it! Happy reading...
The other wonderful thing about this recipe (that also adds major bonus points) is that the ingredients are fairly inexpensive but the dish itself feeds a lot of people and re-heats beautifully for leftovers.
You'll need...
- 2 - 3 pounds of ground beef
- 3 green bell peppers
- 1 large, sweet onion
- 1 - 3 cloves of garlic
- 15oz dark red kidney beans (drained)
- 15oz vegetarian chili
- 1 packet McCormick chili seasoning
- 10oz diced tomatoes and green chili
- 30oz tomato sauce (two 15oz cans of plain sauce)
- 14oz stewed tomatoes
You can cook all of this on a simmer for a few hours in a pot, or you can use a crockpot like I did. Set the crockpot to high and make sure it can hold at least 4 quarts -- that's how much chili this recipe will produce.
Brown the meat you have in a large skillet, then drain the fat. Don't ignore this part! If you don't drain the fat, it will all float at the top and be icky and no one wants to eat icky fat-floating chili.
While the beef is browning...
...chop up the vegetables.
Add the veggies and drained beef into your crock pot.
Get some garlic together. You can use one clove, but these were small/I have a minor obsession with garlic; I used three.
Mince the garlic nice and finely and add it to the pot.
All the rest of your ingredients get poured directly into the pot...
...but make sure to drain the liquid out of the kidney beans first!
Stir everything together! Make sure to stir slowly but thoroughly -- if all of your ingredients are crammed into your crockpot like mine, you'll need to make sure the liquid gets down to the bottom; if you don't allow the liquid to spread it will overflow. This crockpot holds exactly 4 quarts and it just reached the lip of the pot, so make sure your pot can hold all this yummy stuff or else cut down on the ingredients!
This took me about twenty minutes to get together, and most of that time was spent waiting for the meat to brown. After that, it needs to be covered and cooked on high (or simmer on the stove) for at least three hours, but why not let it cook longer? Another bonus point item: you can't burn chili, only cook it so long that it keeps getting more delicious.
You can serve this with a baked potato, cornbread, or (if you're anything like my boyfriend) the tortilla scoop chips. He claims it's better to eat chili with those than with a spoon. We'll see how that goes when he gets home. Happy cooking and happy days!
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