I’ve been a bit behind and so there are a whole bunch of recipes and goodies for you all out there. There’s been a lot going on with LJ moving in. (You can follow along at Manny’s Blog) Today I want to deliver the chili that I promised.
The beauty of the chili is that it is scalable. If you need to feed a ton of people just double everything for pounds and pounds of chili (all about 10 bucks or less.) This should make about four servings and is tasty even when its cold as a snack.
I used to have a roommate who swore by two things; using the fattiest, undrained ground beef possible, and roasting buckets of the hottest peppers on earth. Admittedly the chili was good. It was also a huge production and calorically dense. However, I think there are things that we can learn from his chili that will make our cheap and super easy chili stand out a bit.
I will never forget when his pepper roasting got a little out of control…Fogal made a pan of pepper spray and gassed us all out of the room. Although there is a great deal of flexibility with something like chili, sometimes less is still more. The goal of this chili is less heat, more complex flavor.
You’re going to want:
1lb Lean ground beef
1 can (14oz) of Diced Tomatoes, with Green Chilis, undrained
1 can kidney beans, undrained
1 Small onion yellow or red, both give a slightly different taste
1 Packet Chili seasoning
A little oil
Additional heat to taste. Experiment with this. I’ve used jalapenos before, as well as chili powder. For this recipe I used dried whole chilis.
In one pan brown and drain the ground beef. In a large pot ( I use a crock-pot sized dutch oven) wilt a small diced onion and your peppers. Manny provided me a mason jar full of dried whole chilis. The trick is to brown the beef hot to seal its flavor before it goes in the chili. Brown equals tasty, greyish equals bland.
Once your beef is done there is nothing else to it. Add the beef, undrained cans, and seasoning and stir it. The small amount of oil used to wilt the onions will help things stick and replace the fat from the beef with better fats in smaller amounts. Once it simmers, its once. However, I usually cover the pot and let the flavors meld together on low heat for another 10-15 minutes.
Enjoy. This is a basic foundation to bulid from. Theres many directions you could go from here. Try throwing in sliced baby portobello mushrooms with the onion!
Cooking Without Cash 