A big batch of chili can solve most problems. Make a huge pot of chili on a Sunday afternoon and you’ll save yourself from cooking dinner for most of the next week! As we transition into fall, it’s important to have hearty and iron-rich meals that warm the belly and the soul! I’ll leave it to you to post your favorite cornbread recipes in the comments!
This whole recipe will take about 3 hours from start to finish, so be sure to give yourself plenty of time so you aren’t ‘hangry’ before the chili is ready! I recommend planning for a mid-recipe snack of olives and cheese to tide-you over!
Chop up these things before you start. If you can, place each item that is chopped in its own bowl (like a cooking show), so you are ready to dump them into the pot when it’s their turn!
-1 yellow onion
-2 red bell peppers
-1 anaheim chili pepper
-1 red jalapeno
-1 green jalapeno
-4 garlic cloves (minced)
-15 leaves of fresh basil (basil is pretty easy to grow in your kitchen!)
Get the following ingredients ready and lined up on your kitchen counter (for the cans, go ahead and open them now to save you the trouble later!)
-Worcestershire Sauce
-1 can of light beer (I use Pabst Blue Ribbon)
-1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes
-1 (14.5 oz) can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (or if you’re feeling fancy, you can figure out how to fire-roast a half pound of tomatoes!)
-1 (12 oz) can of tomato paste
-1 bottle of white wine (go ahead and open this and pour yourself a glass, it will make the cooking process much more enjoyable!) You’ll only need ½ cup for the chili!
-2 tbsps Cumin
-1 tbsp Brown Sugar
-2 tsps Paprika
-1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp dried Oregano
-1 tsp Black Pepper
-2 cans of red kidney beans
-2 lbs of lean ground beef
In a large (large!) pot, heat 4 tbsps of olive oil on medium high heat. Then add all of the chopped peppers, the onion and the garlic. Let this cook and soften while you cook the ground beef. Cook the ground beef in a skillet on medium high heat for about 8 minutes (until it’s brown). Add the Worcestershire sauce. Add the beer (the whole can!). Cook until the liquid is hot!
Stir the beef into the pepper mixture. Add all of the canned tomatoes and the tomato paste. Stir. Add all of the spices and the brown sugar. Stir.
Bring all of this to a boil. Then simmer for about 90 minutes to really get the flavors going! (nb: ‘simmer’ means to keep it hot and just under the boiling point!)
Finally, mix the kidney beans into the chili and let it simmer (just under a boil) for about 30 minutes.
Breath deeply and smell how delicious your autumn kitchen smells! Serve and enjoy.
(ps: I originally stumbled upon this chili on allrecipes.com)
