The Great Chili Treasure Hunt….

The Great Chili Treasure Hunt….

Soups happen to be one of my absolute favorite things to work on in my kitchen. 

I love the dicing of the vegetables. I feel the stress of my day melting away when I am cleaning, peeling, dicing and measuring vegetables.   I have wondered more than once what that means about me.  I mean using a sharp tool to chop things into tiny bits to eat can seem just a bit passive aggressive, right?

I’ve mastered the Farmer Boy’s Grandmother’s recipe for Chicken and Noodles, which morphed into a family favorite of beef and noodles. A chicken and wild rice recipe that I made after having a great bowl of something similar at a restaurant close to Cabela’s is a regular winter favorite with us. My favorite broccoli and cheese soup is from my piano teacher and pastor who I took Bible Instruction class from in junior high. I have access to amazing canned locker beef that is raised on our farm and can whip up vegetable beef and barley without too much effort.

I thank a close college friend who shared a recipe for Potato soup from the Iowa Machine Shed when the three K’s (Kim, Kristen & Kaitlyn) got together for a weekend onetime while we were still all single.  I have even learned how to make pea soup and an acceptable ham and bean soup… if you like those kind of soups.

I love how most of these have a story and have morphed into favorites in my kitchen. Fixing them is an acceptable substitute for seeing these people and places that matter to my soul.  I really love how soup can feed a bunch and is usually freezer friendly, too.  Which means…Supper presto! Soup is one of the few meals the Farmer Boy welcomes as leftovers.  Soup is my friend.

One soup I have struggled to master is the ever elusive Chili of Noteworthy Status. 

I grew up in a home where chili was a way to use up the bonanza of canned tomatoes Mother Bean put up every year.  It was a simple pound of ground beef browned with onions, added to a quart of those home canned tomatoes and a big can of Mrs. Grimes Chili Beans.  You ate it with saltine crackers.  It was basic.  It offended no one and ran true to my not so spicy heritage of Swedish and Norwegian ancestors.

I married a man who loves chili. The Farmer Boy loves chili with some spice and thickness.  He admits that chili is the one dish that his grandmother on the farm (who is known to me as a paragon of farmhouse cooking from my husband’s childhood and early adult life) did not own.  She was a chili maker who added sugar not heat.  He is willing to eat chili from a can. 

Insert shudder.

So for the 15 years we have been married, I’ve been trying to improve upon my chili recipe.  I think I’ve finally done it.  When I served this version of Chili, the Farmer Boy asked if I had written it down so I could make it again. 

Finally… I can move on to redeeming my reputation as a mediocre cookie maker…. 

Maybe I’ll just enjoy success with Chili.

Kate’s Chili for a crowd

The Groceries:

2 pounds Ground beef browned with 1 medium onion and mostly drained of fat  

2 Cans Chili Beans in chili gravy

2 Cans Black Beans, rinsed

1 Can Northern beans, rinsed

1 Can Red Kidney Beans, rinsed

1 Can White Kidney Beans, rinsed

1 Can Rotel tomatoes (I used mild, but you can spice it up)

1 Quart of canned or fresh tomatoes

1 Cup of diced Onion

1 Tablespoon of Minced garlic

2 Envelopes of McCormick Mild Chili Seasoning

¼ C Wahoo Chili Seasoning from Tastefully Simple

The Process:

Brown the ground beef with onion and drain off most of the grease, but don’t be all no-fat about it.  Chili needs just a little fat to make the spices bloom.

One of my favorite tools in the kitchen
is this Chopper from Pampered Chef.
It has become a favorite gift to give!
I'm not being compensated for
putting this up or the link to one of
 my favorite consultants. I just
wanted to share the joy.

Add meat and spices to a pot where you have dumped in the rinsed beans, chili beans in chili gravy, diced onion, garlic, tomatoes and Rotel.

Simmer for several hours or put in crock pot on low for 4-6 hours.

Serve with cheddar cheese, corn chips, sour cream, fresh diced onion. Our family loves a side of corn bread.  

Hint: If your crock has a removable container, you can put a liner in it and freeze the left overs and remove from the crock when it is frozen.  Place the soup puck wrapped in the crockpot liner in a gallon or two gallon freezer Ziplock and you are ready to just pop it in some morning before you head off to work.