Chili, Dinners and Lunches all week

Chili is a bone of contention in our household and not for the usual beans or no beans. My contention is that chili should be made with small cubed meat. My wife believes that ground meat is the only way to go. Since I made it, I got to chose. This is another of those Sunday afternoon long slow cooks that I like to do while we do other things. Only thing I have learned through the years is don’t go away too long as the bottom sometimes burns. Here’s our recipe.

• 2 lbs small diced beef (I buy whatever is on sale since you are cooking it a long time)
• some flour
• olive oil
• onion
• green pepper
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 cans kidney beans
• 2 cans whole peeled tomatoes
• Bunch of chili powder
• Cayenne
• Salt and pepper

Put some flour, salt, and pepper in a ziploc with the beef and shake around to coat. In a hot dutch oven, add olive oil then throw the beef in flour into pot. Cook until nicely golden being careful not to move it around too much as you want it to brown. Once browned, remove from pan and set aside. add onion, pepper, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef back and then beans and tomatoes and stir making sure to scrape the bottom to get all the good stuff into the flavor. Add seasoning and let cook for a couple hours on a low simmer.

Made a mistake with this recipe and added too much salt. My fix, there were a couple potatoes sitting on the counter that I used to absorb the salt. Worked ok but not perfectly.

We tend to top or chili with either shredded cheese or sour cream and we serve it with cilantro and jalapenos.

In addition, served it with cornbread that we made by following the directions on the back of the bag so I won’t bore you with that bit. Only modification was to add a bit of charred frozen corn.