Some Good Eatin'

My wife is a great cook. Obviously, my mom is too. My in-laws are not too shabby, either. There's lots of good cooks in my family. I can't hold a candle to any of them. I mean, hey, I've messed up macaroni and cheese (but that's another story).

But there's one thing I can cook: chili. I make a mean chili. I've actually won 3 chili cook-offs!! (Of course, two where at church and one at work, but still...)

The recipe started life as my Aunt Audeen's Winter Chili recipe. I took that wonderful base and morphed it into a work of art. The only drawback is that it makes a LOT. A whole lot. For me, that's not a problem. I have a big 8-quart cooker that I use. You can try to half the recipe, but I say just go buy a big cooker. You'll want lots of it!

Below is the recipe. Pretty simple to make. Mostly just chopping vegetables and opening cans. The secret is in the spices. Start with what is listed below, and then just season it how you like.

Another thing is to cook it two to three hours, but not much more. If you cook it too long, it kind of wimps out. Less than that, and everything doesn't flavor up like it should.

Last thing: eat it with a dab of cheese, sour cream if you're into that kind of thing, and some high quality tortilla chips.

Let me know if you liked it.

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2 tbs vegetable oil
4 lbs ground beef
4 bell peppers (different colors)
1 large onion
2 large cans crushed tomatoes
2 small cans tomato paste
2 cans ranch style beans
2 cans black beans
2 cans whole kernel corn
2 cans ranch style beans w/jalapeno
2 cloves garlic
3 tsp black pepper
4 tsp chili powder
3 tsp cayenne pepper
5 tsp seasoned salt
2 tsp cumin

Brown the meat. Chop up all the vegetables and lightly sauté them. Open the cans. Do not drain. Throw everything into a giant cooker and stir. You may need to add 1 – 2 cups of water, depending on how wet your canned vegetables are - just make sure that it is wet when you start cooking. Make sure you don't have any tomato paste globs. Cook for approximately 2 hours on medium heat.