Chili

Since I am not a purist, I am planning to try making chili with beans from scratch, inspired by a sale on “London broil” steaks at $1.59 a pound, and Deb’s recent successful experiment cooking black beans that we ate with rice and corn.

Once upon a time, I regularly made what I call faux chili.  It was based on cheap cans of Campbell’s pork & beans.  I’d fry some ground beef with peppers and onions, garlic powder and chili powder, mix in the beans and usually some tomato paste - soup in a pinch, spicing and sweetening it more later as needed, including possibly the addition of ketchup.  I’d cook the crap out of it and it was yummy, but it was also entirely its own flavor, not something I expected other chili to resemble.  I fell out of the habit of making this when I shared a house with my stepsister, as she frowned on my use of the kitchen for anything that seemed that messy or time-consuming.

For chili dogs now and then I’d use the canned Hormel stuff, which isn’t great but is what it is and is convenient.

We’ve gotten increasingly into the idea of scratch cooking here, and experimenting with outrageously inexpensive yet healthy ingedients like dry beans.  That goes back to when I made pea soup myself for the first time, and was amazed that it was the best pea soup I’d ever tried.

So here I am with a couple cheap yet nice looking hunks of beef and some dry pinto beans.  Deb’s going to pre-cook the beans for me this afternoon.

Now, I’ll wing it and do what feels right, but I thought I’d solicit relatively last minute commentary on technique and ingredients.  I plan to go to the store on my way home, as I forgot to get tomato paste or anything similar, in case I want to through that in.  Probably puree or soup would make more sense, as with my faux chili the paste was as much a thickener and darkener as it was for adding tomato flavor.  (Come to think of it, I might already have paste in the cabinet and have forgotten it...)

I’m thinking along the lines of cutting the meat into small chunks, cooking it in a frying pan along with some Vidalia onion, yellow and/or green bell pepper, and garlic.  I’ll spice the meat at the time with chili powder and whatnot.  Originally I was thinking little more than searing it, which is what I’d do for a crockpot or slower cooking in a pan.  Which was what I was originally thinking; cooking the beef into falling apart.  Then I’m thinking add the beans (or add the meat to the beans, as size may dictate), along with any liquid being added, be it water, tomato stuff, or whatever.

From there it’s cook and blend and taste and tweak until done enough to eat, and have bread and butter or maybe so cornbread on the side.

Any suggestions?

1. It just so happens that Val made his “Award winning Chili” yesterday, so you can check out his recipe here:

   http://www.babalublog.com/archives/000386.html

   Let us know how it turns out!

   Posted by Amanda  on  08/21  at  02:47 PM

2. Ditto on the cooking from scratch thing.
   I recently spent 55.00 on a 6qt stainless steel pressure cooker. Beans go from the bag to soft in 45 min. Worth every penny.

   Posted by  on  08/23  at  12:56 PM

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