World's Best Chili

I was getting nervous for a few weeks. I could barely open the fridge without gagging. All I wanted was sourdough bread with goat cheese. Now I think about that combination and...Yeah. I'm currently eating oatmeal every morning, a turkey, brie, and apple sandwich with honey mustard for lunch, and something like guacamole with chips for dinner. I'll throw in an egg occasionally, or a piece of fish. And I always start my day with cantaloupe or grapefruit. I eat an apple and peanut butter for a snack around 4pm. That's literally been my diet for two weeks straight. Last night broke the mold though.

I'd been wanting to make homemade raviolis for a long time, and I finally felt like I could stomach a vegetable other than a red onion, so I asked my neighbor upstairs if she'd like to help me make some butternut squash ravioli. We used Emerill's recipe and it turned out FABulous. I wish I had a pasta roller, because the pasta was a bit thick, but the filling was to die for. In fact, I have a cup of squash puree left in my fridge, and I am going to add the rest of the filling ingredients and eat it plain for dinner. Yumm. I branched out and ate a salad last night too! I've been enjoying my mom's 1970s copy of the Joy of Cooking, and I found their Caesar Salad recipe to be intriguing - scary actually. You don't mix the dressing in advance. You just sprinkly some dried mustard, anchovies, oil, and an egg on top of the Romaine and then toss. That freaked me out, but it ended up being amazing. I'll post my tweaks soon. Without further ado, here's the recipe that brought me to the blog, despite a dirty kitchen floor and loads of cleaning...

You may know that I have a chili recipe on the site. It's for working moms, lazy cooks, and busy days. But now, I have a CHILI recipe. It's a little more time consuming, and requires a few more ingredients. However, this is the real deal. It's so much the real deal that I was eating it luke warm as I added ingredients to the crock pot. Mark invited some buddies over for football tomorrow and I'm considering telling the guests we just decided to order Domino's Pizza instead. They probably have, after all, undiscerning palates. Plus, I might just want it all for myself...

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons bacon grease
• 1 cup diced bell pepper
  
• 1/2 t of minced dried and reconstituted chipotle peppers
• 2 yellow onions, diced (about 2 cups)
• 5 cloves of garlic, mashed (with mortar and pestle if possible
  
• 2 pounds ground beef
  
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• 1 teaspoon chili powder (or more according to taste)
  
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1 32 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
  
• 1 can tomato paste
• 3.5 cups chicken or beef stock
• 2.5 cups of cooked pinto beans
• 1 teaspoon raw sugar
  

• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, sour cream, avocado slices, or crushed tortilla chips for garnish
  

Brown beef in 1 T bacon grease, unless your beef has enough of its own fat to get juicy. Add all seasonings from onion powder to salt.

Transfer to slow cooker. Add broth, tomato paste, and crushed tomatoes.

In same pan as beef, saute onions and peppers in 1 T butter and 1 T bacon grease. Add to slow cooker. Add beans, dried peppers and sugar.

Cook on high 4-6 hours or low 8 hours. It's best to make this the night before you plan to serve it to let the flavors meld, but its not necessary.

I'll be serving it with cornbread and biscuits tomorrow!