What do you do to celebrate a blizzard? Why make chili of course! It's turning out to be kind of a dud on the blizzard scale, maybe a 2 on a scale where 10 is a serious blizzard, but I had planned to spend the day off the roads so last night I dug out enough chili beans from the store room and brought in the tomatoes and the hamburger I would need today.
I start out with 5 gallons of tomatoes, 6 pounds of ground meat (I've used hamburger, ground turkey, ground venison and ground pork. They all taste a little bit different, but all are good.) and 6 cans of chili beans.
Today, I used 3 good sized yellow onions. I usually use dried onion tops, but when I went to look for them this morning, I found I was out. I was rather disappointed. The green onion tops add some color to the chili. I used to use green peppers and the onions didn't much matter, but Grampa Tom seems to have developed an allergy to green peppers in the last year.
The spices I use are chili seasoning, dried hot peppers, sea salt, black pepper and cocoa. Yes, cocoa! I know it sounds weird, but years ago I found a recipe that called for it and whenever I forget it, my family really notices.
I use my heavy pressure canner pot to make the chili in because regular stock pots tend to burn anything that you are going to simmer for hours. It's kind of a pain, because I have to put all the soup in jars and then hurry up and wash it, but it just works better that way. Maybe someday I'll get another big heavy pot like this.
The first step is to thaw and brown the ground meat. I like to have all my chili done by the first part of January, but the last time I thought the weather would be right for chili, Grampa Tom reminded me that we would be getting a lot of hamburger when we butchered the cows and suggested I wait instead of buying more ground turkey. So, I waited.
The next step is to peel the tomatoes. I love the way I do this now. I just cut off the stems and any bad parts and throw them in the freezer. When I go to use them, I just put the tomatoes in warm water and the skins slip right off! Don't even need a knife.
I put the tomatoes whole into the pan with the ground meat. Some people would puree the tomatoes and the onions, but I like my soup chunky.
Then I put in the beans. Someday I'm going to grow a bunch of kidney beans and figure out how to season them to make my own chili beans, but I haven't got there yet.
I also need to figure out how to make my own chili powder. I'm sure we grow all of the ingredients. Goals, goals, goals. Oh, sorry. Rabbit trail. I add 3 tablespoons of sea salt, 1 tablespoon of black pepper, and 5 heaping tablespoons each of chili powder and cocoa powder.
Then I chop up some hot peppers and add them. I'm not real picky about what kind they are. I think today I ended up putting in a combo of jalapeno, chilies, cayennes and habaneros.
I also chopped up the onions and threw them in.
And then I let it simmer for several hours.
Once the tomatoes are falling apart, I hot pack the chili into quart jars. I think this recipe makes about 12 quarts, but I've never made it without feeding my family before doing the canning. I pressure can the jars at 10 pounds for 90 minutes. If you left the meat out and used only red tomatoes, you could get by without a pressure canner and just add the meat later.
I like to have lots of chili on hand. I use it for more than just soup. Lots of times I'll add a bit of flour to it to thicken it up.
And use it for filling for tacos.
Or in taco salad.
Sometimes I just drizzle chili on tortilla chips, add some cheese and pop it in the microwave for quick nachos. Don't have a picture of that though.
I know, using chili for these things is a little weird, but it's quick and it's easy, it's filling and it tastes good! On a busy day that's just important!
God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue
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