Chillin' With Chili

Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami

I don't think they'll ever settle the debate about what nature's perfect food is but when it comes to man-made food, I've got to put chili right up there near the top. Ok, sure it's not as fancy as a lot of your other foods, but pound for pound, not much else is as satisfying.

One of the big benefits, of course, is the fact that you can customize it to suit your audience. For example, if you've got a bunch of west coast, wine drinking, non-meat eaters, well hell that's not a problem, just leave out the meat :-) You can even throw in some of that tofu stuff if you want to or some fake soy meat-like substance. That's all part of the beauty of chili.

It's also pretty damn simple to make. If you want to go really old school with your chili and break out the big pots and figure out what the hell "simmer" means, you can do that. But to make a great chili you don't have to slave over a pot all day. Here's what you need:

1 crock pot (they're electric, you plug it in, it cooks stuff)
1 frying pan
1 pound lean hamburger
1 large can tomato sauce
1 medium can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can sliced/diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions
1 can pinto beans
1 can great northern beans
3 cans kidney beans (mix it up though, dark with light)

You'll want some spices too. Get some onion powder, some garlic powder, maybe some greek seasoning, celerty flakes and parsley flakes. I can't give you any proper measurments with these things. Season to taste :-)

Alright, now here's the tricky part. Brown the hamburger in the pan. And when I say brown, I mean brown. If it's still flopping around in the pan bleeding, it ain't done. Cook it til it's done or your chili will send everyone to the bathroom for all the wrong reasons.

Once the meat is done, so is most of your cooking. Drain the beans. Canned beans always have this stuff in there which is . . . I dunno, bean juice I guess. Drain that stuff out. It'll make your chili thin. Then all you have to do is put everything into the crock pot. Be smart though, don't just dump it in. Put it in one can at a time and stir it up now and then so it's not a big mess.

That's pretty much all there is to it. You'll be wondering how long to cook it. The answer is simply as long as you can. The longer the better. One of the great things about a crock pot is that it doesn't burn anything. It cooks at a low temperature so you don't have to worry about it. Me, I like to throw my chili together around 10 or 11 in the morning for that night's dinner. Of course, you can eat it any time you want. Everything you threw into the pot was already cooked so you're just heating it up but the longer you let it cook the better it's going to taste.

Ok, now the finer points. 1. don't put too much hot sauce in the chili. Some people actually like to taste their food. Have some bottles of tobasco sauce around and if they want a hotter meal, they can spice it themselves. 2. keep bread, crackers, extra onions and cheese around. People like to add this to their chili. 3. Your wine rules still apply here. Red meat, red wine, white meat, white wine. 4. Aren't hanging out with a wine crowd? Beer, of course. And 5. Use napkins for crying out loud! You're not a barbarian :-)

It's Super Bowl Sunday so get cooking and impress your friends!

Enjoy!