My Chili

***Edited to add: Roadhouse Chili is now my favorite recipe. Hands down. It has more prep work but more flavor and kick. I think I'll change the "1/2 t cayenne pepper" to 1/4 t since I am a great big wimp. Other than that, it was perfect.


This is an old post from my regular blog. I'll post it here and then add the changes:

I have been trying several chili recipes for a while now. I have finally settled on this one, that for now, is our favorite. It's so easy, pretty cheap and makes a good bit of food. I love to have chili turkey dogs, chili fries or chili baked potatoes with left over chili too. Such a perfect time of food for this time of year! So here it is, in all it's simplistic glory:

1 pound ground turkey
3 or 4 cans of dark and light red kidney beans
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1t cumin
1/2t cayenne pepper
1/2t sea salt
1/2t fresh ground black pepper
2T chili powder

In case you are a remedial cook like I am, "t" is for teaspoon and "T" is for tablespoon. Imagine the disasters until I figured that out...

I add some water, about 3/4 cup, to make it more soupy. I love to do this in the crock pot, especially on Sunday mornings. When you walk in the house, the smell is fabulous! Allen adds hot sauce to his, while the kids and I like it wimpy. You can play with the spices, obviously, to get it to your liking.

So there it is. Simple. Wonderful!

~~~~~So here are the changes~~~~

Though it pains me terribly to do this, add one square of super dark (preferably organic) chocolate. I can't explain scientifically what it does, but it makes it better. And that makes sense. What in the world does chocolate not make better? It makes ME better all the time.

I've also gotten away from using canned products as much as possible. Here is a link with the explanation as to why:

BPA IN CAN LINERS

Buying dried beans is cheaper and safer. It takes a little more planning on my part, to remember to get them ready for my dish, but that's just good organization and time management skills (both of which I'm fabulous at... anyway.) 

Using the "quick soak" method for dried beans is not hard. I usually start them when I'm cooking breakfast and follow package instructions. Really easy. And cheap. Did I mention it's cheap and safer than canned beans?  Okay...

Now canned tomatoes are WORSE than canned beans because the acidity of the tomatoes causes the BPA to leach into the tomatoes. Super bad. So I just buy regular old tomatoes and chop them up and throw them into my soups. I add water to make up for the juice from the tomatoes. If I was really on top of things, I'd cook me down a ton of tomatoes, freeze them up with some of their own juice and then add them as needed. But since I stay very under things,  I chop up a tomato or two and throw them in. The soups take on a different color and a slightly different taste with the absence of the tomato juice, but hey, I'm not killing anyone with my chili.

Whew. 

So dried beans and fresh (or frozen from your freezer because your bestest friend gave you too many tomatoes from her garden last July and you chopped them up and froze them instead of making way too many tomato/mayo sandwiches or just *gasp* throwing them away) tomatoes.

So that's it. A very simple, won't kill you chili.