Cooking With Bobby – Chili

With the cold weather and howling winds last night, a nice batch of chili sound great. However, I made one big mistake.

Everyone has their own delicious recipe for chili and I would love it if you would send me yours. I used our family recipe for chili last night and was feeling a little daring. Yeah... shouldn't have done that. Below is our family recipe and then further down is what I added that really spiced things up.

Ingredients needed:
2 to 2 1/2 lbs of hamburger
1 large can of tomato juice
2 cans of chili beans (I used Mrs. Grimes)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 whole onion

First, brown the hamburger and drain the grease. Next, cut the onion in half and slice into small pieces, mix into the hamburger, and let it cook on low heat, stirring occasionally.

Next take your large can of tomato juice, two cans of chili beans, one can of diced tomatoes and pour into a large pot and cook on medium-to-high heat. Cut the other half of the onion up, slice into small pieces, and add to the chili. Once this is all done, I take the hamburger with onions and add to the chili. You can add all the hamburger to the chili if you like it meatier, or you can add 3/4ths of it and save the rest for a maid rite. Add chili powder for taste and stir occasionally until the chili is mixed up well and is nice and warm.

Last night, I decided to try something to make the chili even more filling. I took a small box of bow tie noodles and cooked them in a separate pot, in water. I brought the water to a boil, added the bow tie noodles, and cooked them for eight to ten minutes. I drained the water and added about half the noodles to the chili. That tasted really good and I should have stopped there... but NOOOOO, I had to be more adventurous.

Thinking I wanted to really spice up the chili, I added a can of Ro-Tel diced tomatoes and green chiles. I've done this in the past and it really spiced it up. For some reason, thinking I needed even more spice, I decided on jalapenos. I had a glass jar that was about 2/3rds full and you guessed it... I sliced them all into little pieces and added them to my chili. Usually, I would only add maybe a 1/4 jar of them, but for some reason, I got too wild last night.

The chili tasted really good and has a nice heat... but so does my tongue and even today, 12 hours later, I'm feeling the heat! I just hope the leftover chili doesn't burn through the Tupperware in the refrigerator.