Teaching myself to cook, one recipe at a time.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

“First Time” Chili

At work, I received a mass-email inviting me to participate in a big chili cook-off, a fundraiser of some sort. I ignored the offer because even if I like to cook, that doesn’t mean I’m very confident that strangers might like my cooking or even prefer it to other strangers’ cooking.

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But then the emails kept coming. And coming. And coming. Finally, I figured that they were low on entrants and actually needed people. I liked those odds, so I typed up a reply email, hovered over my mouse for about 10 minutes, and finally hit “send.”

First step was coming up with a good name. I’d heard from other people at work that the name was key because people’s votes could be swayed by a clever name. I asked around for help because I was hopeless – I just call my recipe “chili.” I vetoed anything that had my name in it, because let’s face it, “Jolie’s delicious chili” is a stupid name. Finally, hubby grinned with a triumphant look as he calmly said “Call it ‘First Time’ chili.” I was confused but wasn’t sure if I wanted to admit that I didn’t get it. “First time chili?” I finally asked. “Yeah, because it’s the ‘first time’ you’ve had chili this good!” Ding ding ding, I had my name.

I felt confident that my recipe is unique. It’s my own combination of two different recipes: my mom’s, typed up and emailed, and one on allrecipes.com. Even my mom’s is never the same, as you could tell in her email: “a bunch of tomatoes, fresh or canned or smooshed," etc. Basically, what I ended up doing a few years ago is combining mom’s spices with the base ingredients of the recipe I found online to find one that suited my idea of what chili should be.

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I start off with a green pepper and an onion. I like to chop them up pretty finely, since I don’t think that huge chunks of either really belong in chili.

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Then brown some ground beef with chopped garlic. God,I love this deep skillet. I think it’s the one pot that I use most often.

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Cook until browned, then drain. Add the onion and green pepper, and cook it until the veggies are tender.

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While it’s cooking, drain and rinse some red kidney beans and pinto beans.

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When the veggies are soft, transfer the mixture to a slow cooker. Neither original recipe says to do it this way, but I have found that the longer it simmers, the better the flavor is, so I always plan to take a full day for this.

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Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.

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And the beans.

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And then all of your spices and seasonings, which includes cayenne pepper, brown sugar, oregano, black pepper, salt, cumin, chili powder, cloves, and cocoa powder.

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Stir it all up..

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And cover it and leave it alone.

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It simmered all day while I was at work, chilled overnight, and then simmered the whole next morning at work. I made two batches for the competition (borrowed an extra crock pot) and almost all of it was gone by the time the cook-off was over.

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There were some pretty interesting chilis there. There was one with beer and honey and venison, one that was Asian-inspired, one that tasted like Louisiana-style red beans and rice, and one that was vegetarian.

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I had typed up a list of ingredients for people to look at when they tasted mine. I have no weird compulsion to protect my secret recipe, and I figured people might appreciate it more if they knew what was in it.

Someone pocketed the list. Deliberately. This padded my ego.

And in the end, I won third prize and my very own apron. Woo hoo!

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Okay, yes, the competition was in 2010. I have since changed jobs. But that recipe is still called "First time chili” and it is still my personal favorite chili recipe. I took all these pictures a few months ago and never got around to posting. Writing this up is making my mouth water and now I want to go to the store for some ground beef and green pepper.

2 comments:

  1. My mouth is also watering... note to self: buy chili ingredients. Your blog is inspiring and it always makes me hungry!

    ReplyDelete