Cheap & Easy Cheater Chili
To do chili properly, you need to make your own chili powder from actual chilies and make a paste and chop the meat and cook it in the oven and…, UGH! Who has that kind of time? Well I did it once and maybe one day I’ll do it again but I’ll have to take a vacation day to do it. Real chili is fantastic, but honestly, I like my near-chili much better. It’s also much, MUCH, easier to make and can be made in a hurry.
1 yellow onion (you can leave out, but why?)
1 package (1/4 lb) Ground beef or chicken or turkey
1 can 28oz Crushed tomatoes or Diced
1-2 cans of dark red kidney beans
½ bell pepper whatever color you desire
Chili powder and garlic salt
Take a tablespoon of oil, preferably olive but whatever oil you have on hand is fine (more on oils later). Heat the oil in a pasta pot over a low heat. Peel and chop the onion finely. Add to the oil and sauté till the onion is translucent. It’s important you keep the heat low during this process so you don’t overcook the onion. They shouldn’t go brown. While the onion is cooking, chop the bell pepper into finely cut pieces about an eighth of an inch cubed. Don’t worry much about the measurement though. It should be just small enough so you don’t get a huge chunk on your spoon. Add the pepper to the onion and sauté just until the onion is see-through. Add the ground meat and brown. While browning the meat, season it with some garlic salt. Once the meat is brown, add in the chili powder. Ready-made chili powder is pretty much useless unless you use a ton, which I’m not suggesting, but you’ll need to put enough in to give it a chili taste so add a little at this point but hold off on adding more until we add the tomatoes so you’ll know what tastes good to you.
Next add your beans. Now a word about the beans; I choose dark red because of their nutrition value as well as the value to your pocketbook, but there are other beans that taste better in the chili. Navy beans or chili beans may taste better to you, so experiment with it since there are no hard and fast rules on this mock-chili.
Now add your tomatoes, you can used crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes or both, if you choose to use both, get the smaller cans of both or perhaps use the large can of crushed with a smaller can of diced.
Finally, at this point you want taste the chili and determine if you want to add more chili powder. At this point the chili’s ready to serve. Enjoy.